How much did you cry? And do you think they cried over you?

[Scent of Cedar *]

I fault myself. Had I been stronger, had I been willing to accept more hurt...able to grow more...been more tolerant...I could have had a full relationship with my Mother. But I do not see how I could have with my sister.

Taking responsibility is how we created a sense of control I think, Copa. It was how we made sense out of chaos and kept ourselves sane. If it was somehow our fault, we could try very much harder not to create those situations again.


That was the only protection the little girls we were had, Copa.

It was that way for me too until one day, through our work here, I got through that shame based core at the heart of me enough to get a glimmering that things were not as they seemed, with my lovely family of origin.

In fact, they were not very lovely, at all.

Especially, my sister seems very not lovely to me, now that I am refusing to see her as a little girl, as a child smaller than me who needs protection.

Like learning that my mother gave my sister my grandfather's pocket watch.

Oh, I wish you'd been given your grandfather's watch, Copa. A timepiece from another time, something come of the male line.

My mother's comment near the end that my sister always pressured her for stuff, was taking stuff, wanted stuff.

My sister does that, too. I think it has something to do with delegitimizing the other sibs. It has to do with power over. There is no generosity, but much self-justification, in much of what our sisters do.

"Oh, I guess she is your mother, too."

Just lately, I have been able to realize that my relationship to my mother has nothing to do with my sister. My mother's relationship to me is as she chooses it to be.

It is empowering to see this way.

Like it or not, my relationship to my mother has nothing to do with my sister.

Why is she so vile to me? Does she see me as the hurtful one? Is all of this retribution for things she sees me to have done to her?

We have seen the true nature of Serenity's sister through the juvenile nastiness of her posts threatening Serenity, here. Do you remember the questions Serenity asked during that time, Copa?

I ask those same questions.

So do you.

The answer is: Abusers abuse because they are abusers. They blame others (you, me, a husband, a child) to manipulate themselves into power over positions, taking the mother for themselves too, if they can do it, just as my sister has done.

Just as your sister did, for all those years until your mother needed protection.

And you came home.

And you protected.

And the sister is outraged that this is so.

We can see why my sister saw me as forcing my mother to have made a choice between us to care for her, at the end. Because that was what she was doing for 50 years, vying to win over me. Why? She had my mother to herself all of those years...why did I need to be subordinated, even in absentia?

As we heal Copa, we will be more able to see clearly. Right now, just that you are asking the questions in a different way now makes me very proud for you.

Why did you need to be subordinated is less the question I think than why your sister (and mine) hate their sisters and want to devour their mothers.

I want my sister to suffer for all that she has done. That is true. I want her to gain back all of her weight. I want her to be reviled in her highfalutin job. I want her to spend all of her money.

She has tricked and hurt and shamed you, Copa. My sister has done those things, too. Serenity posted to me this morning that anger is just a part of our healing. We will come out the other side as kind and filled with integrity as we have always been.

Have at it.

:O)

And the reality, is that I have gained weight. I am not working. I am spending money on useless things and losing it on stupid investments.

Well, at least you have us.

That was a joke.

I am the one who is trapped in the past. I seem to have said, again, after a lifetime. I accept being the loser. I accept second best. I yield to you the field. Everything you wanted and needed. Take it all. And I do not know why.

I was never a gracious loser, Copa. It isn't in me to cede the field. There was a period in my healing here when I began seeing everything through a filter of what I did not have, or of what was lost. I felt stupidly naive or duped; I conceded the field. But when that happened, I no longer had to protect my sister, right? She had won everything and I had nothing, not even my own mother.

So, I was pretty sad and felt useless and ridiculous and foolish.

But then, all at once, I realized my mother's relationship to me has nothing to do with my sister. I may not like my mother's way that she sees and treats me, but it has nothing to do with my sister.

Then, I began having the coolest ability to see my sister for who she is,for who she has always been, even when we were little girls. It's like she's been after me forever. Like I am the one she's been out to supercede. That's why the picture she sent. That's why the picture in the bathroom. That's why the plaque.

That's why she stalked and hurt my daughter.

So, that is what comes next for you I think, Copa.

It's amazingly freeing.

Those two changes in perspective are amazingly freeing.

I wonder whether I will always be angry. Serenity assures me this is not so. We will be fine, Copa. You are coming through it right now.

Who cares whether you are in bed.

Maybe, that is where you feel safe enough to do your best thinking.

It is very hard to revisit old trauma without retraumatizing ourselves.

We are right here, Copa. Serenity has been through these steps. I am coming through them. You are beginning.

Freedom, a kind of freedom unimaginable to you now, is just around the next bend.

It's going to be a hard thing.

It was for me, for the longest time.

I wanted to type a few lines ago. Let Mama just come back. I will give up my life. For Mama to come back. So I can have another chance.

