Acceptance and Moving Forward

[The People]

I remember when my parents d*ed over 10 years apart. As we worked throough the issues we recognized that by and large we mourned exactly what you have said. Their illness (well more illness) ad subsequent death meant that we would never have the parenting that we viewed in other parent child relationships

We did 2 things that helped. We looked at the gifts that we got from them. For example we are grateful that we inherited our mother's intelligence and our father's extroversion. As my mother was an anxious introvert and my father was not very bright I gasp when I think about the me that would have been had things been the reverse. My mother loved to read and allowed me to live in books. That was a gift in itself as it was my greatest escape. Some of the child alters are somewhat fashioned after story books we read in the early years.

They did give us gifts. Their best was not nearly good enough but imagine how it would be without those gifts.