Fear, Loss, Losing

[a ramble on what I saw today and the thoughts that followed]

Tuesday night filled with mindless TV (ew) and more take out (even ew-er). But something actually caught my attention. We (Sarah and I) were watching the WeTv series, Secret Lives of Women (which I could potentially be completely addicted to) and the topic was the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ (FLDS). Obviously, most people now know about this group because it was all over the news in April when the kids in Texas were taken by Texan authorities. Anyway... back to my point.

In this episode they told several stories about women who had escaped from the FLDS with (or without) their children and loved ones. The part that really caught my interest was when one woman was talking about her oldest daughter returning to the group and also the diagnosis of her young son with a form of cancer. I don't recall the exact quote, but more or less she was talking about how her son's cancer was something that she could "control" by going to the doctor, and doing treatments, but she couldn't help her daughter, and her daughter returning to the FLDS was even more frightening because of that.

That literally made me stop dead. The idea that someone would consider something else in this world more frightening than cancer was before then unfathomable to me. It made me realize how truly terrified she had to be of that group of people.

I started thinking...

...does everyone have that one huge thing in their life, that dominating factor that they can't control, that is literally twisting their lives around?

In my family's case it was cancer (and I'm sure we share that with many families across the world...ugh), in this woman's case it was this group - the FLDS - that had torn her family apart, to someone else it might a force of nature (Hurricane Katrina for example, or the tidal waves in Indonesia), or to a victim of abuse it could be their abuser. And the thing about this is that no one else can understand the fear that people have for these subjects. No one. Even if someone shares the same fear, it's still different. Losing a mother to cancer is different than losing a mother to alcoholism, or drugs, or a car crash. Losing a sibling in a war is different than losing a sibling to a heart attack. Losing your best friend to some strange, unidentified heart disease, vs a drug overdose, vs a drunk driving accident, vs a plane crash. Maybe different emotions - but still a loss. Losing your home to a force of nature along with thousands of your countrymen and women can't be compared to losing a house to a fire. It's all different, all the same, people understand and people have no idea. It is loss. Loss. Losing. Lost.

Maybe this goes back to what my therapist at Clemson told me in that first session: everyone has a greater experience. No one can relate to what has happened to you, even if it seems every factor is the same...it's never ever the same. If I met another 20 year old girl whose mother died during her fall semester of her sophomore year, it still wouldn't be the same, because we are still two different people.

I officially don't know what my goal was in writing this. I think I'm still trying to grasp my own fear of the things that have happened, and seeing that random lady on TV today actually helped me understand that someone else's "Greater Experience" is complete different than mine, but just as real, and just as painful... And in that sense it kind of makes me feel better. Maybe not better, maybe better is just a simple way to unify all of the ways it makes me feel: It makes me feel relieved, subdued, obscure, and coexistent...etc. etc. etc.


(L-R, Sarah, Bobby, Aunt Jeanie [holding Ben], Uncle Rocky, Me, Jennifer [pre Baby Maggie], Tom, Emily, Grandpa, David, Grandma, Jessica [pre Baby Riley], Mama, Anna)
I think this is the last photo of our entire family together. July 2007.
(Minus Daddy, and cousin Matt, because he is always somewhere else when a family photo is being taken)

*Regards to cousin Amber, I think stole this off your MySpace :)