How do you mourn when they're not dead?

After going No Contact, One Angry Daughter said, "I had to mourn the idea of family and come to terms that my FOO would never fit that ideal."

This is so true. I found that it is no less than mourning a death, except they are still walking around.

They are are a bit like zombies to us. We want No Contact, and we fear running into them at the shopping center or grocery store, because they will tear off chunks of our still living flesh and feed off of it, as they have done so many times before.

I had to come to terms that my Family of Origin would never "fit the ideal." Ever. It's been ten years since I went No Contact, and just when I think my hide has hardened, something -- sometimes the strangest thing -- will make me cry.

You know the movie Dan in Real Life, with Steve Carell? I loved that movie on the surface of it: it was beautifully filmed, it had pitch-perfect casting, and we were supposed to weep when we saw him sleeping single in a double bed because his wife had died, leaving him with three growing daughters.

I never shed a tear over that. And I recognized the standard romantic comedy of falling for your brother's girlfriend. I walked out of the theater having enjoyed it, but I was stiff with grief over something unnamed. I didn't cry until much later, when I was all alone.

I was grieving over the three-generation hierarchy I saw in one lovely old house. The grandparents were wise, loving and funny. They weren't stupid, as so many old people are portrayed in movies. The middle-agers were struggling with marriage, loss, jobs and careers. Also realistic. The kids were just happy to be there, as children should be: care-free. Everyone was different, but they all got along. They were all happy to share what precious time there was.

I watched that knowing that I will never experience it. It will never be mine. Something that I covet will be out of my fingertips' reach, through no fault of my own. But rather merely...circumstance.

I was unlucky enough to be born amid a den of freaks.

My grandparents were dead before, or shortly after, I was born. So that generation is lost.

My parents are freaks, so that generation is "lost."

My four siblings are awful, so that generation is not an option.

Do you see where I'm heading? I could never be the child in the three-generation family: it's gone forever.

I can't be the middle-agers, because although my children are delightful, my parents and siblings are horrible. This scenario is slipping away with the passing of time.

Ah. There is a slender hope: I can be the grandparent, along with my delightful husband. If we play our cards right, and assuming (and they are free to do as they wish) my children want children themselves, we can maybe -- just maybe -- be the loving, wise, and funny grandparents in Dan in Real Life.

I treat my children with respect (and much love), so that they will want to come visit me at my house after they are independent and on their own. I treat my husband with respect (and much love) so that we may remain vibrant in our old age.

And maybe -- just maybe -- I can have the three loving, caring generations under one roof that I so covet, and cried over.