So, I know I said I'm looking for the positive, but sometimes it's impossible to avoid cliché and to find the truth of something. Who cares anyway?
As Debi says in the movie "Grosse Point Blank" , " people are coming back to take stock of their lives, I say leave the livestock alone ". The more you dig around the more likely
you are to end up creating something for the "tragic life story" section in WH Smith. I kid you not.
Who'd have thought there were so many a) tragic life stories out there and b) people want to spend good money to buy them.
Not me, can't stand a "kitchen sink drama" . Much too close to home. Or it was. When do you stop hanging on to all that though? 
Its curious, you always thought you were alone before but when both parents have now died you    discover that you weren't at all. Whatever went before gave you a connection and a shared history. You may have dragged yourself out of it by yourself but you can't shed the DNA. Then, they're gone and that finally makes you a "grown up". No more trying to please them, make them proud of you, forgive you for being born. It's never going to happen now and the truth is, it never was.
I should feel a sense of freedom and relief but I don't. I feel a space inside that I was always hoping would be filled. A sense of something missing.