Thank you New Leaf. I especially noticed that you tell your husband when you are displeased with his crankiness. Because afterwards with M, I sometimes feel what is the point to protest. In the moment, it gets worse.
I must choose my protesting carefully, Copa, otherwise it is wasted, and I must use the least words possible. I suppose that is why I am so wordy here. I have words all stored up from minding my tongue with the hubs. You are right, there is no point to go on and on if it is falling on deaf ears.
That is the beauty of it, to choose our battles.
Don't tangle with an ornery bear, wait till his belly is full, and he doesn't have the stuff in him to fight back.
But the next day? It was worlds better. He was sweet, tender and supportive. Not critical or mean at all.
I am glad M was better the next day. Menfolk are different creatures, once we figure that out, we realize we cannot behave as if they are our dear sisters. Still, I am caught off guard at times.
He is very strong and he faces problems head on while I try to hide. This often feels mean to me, when he puts my feet to the fire and forces me to confront a situation. I see no good reason to face a problem head on when you can continue to hide.
He sounds like my hubs, tackle the problem, charge!!!! I am a thinker, a dawdler, a ponderer. In between the potential arguments over situations, I have got to admit we strangely compliment one another.
Peanut butter and jelly.
Or when he makes known his displeasure when stuff mounts up do to my inattention and indifference.
He would not do so, but for loving you. That is his way of saying-
"It is not right with you and I know it. I am worried. So get going and tidy the house up, we will both feel better. "
Men do not go all mushy and have sisterly conversations with us. That is movie rubbish.
If we could talk as deeply with our mates as we did with our women friends, nothing would ever get done.
I guess that is why my sadness has continued so long.
Yes Copa, sad- too, long. You have been sad and stuck- too, long. That is okay, as long as you are okay with it.
But, I see from your writing that you are not okay with it.
You are missing your mother. She has been right there all along with you, in everything you do. You have saved the best parts of her in your heart, Copa, and in your charm with the clerks at the store the other day. You are missing her, but she has been smiling at you all the while, as you look in the mirror.
After my Father passed, on one of my visits, I went to his bureau and amongst his old framed pictures, in his little tray, I found an old tattered, yellowed paper with his writing. It was a verse from one of his favorite poems "Hallowed Ground" by Thomas Campbell, a Scotch poet from the late 1700's.
Enotes has this explanation...
The poem "Hallowed Ground" begins with a demand to know the meaning of the phrase. Did God set apart some section of the earth not to be sullied by the foot of man, made in the image of God? Does the expression refer to the grave where "lips repose our love has kissed?" No, because that soul still lives on, a part of oneself. Everything except true love fades, and that will not cool "until the heart itself be cold in Lethe's pool." Campbell then answers his question in stanzas five and six, and in a stirring final stanza.
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'T is not the scuptured piles you heap!
In dews that heavens far distant weep
Their turf may bloom;
Or Genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind–
And is he dead whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?–
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
. . .
What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!–
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round,
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
My Dad's favorite verse from this excerpt was "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."
My Mother was very mad that I went to live in Rio. I did it anyway.
Your Mother gave you life, and wings to fly, and fly you did. Even though she protested. In the old days, that was love, to be mad at someone for moving far away.
I could not develop as a person living near her. For many years I would not speak to her or see her at all.
Two Queens in the castle. I think that is what they call it. Don't we all as our younger selves feel stifled with our parents?
Isn't that the fire that burns in us to get away, to live our own lives?
I never really trusted my mother to hold me in a safe place. If given a chance my mother would have eaten me alive, like she did in the months before she got very, very sick. Given a chance, my mother would have consumed me.
So brave Copa, to go against your mothers wishes, but you had to save yourself. Yet, you still came back and took care of your mother. That is the greatest kind of love, there were no conditions, there were no reassurances that you would receive love back, but you went anyway.
I took the best and made the best of an environment that was difficult and hostile and conflicted and dangerous and cruel...and impossible to understand.
Yes Copa, you have the best of your mother in you, you are the goodness she had.
When she was at the point of dying and after she died I was heartbroken because I realized how deeply I had loved her. When it was too late.
Copa, you went back and you stayed by your mothers side. That is deep love, you fought for what was right with your sister, that is deep love.
It was not too late Copa.
The best of your mother continues to live on in your heart, in your fond memories of her.
It is an entirely new passage for us when we lose a parent. A new road to travel.
You and I must forgive ourselves Copa. You must forgive yourself for doing what you needed to do to survive and thrive away from being consumed by your mother. You went back Copa and tenderly cared for her.
I must forgive myself for not going back those weeks as my father lay dying.
It would have killed me. To see him like that. To go one last time and not be able to speak with him.
I know that now, as I write to you.
I did go back, for six long years, I went back and sat by my fathers side, even as he could not give to me what I so longed for. I went in the winter and shoveled the walkway, split wood for the fireplace, sat with him as he read.
And now, you and I both have the best part of our parents with us. We have sifted through everything, to see the good we received from them. It is this, in our hearts, that keeps them alive, with us. I have my fathers love of reading, and deep thought, philosophy. You have an eloquence in your writing, a gift that transposes across cyber space, a charisma and grace that you describe your mother possessing.
We cherish the good parts, and that is all we could ever ask for or want, when it is our time to go, that our children would remember and cherish the good in us.