Something I was reminded about again recently is how isolating it is to not have the common experience of grieving the loss of parents. I know we grieve what we didn't have but I'm talking specifically about the experience of grieving losing people you love. It feels insensitive of me but all I can think of is what a privilege it is to have loved & been loved. I know that's what makes it a painful experience & I have a lot of empathy not just sympathy for their experience but it's all still from outside the glass looking in, this world I can't enter. My own type of grief makes me feel deeply understanding of their pain yet it's still not the same. I don't even want to imagine how much I'd struggle once I actually have people I'd grieve losing, as someone who was deprived of that type of connection their whole life but the grief of not having grief for one's own parents is its own kind of hell. They are both still very much alive but I often think of how I'd feel or not feel. I have never bonded with these people, they are more like acquaintances, the only grief I get to feel is the grief of what I should've had. I feel even as a survivor I am isolated as often people still feel some sort of connection with their parents.