Tuesday, 5/4/21
Howdy! How are you today? What was your best moment since the last time we met?
Originally I was going to continue last weeks post since I kept revising it as the realizations kept coming, and there’s more I haven’t added yet. I’m pretty sure there was also one or two things that could use explanation because I always know where I’m coming from when I write, and there are times I forget whoever is reading it probably doesn’t. But something kept me from working on that. I was so gratefully excited about the revelations but after a couple of days began noticing there was some underlying depressive emotions surfacing. Tried to ignore them, believing it was that old comfortable dysfunctional pattern rearing its head, but then on Saturday finally became aware that Mother’s Day was at hand and realized there was some more old crud that needed to be acknowledged and worked through. Drat! Grateful (or trying to be) to work through more emotional stuff since it’ll be healing, but Lord, I do wish all this would somehow magically be healed, right NOW!!!
So how is your relationship with your mother? Is she a part of your life? And is that a good thing if she is? When I hear other people talk about how their mother is (was) loving and how good a relationship they have (had) with her, my first reaction is usually disbelief, like the other person must be in serious denial or lying. I am learning that there really are genuinely healthy relationships that are loving and a blessing for both mother and child. I try not to be jealous or envious :)!
I am blessed to have had several women in my adult life that I sort of adopted as my own mothers, whether they wanted another daughter or not!:). So grateful to these beautiful souls since I have a hard time coming to terms with the woman I was born to. (This relationship is detailed in the post “Mom, Pearl’s Years”, October 19, 2020.) She died almost three years ago and I have yet to really miss or mourn her. God and I are working on releasing the anger and pain associated wth her so I can be freed to love others better. (Definitely need God in this, and all of the process. Could never do it without Him, that’s for sure!)
In an effort to facilitate the healing process, on the Sunday before Mother’s Day I went to the cemetery my parents and a sister are interred at to clean up the area around their headstones and to prepare for planting more flowers. It’s a job that fell to me after the sister died. It’s funny (in a sad and pathetic sort of way:)) because for the first couple years I had a high and mighty attitude of “Well, look at this! I’m the ONLY sibling that’s out of denial and admits the parents and family are dysfunctional. Everyone else thinks the parents are perfect, and yet I’M the one who takes care of their graves”. And while I’m cleaning up their plots and paying for and planting the flowers I’m grumbling and griping but really, I don’t have to do anything. If someone else wouldn’t step up to do it then it could’ve been left undone. But I knew it was an opportunity to do some soul searching while weeding and digging in the dirt. Kind of like acting out a metaphor for pulling the weeds of discontent and anger while digging up repressed feelings as I work, and usually bitching at the deceased while crying and thinking that for the first time in my life I’m finally having my say at them. I also sincerely try to figure out how to forgive them, how to get to the root of the anger and bitterness so I could finally rip it out and be free to allow forgiveness and love to take their place and burrow ever deeper.
The first time after I worked on the grave sites and gave my dead father and sister an earful (mom was still living), when I got in the car to leave the very first note of the song “All Apologies” by Nirvana was playing on the radio. A quiver went through my heart and I truly wanted to believe it was a supernatural response from father and sister. I remembered that experience for a long time, trying to accept it as a genuine apology and use it for the starting point for the forgiveness process. I even told a couple of people about the experience. Then I forgot about it until the next year when the exact same thing happened, I cried and angrily spoke my truth while tending to the graves, then when I got in the car ‘All Apologies’ began, which reminded me about what happened the previous year. I decided it was more than coincidence, it was a ‘God-incident’, and tried to let the apology in more so.
Last year, as I pulled away from the cemetery a song I’d never heard before came on and I felt compelled to listen to the lyrics. It was by the Avett Brothers and it’s about a man who has great difficulty saying those three words to a close relative, like a child or parent. The song title is, “I and Love and You”.
I cried. I do believe it’s possible that once ‘they’ died they were able to see the ramifications of what they did, and I do believe it’s possible they were trying to communicate regret. But I still couldn’t forgive on the deeper levels.
So, on Sunday I went to the cemetery to clean up their areas and to try to figure out how to forgive completely and be free of them. I was angry, crying, etc., and asking God to help me find a perspective that would set me free.
He gave me three.
The first was, Jesus died for ALL of us, and that includes family and everyone else that was involved. I’ll never know if ‘they’ owned up to what they did with God. I am a firm believer that ANYONE can be forgiven and reconciled to God if we choose, no matter what we’ve done, and I can’t keep making family and the others the exceptions.
And that led me to the second perspective. I’ve been able to acknowledge that I’ve come thisclose to being just like ‘them’. In fact, I kind of was for a few years, as mentioned in previous posts (especially “All Apologies part 1” dated 12/20/20). I lived in denial, I didn’t help others when they needed someone the most, and I was angry, negative, sarcastic, and horribly judgmental, just to name several of my less ‘endearing’ qualities.
I’ve since confessed to God about that era numerous times (even though it only takes once), and know I’m completely forgiven by Him. I’ve apologized to some of the people I hurt when I could, and pray for them, and am working on forgiving myself. If I’m deserving of forgiveness, then doesn’t that mean ‘they’ are, too?
The third aspect is, I say they’ve never apologized to me, but maybe they tried in nonverbal ways that I was too shut down and/or judgmental to notice.
The truth of the matter is, it’s my responsibility to forgive them whether they’ve made amends or not. I’m wrestling with this as I’m defensively rehashing all the hell I’ve been through and put others through without conscious ill intention, and all I’ve done to heal – the time, effort, finances, etc. I know the only way I can let these old bitter thoughts go in order to find peace is with God and so I find myself praying: “Dear Lord, I choose to forgive, but You have to heal the unforgivingness so I am free to live and love others like we all deserve. AMEN!”
I’ve also learned through listening to various speakers that a way to truly release resentment towards those who harm us is to pray for them, so I’ve been doing that. As God knows, my heart isn’t always in the words, but as I’m persistently praying for ‘them’ there’s an increasing sincerity and desire to just let the anger go. There’s also a rising faith that God’ll prop me up as the strength of the angry energy drains out and the power of love is finally allowed to manifest in it’s place.
Mother’s Day is also bringing up something I previously had no idea was this painful. I’m mourning never having had children, never having been a mom. For so many years I was o.k. with that, knowing what a mess a child would’ve been born into. Now I’m grieving about never having had that experience in a healthy way, with a man who could love me and our child the way we deserve, never having a baby conceived and growing within me, the birthing process and learning what that kind of love is like.
Going through this process is a good thing, it’s the only way to heal. I’ve been so bitchy, tired and weepy these last couple of days while working through all this. I’ve been keeping people away when all I really want is someone to hear what I’m not saying, to understand, and to reach through the crumbling walls of defense and be here. I know God is near, but this is one of those times when I wish there was someone who’s not so permeable too, you know?
And God? That’s a prayer, in case You didn’t notice.
Thank you to S., my English ‘Mum’. I love you and I’m sorry I haven’t been a better ‘almost daughter’ lately.
Today’s song has to be “I and Love and You” by the Avett Brothers (provided I can upload it!).
