Shopping at Costco. Talking to Vergil about purchasing 55 pounds of dog food. Doesn't she look bloomy?
Are you kidding me? Look at that organization!
The lovely stove.
The freshly oiled butcher block counter tops.
The crib! When I made that quilt, I had no idea it would be going into the room with the turquoise walls. And the quilt on the mattress is the one I made for Jessie before she was born. I am not sure how much time Baby Boy Weatherford will be spending in that crib but it is ready. It is waiting. It is lovely.
The prayer flags made at Jessie's shower, strung by May.
The place where this child will mostly be sleeping, I am sure.
And of course...
There. Now if this little boy could only see all of this, he would be a little more eager to come on out. Don't you think?
Damn dreams. I went from being in a science-fiction type dream where I was in a world in which marriage ceremonies involved placing a laptop at various prescribed places to use as power sources, to being at the Opera House, about to go on for the second act and not even having a clue as to what the play was about.
And of course no one had a script.
Anxious much?
And today is Jessie's due date. I think. And Saturday is Owen's birthday and Sunday is Lily and Vergil's birthday and Lily and Jason are moving this week.
That's the sweet note I found this morning when I got up.
The tea olive is blooming. The air is sweet. I need to go take a little walk and then off to town for various items.
Some days are best described as hibernation.
Alive but drowsing, removed from the world as it moves on outside the cave in which one sleeps.
And dreams.
I told my husband tonight that I apologize for these days in which I seem to go so far away. That ironically, it is exactly those days which I probably appreciate his strong, sturdy presence the most, even as I am silent, keeping mostly to myself.
He said he knows. He said he's here.
My god. This man. Thirty-two years on and I am still in wonder.
Sunday, creeping up on noon and we just finished our breakfast.
It is very quiet and still here in Lloyd, quiet enough that the music from the church next door can be heard, a distant throb and wail.
We watched "Under The Influence" last night and I loved it. Of course. The title is a double entendre, on one hand a tongue in cheek nod to Keith's well-known love of substances, but on the other and more serious hand, a reference to all of the music that influenced him and still does influence him. Started with his mama whom he called, "a beautiful master of the radio dial." Jazz and blues and then, country music, reggae, a little bit of Mozart thrown in. Billy Holiday, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Porter Wagner, Chuck Berry, Elvis. How when the Stones started out, they were simply interested in bringing Chicago blues to the attention of a wider audience. What it meant to him to bring that back to the U.S. The incredible amazement when he got to meet some of his primal heroes, play with them. There's footage of him playing with Muddy and getting slapped down by Chuck. There are so many great lines in the film.
"I crashed at Muddy's house and woke up at Howling Wolf's."
How many people can say that?
Just as in his autobiography, in the documentary he gives credit and honor over and over and over again.
The New York Times review of the film said that there is a "certain amount of self-aggrandizement and of Mr. Richards laughing at his own remarks."
I kept waiting to hear some of that self-aggrandizement but all I heard was an honest assessment of the role Mr. Richards played in furthering and evolving the music that helped shape and define a very interesting era in history. There is a sweetness to the man which is stunning, really. I mean, I grew up with images like this of Keith Richards.
Menacing, dark, always dancing with the devil.
And yet, inside him there was this child, plotting on how to get ahold of his grandfather's guitar.
And now there is this.
As we watched the film, Mr. Moon asked, "Is it fair to say that he looks like Yoda?"
And I said, "Definitely."
I was thinking yesterday about how as we age, we lose our friends. How the very, very old will often say, "Everyone I know has died."
And how we also lose our mentors, our touchstones, our people who seemed to be there in one way or another as we grow up, as we grow in all ways. I remember when John Lennon was murdered at the absurdly young age of forty and I thought, "Oh, John. Who's going to teach us how to grow old?"
Well. Maybe I have my answer.
Richards says he is not aging, he is evolving. He does not ignore the fact that he is, despite all evidence to the contrary, not immortal. He discusses that. But his life is a good example that this evolving need not ever end. Even as Keith's greatest joy in music is to play with the Rolling Stones (and honestly, I think that Mick Jagger will always and forever be his truest love), he will never stop loving to play music which makes him happy with all sorts of musicians.
In fact, the joy on his face when was making "Crosseyed Heart" in the studio is transcendent. That is the only word for it. And despite those gnarled fingers with their thickened joints, he can still play the shit out of guitar. He can shred it, he can tickle it, he can weave hummingbirds on it.