I wish she could come back too, Copa.

I am so sorry she is gone.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Serenity, then how do I forgive myself and let go the fact that I did not live my life close to my mother? I did not see her or talk to her for many, many years.

Even when I was seeing her...if she erupted in anger at me...or hung up on me...I would cut her out for years...how do I forgive myself?

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

She would say, "don't they remember the lives they lived, their parents' lived when they came here? How can they not remember? How is it different? Who do they think they are now? Queen Elizabeth?"

Ha! I love her. She sounds like D H mom.

When we start, I feel M is imposing his will on me. So I fold. I go back to bed. Everything feels like he is imposing his will on me. Even when he is not.

Is this the feel of family of origin, Copa? Is that what you are rebelling against?

Even in defiantly returning to bed?

My mother had a great deal of wisdom about life.

Can you see my grief? What my loss was? That I turned away from her in life?

Yes.

I do, Copa.

M has said. No more buying until we get there.

Everything will change when you get there, Copa. You will change. Your tastes will change. Only buy enough for the first weeks.

Your tastes will change.

You don't want to have invested in clothing you will find unsuitable.

The colors you wear will change; everything about the styles you prefer will change. In this new place, you will start thinking about cute, about sexy.

That's what happened to me.

Two years ago, one of the ladies in my Book Club was certain I'd had plastic surgery. That is how different I look; that is how different I feel.

He isn't goi9ng to cut out his daughter because you are unhappy that I did some Facebook stuff to you, biotch.

Ha! Serenity!



Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Towards the end my Mother said, "you always told me how she was...(my sister) from the time she was a girl. I didn't believe you." And we each smiled at the other. That kind of smile of understanding, and sadness and regret and forgiveness and love. Not the funny kind of smile. I loved her so much.

I think she knew. Those months were heroic. Those last months. I regret nothing. I loved her so much.

I am thinking here about M. My thinks I am capable of great love. I think he feels I am like his Mother in this.

He has said it more than once. Once he said, had you had a mother like I had, and had not been so afraid, imagine what you would have done with it?

And a few weeks ago, I said to him? You know M, I have a lot of love to give.

And he answered, You don't even know how much.

So, I guess I am writing this here, in a way to soothe myself. My mother must have known who I am. I think she did. I think she took heart at the end that I had grown in confidence. She saw me whole and strong. No longer angry.

I think she forgave herself...where I am concerned...(not so for leaving my grandfather to die alone.)

Remember the story about my 4th grade teacher. It was after the divorce. And he called her to school to talk. For 55 years the story had always been the same.

His name was Mr. Wilson. She told her that I was so smart I could be anything in the world. Even president. She loved that story. And would repeat it often.

Until in the months before she died, the real story came out. He had told her...COPA does not have confidence in herself. She could be anything in the world, she is smart enough. But she lacks confidence. And my mother could not bear the guilt that it was her fault.

So at the end of the day with my mother and I it was a difficult child problem. She must have accused herself, blamed herself.

Well, at least you have us.

That was a joke.

No it is not a joke. Thank you. Right now, that I have you and M and my animals...and increasingly my son...it is everything. I just want to get out of bed, too. And go somewhere. Now I am looking into Dubuque Iowa. Maybe I only need to go to the Eastern Big City for a period of time, to get my Tango back and my needlework skills.

I read about Dubuque today. It is a working class, Democrat city on the river. It has hills and historic neighborhoods. I will look at a map. It might be half the distance from here.

I wish she could come back too, Copa.

I am so sorry she is gone.

Cedar

Do you think there is a chance she could back, Cedar? I am not kidding here. I need her back with me, now. Crying.

She loved Latin Music. Once we went to a concert when I was in High School. La la bamba. La la bamba. I forget the singer's name. We were almost the only gringos. Maybe that is where I got it from. And you know she was a phenomenal dancer. Loved to dance. Maybe that is how I can get her to come back. I love my Mama.

I just never knew how much.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Serenity, then how do I forgive myself and let go the fact that I did not live my life close to my mother? I did not see her or talk to her for many, many years.

Even when I was seeing her...if she erupted in anger at me...or hung up on me...I would cut her out for years...how do I forgive myself?

COPA

I know this was for Serenity, but Copa, you have to decide to do it. Read about forgiving ourselves. How have others done it? Hold that intention. Find pictures of the Christ.

Of the Mary.

There is a story that the Mary wears on the smallest finger of her left hand a simple gold ring. Asked why she wore it, the Mary replied that this ring was for those whose causes were hopeless. She wore the simple gold band to honor and remember and comfort them, in their pain, until their time of healing was come.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Is this the feel of family of origin, Copa? Is that what you are rebelling against?

Even in defiantly returning to bed?

