What you're left with

I miss Dziadziu. It's been three years since he died and I still miss him. I miss what he represented for our family - stability. He was the pillar on which everyone depended. When he died our entire family just went to pieces.

Everyone needed him - Babcia, Uncle Joe, Mom, my sisters, my cousins. Everyone. As soon as he disappeared from the family dynamic things started coming out of the wood work that he kept in check. Without him to be gate keeper everyone got out of hand.

My reality is now that the family that I used to spend holidays with is gone. It's not coming back. In some ways I'm not that upset because I think the truth of who they are just came to light. Dziadziu's presence in our life kept everyone on their best behaviour. Everyone played nice because we didn't want to upset him and tension amongst his family always upset him.

So it wasn't that something came into existence when he died, it was just no one would dare act on those things while he was living. I'm sure he's sad at what his family has become in his absence. I'm sure he's disappointed in us all. I never thought my family life would become a bloody soap opera!

While I was doing Waiting in the Wings with ESP there was a scene in the play that took place at Christmas and it made me so sad to watch it. Christmas is the one day of the year I used to love more than any other. It was five days of pure joy and now it's lost it's lustre because there really isn't much happiness in it anymore. I feel like that died with Dziadziu. We haven't had a good Christmas since he died.

If my immediate family was normal and followed the traditional cycle of life like everyone else we could have rebounded from this because we would have grown a new family by now. But me and my sisters remain unmarried. All we have is each other and God knows that doesn't last forever. What will I do when my parents are gone and my sisters are married? Where will I go? Who is going to care?

Dziadziu created his family. Perhaps it wasn't perfect but we did have our happy moments. I have 27 years of happy Christmases in my memory. I'm afraid those are the last happy ones I'll know.

After all this time I still can't make myself be ok with uncertainty. I know that the key to life would be to be completely unruffled by the unknown events of the future. I wish I could trust blindly that everything would be ok and that no matter what happens someone is going to care where I am on Christmas. I wish I had that much faith.

How do I know that down the line that my sisters and I won't end up like my mother and her brother? I already feel enough adrift in the world and it's been hard enough seeing what each member of my family has been reduced to because of Dziadziu's absence.

I don't know what the answer is. I just know that my attempts to move on have been for naught. I am alone here and I can't fix that despite how hard I have tried.