And oh, how happy that makes him!
So yeah, overall I sort of liked the film.
I think I'll go watch it again.
It's Sunday. Here's the biggest banana spider (golden orb weaver) in the yard this year.
You can't get a sense of scale, but when I tell you that her abdomen is bigger and thicker than the top joint of my pointer finger, it is the truth. Soon, she will die, having mated and laid her eggs which will hatch out next year.
Perhaps out of those hundreds of tiny creatures which emerge from her eggs will be a daughter, as big and beautiful as she is and she, too, will pass down the genes of her species and spend the summer outside of my porch, inspiring my awe and amazement. Most of those minuscule hatchlings will not make it to grow a tenth of her size.
So it goes.
One never knows which of us will survive, will thrive, will further whatever it is that we've been given to do on this earth. Most of us, in fact, will probably never even know what that is.
What a good and sweet and easy and simple day it has been here in Lloyd.
For me, at least. Mr. Moon seems to have been very, very busy and is still off in the woods somewhere with Vergil, both of them working together to try to ensure a deer for the freezer for both families. Dear Vergil. Raised strictly vegetarian on mostly what his mama grew and now he wants good clean meat for his wife and himself and he has taken the hunting courses and is ready to go out and try for that doe.
Sorry, you vegetarians. I really am. But this is the reality in my family and it took me years to make my peace with and I have and yes, I eat meat, and there is none better for us than what comes from the woods.
Anyway, I did not leave the yard today- always a good day for me.
I washed clothes and hung sheets on the line and my bed is made up fresh and sweet and ready for us tonight. I watered my thirsty porch plants and cleaned out the chickens' water container. I got to talk to my oldest friend in the world and we laughed and we laughed and we talked about children and grandchildren and how our children's happiness is always going to be of utmost importance to us and that's just the way it is. While I was talking to her, Vergil and Mr. Moon showed up with the love seat and I told her, "Oh! My love couch is here!" and we laughed about that and Mr. Moon said, "Did you realize it has no legs?" and of course I said, "No," and he said, "It doesn't," and Mary Lane and I laughed about that and she said, "Where did you find this love couch?" and I told her the thrift store and we laughed some more.
Turns out it isn't supposed to have legs and there you go and la-di-dah. It is so comfortable and doesn't it look fine in my library?
Sigh...
Do you remember when Mr. Moon took me shopping for a chair or a love seat for that library in actual real furniture stores? If I had found one that day that I like half as much I would have bought it and paid at least four times what this one cost.
Can't you just see me lying across it and reading this winter with a little blanket over me? Can't you just see me snuggled up with grandchildren, reading books?
If I ever get a grandchild who likes books. Well, Gibson will let me read to him sometimes. I think I'm going to start paying Owen to let me read to him. The boy does appreciate cash.
I weeded a bit and contemplated what I need to plant for our winter garden. The lettuces, the arugula, the mustards, the collards, the carrots. I noticed that we must have left a few potatoes in the earth when we dug them earlier in the summer because I have several nice-looking potato vines. I wonder if they'll ripen before first frost?
The zinnias are making their last stand, we have at least one or two watermelons with the potential to actually grow to full size. That would be like a jewel in my crown. An emerald and ruby jewel. A sweet, delicious jewel.
I am about to go cut corn off the cob and saute onions and celery (lots of celery!) and make a corn and potato chowder/soup with some leftover broccoli thrown in for our supper. I made bread last night so we have that and it will be a perfect meal, I think. Soup and bread. Perfection and perfection. I might even make some poached pears with a little blue cheese and toasted pecans. Would that be too much?
We can call it dessert.
And I think we shall.
The kitchen is calling. So is Netflix. Hell, I can even hear the slightest murmur of beckoning from the bed with its clean, unwrinkled sheets, its puffed-up pillows.
Now if my husband will only come home from the woods, all will be as fine as it can be.
I feel certain he will.
Okay, sure. There was chaos and noise and dancing and cooking and steak eating and a football game and a neighbor came over and when it was time to clean up the kitchen, I realized I'd forgotten to serve the corn which Jessie and I husked and I cooked and so we shall be eating corn tonight.
Lots of corn tonight.
And we forgot to shut the chickens up in the excitement of everything, the baths, the showers, the purple cows, the cookie balls, the toothbrushing, the pajama donning, the story-telling, the Jessie and Vergil bye-bye's, the...