Yes. Where I rule. I can decide to go back to bed. And stay. Nobody can get me up. Yes. My mother was a tyrant about housework. A pure dictator.

Everything will change when you get there, Copa. You will change. Your tastes will change. Only buy enough for the first weeks.

Your tastes will change.

Well, now you tell me, Cedar. We have 225 pairs of winter socks. 442 beanie type hats. We have 18 pairs of snow boots. We have 54 pair of winter tights, and leggings. 29 tunics and tops. Since I only just heard about Jeggings, I only have 2. 6 parkas. 27 sweaters. 3 ponchos. But I will stop now.

 

[Copabanana]

I have already divorced Dubuque. It looks too backwater. I am already in backwater.

Somehow we will solve the problem of the transportation and the houses and the animals.

M said, you have investments here. He means 2 houses. I do not care about that. I care about all of the stuff in the house. My mother's stuff. And mine. I do not want to move it or store it.

I will begin to study forgiveness. Thank you, Cedar.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Do you think there is a chance she could back, Cedar? I am not kidding here. I need her back with me, now. Crying.

Then she is here.

I have had one dream about my father since his death. I am certain it was my father, telling me things I needed to know. But it was in the language of dreams. I could not understand the things he was telling me until they then happened.

And it was exactly as he had shown me in the dream Copa, to the smallest detail.

In the dream, he gave me two hand painted porcelain salad spoons. The spoons match two that I already had. He took them out of a medium sized paper bag that was all he had with him as he left on a battered little pontoon boat only big enough to carry one person. And he said, "She will need these."

Not, "You will need these.", Copa.

"She will need these."

And he wasn't even talking to me. He just said what he said.

He didn't hug me, or approach me, or cry. I think he did not look into my eyes, in the dream. It is as though his attention was ~ I don't know how to explain it, Copa. As though my father had taken some intentional action, or was determinedly breaking a rule somehow, or was taking time away from some true purpose, to see that I received what was required.

As though it were his responsibility and his honor and his right to do so.

As though he had chosen to take this action out of time.

For the longest time, I thought he was telling me what my mother would need.

He was talking about me, Copa.

The dream is unfolding to this day.

Almost always, I can feel my father. But he feels like an essence of himself.

Maybe, that is the love he loved me with while he was alive that I feel. It comforts me, and I am not sad for him. Wherever it is that we go when we die, he went there. I don't feel him alive, but I feel him timeless in the sense of that energy he and I shared.

I also feel he is not there anymore in any real sense.

Time is a mystery.

It is not a linear thing, like it seems to be, to us. So that feeling of my father is a living,unchanging kind of energy feeling in all times at once. It is a separate thing from who he is really. It's like that saying: We are less human beings having a spiritual experience than spiritual beings, having a human one.

It's like that; it has that feel to it.

A mystery so simple and true.

In that sense, your mother is here with you.

My father feels very much like my father, but different. When I am angry with him about FOO matters, I am angry with him. And it does matter, and it makes no difference, at the same time.

So then, we go into the tapestry weaving and being woven. The colors for him are vibrantly alive, but they are separate from me now in some way I cannot describe exactly, either.

That is all I know, about these matters.

Cedar

Okay. So I think what it is is that your mother has gone on ~ that part of her that wasn't really your mother, but who watched your mother become a mother. But the energy created between the two of you, between your mother and yourself, that energy is still here because you are still here.

So now I am getting beyond myself again.

But it's something like that Copa. Something about how we understand time; something about everything, at the heart of it, being only energy.

That is what Einstein was saying in E=Mc squared.

Vibes.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

That makes sense to me Cedar. I think that is how Jewish people understand the role of the living after death. The only way to love and remember my mother is to live in such a way that she lives. To talk to her. To be with her.

Our attorney says I am wrong to mourn so long. He told me "it is not permitted. We do not allow it." One year. That's it.

Oh.

I started a new thread with writings on forgiveness and self-forgiveness. Already I am thinking a little bit differently. It will take different choices. Trying to be different.

What I resisted with my mother is her power over. I accepted whatever costs to myself...and her to escape that.

I need to think about what that means, now.

Thank you, Cedar.

Cedar, on the D H Mama thread, will you tell us some more about her. The part about her thinking about immigrants and the immigrant experience and the tendency and willingness of those who are assimilating to distance themselves from newcomers. It exists here, too, with Latinos. Many will pretend they do not understand or speak Spanish...in order to assert their superiority over M. People we know speak Spanish. Strange.

COPA

 

[BusynMember]

You were close to your mom. Those phonecalls were being close. I feel close to Bart and I barely see him, but we talk on the phone constantly. People live far apart these days, but there are ways to communicate that are not face-to-face. YOU WERE CLOSE!!!!!!