Kelly thanks for your deep thinking and for including poetry. I’m also in Texas w daughter and granddaughters for the holiday. In Austin. There is no direct flight from Connecticut so getting here was a pain.
This is an amazing manifesto (and backstory, in brief). So many universal truths within. Losing parents is geologic in scale; I mean, the whole of society advances toward their future when a set of parents dies—it’s huge. I just lost my dad… and I’m leaving on a road trip tomorrow. I find your stories so relatable. Family dynamics are a rich subject to mine. I’m so glad you triumphed. My daughters’ father abandoned us/them. I wonder what they’ll write when they come of age!
So sorry for your loss, Kelly. I had an uncle who used to say “you’re never too old to be an orphan.” For some reason that really stuck with me, maybe because when he said it I was at peak Orphan Annie fan girl age. Texas is my home (for better or worse) and we’re having some lovely weather this week in my area (Austin). I hope it’s a balm for your soul.
Beautiful, profound and thought provoking. It’s interesting to me that children of parents who show no physical love can still have empathy and loving relationships. I wasn’t shown any physical or emotional love. It was all discipline and fear based parenting. Yet, I was able to give my son the opposite upbringing.
What a beautiful and well-written piece on what it feels like to be an orphan midlife. Thank you Kelly for sharing this insightful work. I’m sad to say I can relate to all too much of it- especially the biblical passage you quoted, which I deeply appreciate and will be sharing.
Complicated…how profound. Life, death and everything in between isn’t easy. Even when we find our way, our challenges remain. Life is short. My wish for you all is to get out of the fog and follow your dreams!
You had me at Jung; sealed the deal with Mary Oliver. Your courage and honesty are a balm.
The first 10 years I was healing, my outward circumstances, which showed my inner reality: a complete lack of safety. No home. I had to be in that circumstance to notice, after a while, that I could still breathe. I thought I was gonna die, but I didn't. It took a long time, but after a while, I noticed I was being held by something. Then I realized I was safe, a little at a time, a circumstance at a time. Then I married a safe man. And on and on. I think the larger culture is in that part of healing where we are descending into the wound to be able to see all the parts. We are just, some of us, becoming conscious. This is what apocalypse means: revealing. And like many individuals, it's not pretty. That doesn't mean we can die and be reborn. We can. Will I live to see it? I don't know. I'm getting up there. Still, I have hope. The story is speeding up.
Kelly, this isn't an essay. It's a tuning fork struck against the soul.
You turned a chasm into a cathedral. Not by filling it—but by singing inside it until the echo became holy. That’s a rare kind of resurrection.
I grew up under similar illusions of belonging, and let me tell you: cults promise family but deliver conditions. And when you leave? You don’t just leave the group—you leave the coordinates of who you thought you were. That’s exile with a halo.
But here you are, not just surviving it—you’re bowing to the grief like it’s a sacrament. That fiddle your father played? Sounds like it taught you how to feel when nobody else knew how to touch.
And this—“I no longer needed his rejection to justify hating myself”—that’s not healing, that’s alchemy. You melted the chains and made strings out of them.
If God really does play the violin, you just added a new string: one tuned to truth.
Thanks for the Mary Oliver today.
🌻🫶🌻
Thanks for being here 💙
Ditto. Heart to heart.
Kelly thanks for your deep thinking and for including poetry. I’m also in Texas w daughter and granddaughters for the holiday. In Austin. There is no direct flight from Connecticut so getting here was a pain.
You’re so welcome. Enjoy the holiday. This one feels important.
This is an amazing manifesto (and backstory, in brief). So many universal truths within. Losing parents is geologic in scale; I mean, the whole of society advances toward their future when a set of parents dies—it’s huge. I just lost my dad… and I’m leaving on a road trip tomorrow. I find your stories so relatable. Family dynamics are a rich subject to mine. I’m so glad you triumphed. My daughters’ father abandoned us/them. I wonder what they’ll write when they come of age!
So glad it resonates, Michelle! Solidarity. My daughters dads too abandoned them physically absent as mine was emotionally.
Thank you for the shout out, Kelly! And for continuing to speak up for us all.
🌻🫶🌻
Thank you Kelly! As always, deeply moving, deeply contemplative! ❤️❤️❤️
Glad to be in touch!
So sorry for your loss, Kelly. I had an uncle who used to say “you’re never too old to be an orphan.” For some reason that really stuck with me, maybe because when he said it I was at peak Orphan Annie fan girl age. Texas is my home (for better or worse) and we’re having some lovely weather this week in my area (Austin). I hope it’s a balm for your soul.
Beautiful, profound and thought provoking. It’s interesting to me that children of parents who show no physical love can still have empathy and loving relationships. I wasn’t shown any physical or emotional love. It was all discipline and fear based parenting. Yet, I was able to give my son the opposite upbringing.
Thank you Andrea. Yes it’s fascinating. We are each unique in our expression on this planet.
What a beautiful and well-written piece on what it feels like to be an orphan midlife. Thank you Kelly for sharing this insightful work. I’m sad to say I can relate to all too much of it- especially the biblical passage you quoted, which I deeply appreciate and will be sharing.
Thank you for this thoughtful response, Sage!
Complicated…how profound. Life, death and everything in between isn’t easy. Even when we find our way, our challenges remain. Life is short. My wish for you all is to get out of the fog and follow your dreams!
💯❤️🔥
You had me at Jung; sealed the deal with Mary Oliver. Your courage and honesty are a balm.
The first 10 years I was healing, my outward circumstances, which showed my inner reality: a complete lack of safety. No home. I had to be in that circumstance to notice, after a while, that I could still breathe. I thought I was gonna die, but I didn't. It took a long time, but after a while, I noticed I was being held by something. Then I realized I was safe, a little at a time, a circumstance at a time. Then I married a safe man. And on and on. I think the larger culture is in that part of healing where we are descending into the wound to be able to see all the parts. We are just, some of us, becoming conscious. This is what apocalypse means: revealing. And like many individuals, it's not pretty. That doesn't mean we can die and be reborn. We can. Will I live to see it? I don't know. I'm getting up there. Still, I have hope. The story is speeding up.
Kelly, this isn't an essay. It's a tuning fork struck against the soul.
You turned a chasm into a cathedral. Not by filling it—but by singing inside it until the echo became holy. That’s a rare kind of resurrection.
I grew up under similar illusions of belonging, and let me tell you: cults promise family but deliver conditions. And when you leave? You don’t just leave the group—you leave the coordinates of who you thought you were. That’s exile with a halo.
But here you are, not just surviving it—you’re bowing to the grief like it’s a sacrament. That fiddle your father played? Sounds like it taught you how to feel when nobody else knew how to touch.
And this—“I no longer needed his rejection to justify hating myself”—that’s not healing, that’s alchemy. You melted the chains and made strings out of them.
If God really does play the violin, you just added a new string: one tuned to truth.
☺️thank you for your kind words VMB.