You get the picture.
And the bad news is that we have no more ducks and yes, I feel terrible but it happened and something grabbed her and took her off in the night and so, no, we have no ducks now, only chickens and I should probably feel worse than I do but I'm being honest here- I never did really want ducks and that's the truth and she didn't have much of a pond to swim in and as I just said the other day, she'd quit swimming entirely.
Which has nothing to do with her death.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Moving on.
And Gibson slept in his bed for at least two hours before he came crying to ours and he did pretty well as long as I clung to the side of the bed and pulled his covers up for him every time he woke up and realized he didn't have them which only happened six or seven times and we all went right back to sleep every time it happened. He didn't kick too much or thrash about too much and I think I'll live.
Lily came and got them this morning and took them to their other grandma's house where their Uncle Chris and Aunt Loren and darling little Lenore live, for a day of fun while Lily goes BACK to work. I don't know how she does it. My children are so much stronger than I ever was. Jessie is at her last day of work before her baby comes. Twelve hours, almost forty-weeks pregnant. Vergil's putting her up a clothesline today so she can hang diapers on the line. They are doing the final feathering of their nest now, ready and waiting for the small man-baby who was kissed through the belly almost constantly last night.
And now here I am. Mr. Moon has gone to take the trash and help Vergil with the clothesline project and I think he's going to stop by the thrift store where I bought a love seat the other day to go in the library and pick it up on his way home which is SO exciting to me I can't begin to tell you. As I told Lis on the phone yesterday, it is not too ugly and it's very comfy and it was only $89!
Owen kept calling it the love couch.
Mmmmm....
We shall see about that.
And what am I going to do today? Well, I see that Maurice has finally gotten out of bed so I shall wash sheets and hang them on my clothesline and water plants and I think I'll do some weeding. And beyond that, stay right here in Lloyd and I hear that there's a new documentary out on Netflix that I might be interested in and so hell- might as well watch that tonight. While we are eating corn.
Today went pretty smoothly. I went to Target and had a little tiny stroke when I got to the new music section to see this.
Were they sold out at 11:30 a.m.? Had they even put any out? Did they have any? I asked the lady in the red shirt and she scanned and discovered that they had a few in the back and she went and got me one.
I'm pretty sure she had no idea who Richards, K, was but no matter. I did.
I bought Lily a welcome mat for her new house and went out to the car and spent more time getting into the CD then I did listening to the first two songs but it's my stupid fault for not having a pocket knife the way my granddaddy always told me I should. I had wanted to do my errands, driving around and listening to the CD in the car. I am old school. Music sounds best in the car, at least recorded music and that's just all there is to it.
And it sounded real fine.
Keith's voice, never his strong point and now pretty much shredded by all the things he's smoked and all the things he's drunk, is still an instrument that he knows how to play and he can channel the old blues men he fell in love with as a child all the better and when he's singing, "I don't resist arrest/I think it's for the best," or "When she holds me, something starts anew/She forgives me and I forgive her too," he uses that old battered instrument like the master he is and I can't help but be moved.
I've never heard a better rendition of "Good Night Irene." Ever.
Yeah. I like it.
I finished my errands and I picked up my boys and now we are home and they are helping their Boppy build a fire for tonight's supper. Vergil and Jessie just got here and they are eating with us too. Owen wanted steak and oranges. Definitely NO mashed potatoes. So we will have steak and oranges but a few other things too. Family life and the life of a family and life and life and life.
I think the moon is not in blog. Neither I nor two other bloggers I know feel like blogging right now and when I checked my feed this morning, there were only two new posts which is quite odd.
Perhaps we are in the quiet moon.
Or perhaps Keith Richards is sucking up all the talking energy right now. Bless his old heart, 71 years old, about to be 72 in a few months, and today is the day his first solo recording in 23 years is hitting the stores, the internet, the universe, as it were and he is everywhere in the news being interviewed and lauded. You know this makes me happy.
Last night the documentary made by Morgan Neville was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and if I really wanted to, I could sit down on my couch and watch it right this second, via the Netflix.
Nah. I'm saving it.
Jessie's due date is in just three days, I believe. I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that she's about to have this child, despite her beautiful, filled-with-life belly. She and Vergil are as ready as ready can be and have their house all arranged and kitchen in place and functioning and it is finally done and just in time and I knew they'd get it done.
