Dear GreenEyes

Thanks for the powerful update. Please  continue to be very gentle with yourself and know that healing will slowly embrace your heart and soul  Trust HP 

I too have many of those wonderful memories of a precious family that I hold close to my heart and am grateful for.

just sharing my own personal experience Only .. during the time since I split with my xap of 12 years, his mother passed away .. Many difficult situations, much blame and targeting coming his end of the family .. took me a long to recognise they like me were merely reacting to his behavior .. choosing to see only one piece of reality many times and feeling the effects of distorted thinking, etc .. she stopped calling her granddaughter (his and my daughter) directly after we split .. she would only call through him, but when she passed away, he didn't have to call me .. I too am a member of alanon (several years, love my hp whom i choose to call God but grately respect all others perceptions and preference) one day i was sitting in my back room having my morning coffee when it would seem the presence of this woman was all around me .. not the spiritual whoohoohoo but literally as if she'd sat down at my table to join me for coffee the way she'd had done many times before .. it was after that moment I received the phonecall she had passed .. (the call wasn't even to me, it was to our daughter). I was hurt I wasn't acknowledged but I know the disease is rampant on that side of the family dynamics, etc .. of course it was rampant in my own for many years .. what came to me that morning, however, when it felt like she was by me was, "did you die ? .. I began thinking of the 9th step and wondering about future amends .. I began thinking I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you more when you were alive.. it wasn't at all how I'd wanted things to be .. what I heard God saying to me in that moment was, "ya well you can still talk to her, only this time she can "hear you .. I realised then and there I would still be including her on my 9th step list and that it was the kind of hearing I hear in meetings .. the spiritual awarenesses and awakenings .. " God is good, the healing will come .. not in a night but one day at a time, little by little .. I'm so sorry for your losses .. when we lose someone it's hard to hear the infamous sayings of sympathy such as they're better off, etc. even if that's true, there's times were not ready to hear it but the experience I had stays with me .. there are so many stages of grief .. interestingly enough I discovered all the things i'd regretted later .. regret is another stage of the process .. i couldn't have done it better if i'd wanted to .. when i was in it, it was so emotionally toxic, i couldn't think straight myself .. now that i'm out of it, i see i was doing the best with what was in me, and around me, also in them and around them .. much serenity to you ..