How many times have I said this to a friend or family member? Did I truly miss the person or was it a platitude? It can feel endearing to say this to someone I don’t keep in touch with regularly but is it truthful? I’d like to think I am being honest when I tell somebody I miss them. If it were true, however, why haven’t I reached out more? There are many excuses for not keeping in touch. A face comes into my mind’s eye or a fond memory pops into my head. Whatever emotion is tied to that second is real. I DO miss that person.
The problem is what happens directly following the memory or image in my head: what do I do next? Do I pick up the phone? Do I send a text? Do I message them on social media, or write a letter or card? This is the part that trips me up. I don’t always call or text or write a letter/card.
I can genuinely say to someone that they have been on my mind. They genuinely HAVE been on my mind. But did they reach out to me first? Does that reduce how I feel about the person? Not necessarily. I have a friend of over 30 years with whom I have remained in touch. Sometimes I call her, sometimes she calls me. We usually have a few moments of “who called who last”, or “you were on my mind and you beat me to the phone”, etc. The beauty of this relationship is that it doesn’t matter who initiates the connection: the connection is made and we are happy to be speaking with one another.
There are other people I have known for years that I rarely speak to at all. These treasured friendships don’t rely on frequent communication: whenever we are able to have a phone call, we have one. Otherwise, we rely on social media or a text of a photo or an emoji to let each other we’re connected. These are people with whom, when we do get to speak or see each other, no apparent time lost between us. We pick up right where we left off. Do I want to tend to those relationships more carefully? Yes. Am I grateful there will be no hard feelings when the gap of time apart grows wide? YES!
‘I miss you’ is a heartfelt sentiment. What do we miss about a person? For me, it is fun times from long ago, seeing a funny picture and knowing they’d like it. I can see a sunset and feel them beside me, enjoying the glow. A certain song comes to my mind and I know, were they here with me, they would be belting out that tune note for note, together with me, then we’d laugh about the times when we did that over the years.
I feel this way about people I love who have died. I have picked up the phone to call or text and catch myself in that second–they aren’t on the other end of the phone. I recall questions I should have asked my mom while she was alive, and now I can never get the answer. My heart still aches at times as I recall certain people who have died before me. Will the ache ever go away? Sometimes it doesn’t seem that it will. I will see that person’s face in my mind and my heart will catch: pain, grief, sadness. Sometimes I have to physically shake off these feelings to get myself into the present moment. I watched a movie the other day and the actor who played the main character had similar mannerisms to my dad. Some of the scenes were tough to watch because I mentally pictured my dad on the screen. What does that mean? I have asked myself but of course I cannot answer the question. Instead, I have a followup question: Does this mean I am still grieving my dad? Perhaps. Is he sending me a message through this actor’s performance? I don’t think so. What this is, rather, is an opportunity to recall my dad in a way I had not seen him while I was growing up. Of course not–it’s an actor’s portrayal of a fictional character, I tell myself. But something really cool happens: I can picture his lips moving as the actor’s lips move. I can watch his hands move over an object and I can think of my dad’s hands moving over it. These are opportunities to grieve and memorialize my dad in new ways. Then the moment is gone, packed away, not likely to return to my brain, which is a blessing. The next time I think of my my dad I will not see the actor but some real memory of my time with my dad. This will be a chance to memorialize him the way I remember him.
This seems to me to be a sort of connection with the people I have loved who have died. It will never be a physical connection again, but a mental, heartfelt connection of my heart to a loving memory. And sometimes that’s enough, when I Miss You creeps into my brain.