Deep longing

Dawna Markova's book I will not die an unlived life really touched me in so many ways. She made me think. Made me see. I always know that I am not the only one feeling a certain way. I am not the only one going through certain things. But I am the only me doing so. Each person's experience of things is unique--even though shared by millions. I can only feel and see my own life. I may be able to see that another is in the "same place" but I can't feel what she feels, or even see what she sees.

Occasionally there will be a writer who has the ability to put down on paper what she sees and feels strongly enough that it resonates with many. I felt that way about Markova.

. . . For if we have been caught up in a really compelling story, the loss of an old identity will bring us into the trough of the wave, where all we can hear are rumblings of our sacred hungers--the need to be loved, to have someone be present with us, to be acknowledged as making a difference, to know, to feel peace and satisfaction.

THAT is what I have felt this year. For I was caught up in a really compelling story--the illness, hospitalization, and death of my mother. And my loss of identity when that ended. Not only the end of that particular short story but the ending of my life as someone's child. Odd things will come to mind. Because my parents and older brother are all dead, there is no one who remembers with me many things. What I have longed for, hungered for, was to be loved, to have someone present with me, to know I made a difference.