To be quite selfish and quite honest, I can't wait until that precious child is safe and warm and here, wrapped in his happy mother's arms.
I breathe in. I breathe out.
I feel too full of so much to write. As if, without warning, everything will cascade onto the keyboard, let loose from this heart of mine and at the same time, I feel as if I must hold everything close to my heart, not let it all loose because to do so allows the eyes of the gods to see it and judge it and proclaim me too lucky or too crazy or too content or too yearning or too insincere or too...whatever it is you're not supposed to be or are supposed to be which bring down the gods' wrath or envy ("I am a jealous god") or punishment or something fatefully disturbing.
Anticipatory anxiety?
Well, yes. Of course. I have the faulty wiring.
Gibson is already here, showing me how he can run super fast. Since I have the Netflix now, he can watch his favorite movie which has something to do with Garfield. I tell you what- that Netflix is something. Mr. Moon and I have watched three episodes of "Orange is the New Black" because I think it's required by law.
It's okay.
Anyway, it's gray here and we could used (to my mind, at least) a little rain.
It's far too early for me to have any real news but I will admit that we didn't watch one second of that clown debate last night. Too busy watching Netflix.
The geneticist we saw today probably buys her clothes in the children's section of Old Navy. I'm not kidding. She barely looks a day over fourteen but she seemed to know her stuff and as with almost everyone we've seen at this point, I think she got a bit of a hoot out of us.
We laugh, we cry. We crack a lot of jokes.
Anyway, the neurologist sent Mr. Moon to her to have her check out a diagnosis he had in mind but she seems to think it may be something else so he's going to be genetically tested for both of those things AND she wants him to get an echocardiogram, not that he's had any cardiac symptoms at all but one of the syndromes she wants to test him for can cause aortic aneurysms and so...
Good Golly, Miss Molly. Of course as soon as she left the room, Mr. Moon and I were Dr. Googling on our phones like crazy and going, "No, no. This can't be it," but she's the doctor and so we shall see.
Jason went to get a CT scan today after he went to see a doctor about the headache he's had for over a week. I kept saying it was probably sinus but the doctor wanted to be on the safe side, I'm sure (they have insurance) and Lily called to tell me that despite what everyone thinks, Jason's brain is normal.
And they're going to be treating him for a sinus infection.
So. Apropos of nothing, my duck, Lily, never goes swimming any more. I believe she's forgotten she's a duck and has completely come to self-identify as a chicken. She feeds and naps with the chickens all day long and goes to bed with them too. Of course, she doesn't sit on a roost, but makes her bed in the corner in the hay.
Isn't that odd?
Speaking of birds (my segues are not very graceful today, are they?) I believe that little web-footed creature I helped rescue yesterday may be a juvenile Canadian Snow Goose. There sure are a lot of them in that area although how it could have gotten separated from his or her mother, I do not know. It was pretty large to still be mostly bedowned if you ask me. Of course, I know nothing about ducks except for the one we have and she's a mystery to me.
All right. I really don't have any more news. The next two days are going to be fairly boy-filled. They are even spending the night on Friday. I will have Gibson by himself for a long time tomorrow and that should be good. I love hearing what he has to say. Yesterday he asked Jessie and me both if we could do magic. I told him that I made his mother and his aunt and so yes, I can do magic.
He sadly said, "I can't make magic," and I thought that it must have been an incredibly complex thought process to come to that conclusion. Perhaps we shall discuss this tomorrow and I will tell him that he IS magic and that's good enough. Hank was his age when HE wanted to do magic and wanted a magic kit but I informed him that he had to be able to read so he could follow the instructions before he could get one.
So the child learned to read in the next week or two but that was Hank and as he says, his whole life since then has been one long, "Does not work up to expectations," and although I don't remember that being the case, it makes me laugh.
I've had a kid who taught himself to read at age three and a kid that spent years in special classes dealing with reading disabilities and guess what?
They both lead incredibly complex and interesting and successful lives as do their more "normal" siblings although none of my kids are normal and if you don't believe me, ask anyone who knows them and their parents aren't normal either and you probably aren't either.
Let's all just keep moving on, one step at a time, adapting and learning and persevering as we must, each in our own special way and hey! they can test your blood to find out almost anything but not everything and even if they know what you have, it doesn't mean they can do a damn thing about it.
But it's nice to know, I would imagine, to find out that you have a normal brain.
