I changed the names in my essay to protect the privacy of the individuals of whom I write.
Her book, Necessary Losses, has never left me. I read it in 1986, the year of its publication. There it has remained, somewhere in my mind, for forty years.
Judith Viorst, a humorist, poet, children's author, and novelist, undertook six years of psychoanalytic training in her fifth decade. The result was a book about the unfolding of human life, from birth to death, and the losses we encounter along the way. Insightfully, touchingly, and often humorously she writes of the many passages of our lives. The book became a best seller and is considered a classic.
She writes:
"I've learned that in our life we leave and are left and let go of much that we love. Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of growth and gain. Making our way from birth to death, we also have to make our way through the pain of giving up and giving up and giving up some portion of what we cherish.
We have to deal with our necessary losses."
In a chapter titled "Love and Mourning", Viorst writes:
"We are separate people constrained by the forbidden and the impossible, fashioning our highly imperfect connections. We live by losing and leaving and letting go. And sooner or later, with more or less pain, we must come to know that loss is indeed a lifelong condition."
But what if the loss comes sooner rather than later? What if the one most established and dependable relationship we have is lost much sooner than we could imagine?
Written as part of Kathryn's obituary were the words, "She made everyone feel special, and we will all miss her dearly." Notes to the family included, "What a beautiful person inside and out." And "Kathryn was as sweet and kind and caring as a person that one would ever meet."
Kathryn made everyone feel special, including me.
Elizabeth was Kathryn's daughter and only child.
In 2007 I wrote of Elizabeth:
"Elizabeth describes for the undersigned a history extending at least over the last year and a half. In the summer of 2006, she experienced significant problems with depression with a remarkable upsurge in sadness as well as social withdrawal and tearfulness."
It took a year, but Elizabeth responded very well to an antidepressant prescribed by her pediatrician.
"However, she acknowledges two episodes in which she 'flipped out' ...in these episodes Elizabeth became remarkably agitated, irritable, and angry."
Within several months, medications prescribed by me for Elizabeth's irritability and impulsivity proved effective. Eliazabeth's relationships with her parents were loving, her college years were successful, and her friendships were close.
At my request, Elizabeth wrote of her mother and the twelve years of her life since her mother's passing.
"The teenage years were rough. I was your typical teenage girl who thought she was tool cool and had no idea how lucky she was to live a life so stress free of worries. Then came college, and that was when my mom and I became best friends. I joined the same sorority she had been president of, and we got to share that bond with one another. When I came home on school breaks, we would go shopping and to the movies together."
"During my junior year, when I was just 20, she went in for a colonoscopy. I thought the results seemed to be taking a while. It was Christmas break, and one day we went to the Gaylord Ice! exhibit. My mom seemed unusually quiet. The next day she told me she had colon cancer. My heart felt like it fell out of my chest. I couldn't breathe."
"The next five months were a nightmare, and on May 21, 2014, my mom passed away."
"Suddenly, my dad and I were all one another had. We were both lost our very best friend, and we were lost."
Elizabeth grew into the women her mother had hoped she would become. She earned a master's degree in business, married "a great guy", and grew close to her father. She became a mother herself, giving birth to a son who she describes with motherly affection: "He is hilarious, smart, determined, and full of life."
Elizabeth continues:
"A year ago, we decided it was time to give Wyatt a sibling. We found out we were having another boy. Yay - brothers!
Then we learned that this little boy would have Down Syndrome and would need heart surgery.
His name is Henry Kennedy Adams. Kennedy was my mom's maiden name.
Henry is what I aspire to be: someone who loves unconditionally and still smiles when life is hard. He is strong and sweet, and I am immensely proud to be his mother.
Becoming a mother myself has made me understand my mom in an entirely new way."
Elizabeth reflects:
"And now that I am a mother myself, I understand the greatest thing she ever taught me: the love of a mother gives her child doesn't disappear when she does.
It keeps going.
I see it every day in the way I love mine."
Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your life with me over the last two decades. You have grown and lost and grown and lost and are growing even more.
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