Jessie looked around at Lily's new deck and said, "This is a better deck than most bars have."
It's true.
Those girls scrubbed and vacuumed and I did nothing but go get sandwiches for lunch and Jessie even went with me and we wished we'd gotten cake as well.
It's such a beautiful house and the yard is all green and calm and it is so quiet there, the very end of a red clay road and whoever did the yard originally loved plants and there are some I recognize and some I don't and Lily wants to plant blueberries and citrus.
On my way home from the house, I saw a tiny duckling-looking bird sitting right on the edge of the well-traveled road. I drove on a ways and then I couldn't stand it and turned around and came back and parked my car and walked down to it. It was not seemingly injured but ran in fright, it's little paddly feet taking it as fast as it could. A big American truck with camo trimmings pulling a trailer of yard-work equipment stopped in the middle of the road and two guys got out.
"I think that's a mallard," said the older man, redheaded and stocky and I am sure very much a follower and practicer of the hunting arts.
We picked the little fellow up and then the man said he thought maybe it was a "herring," which I think meant "heron" and I don't know what it was. A water bird, for sure, still in down but with a long neck and those webbed feet.
We debated about what to do with it.
The younger guy said he lived on a lake. The older guy said he did too.
"Maybe I'll take it to Francis tomorrow," he said. "I'll keep it until then."
And they took the little birdling gently and we all thanked each other for stopping and they got back into their trucks and went on their way and I went on mine.
My husband is home.
These are the very good things which happened today.
While Duchess Kate's new bangs are breaking the internet, here in Lloyd we have these.
Well, today has had its ups and its downs. But the downs certainly brought home a lot of reality about how amazing and miraculous it is that I have the family I do. And it's been a big day for our family in that Lily and Jason bought their house.
I mean...this house deal has been more complex than someone trying to buy the Empire State Building. I swear. You have no idea. For MONTHS it was on, then it was off. Then it was on. Then...
You get the picture and thank GOD it finally happened because I couldn't take any more crying.
Here's the note I found this morning when I went to get my coffee.
It is not unusual for me to find a note when I wake up. I have cigar boxes full of them. The sweetest love notes you can imagine.
It is just a complete motherfucking miracle for me to be married to a man like this (this man!) for over thirty years.
And he worked like a bulldog making sure that Lily and Jason got that house. Every time things looked like they were at a complete dead end, he'd find away around the obstacle. He worked with the realtors, the bank, repair men, roofers...you name it, he found a way to make it all work. He had a vision of the boys and the new baby playing in that big beautiful yard and he wasn't going to lose sight of that for hell or high water. And Lily and Jason hung in there and did everything that was humanly possible for them to do and I am so proud of them.
Here's me and Gibson this morning while the signing was going on.
When Lily got home she was telling Gibson that they'd bought their new house and they were going to be moving into that new house.
"You'll be moving all of your things into the new house!" I told Gibson. "Won't that be awesome?"
He hesitated. He looked at me and at his mama and he said as serious as a heart attack, "But I not that strong."
Oh my god. That child. We reassured him that Daddy and Boppy and Mama and would be moving the heavy stuff. And Vergil, too.
He was cool with that.
"You can carry some of your toys," I told him. "You can help."
He didn't seem to be too interested in that prospect. He was hungry.
You know what one of the coolest things about their new house is? It's a lot closer to Mer and Bop's house.
Oh Lord. I keep getting weepy today. Which is okay. It is fine and it is just overflow from the heart. I wept a little when May and Michael came by for a short, sweet visit. I can't believe they're getting married soon. They brought me this.
And I got to see Jessie when she came over to Lily's after the house-signing. I was kissing baby bellies left and right and getting weepy about that too. And other things. You know. But like I said- it was good. The miracle of my husband, my children. The miracle of their love for each other. The miracle of more babies.
I went by a different Goodwill. I found a tiny blue and black striped long-sleeved onesie and a tiny hoodie in bright daffodil yellow. Good for either boys or girls. And a cashmere scarf in plaid, made in Scotland. And a cashmere and silk drapey sweater. And a silly little housewarming present for Lily and Jason. And other stuff.
Only the little onesie and hoodie made me cry.
I'm a puddle. I'm a mess. My husband just left for Orlando, the auction. I wept telling him good-bye.
This makes me cry too. Another note. This one left for Owen during his second week of school, written by his daddy.
Jason's rendering of their new house.
The amazing gift of all of this. All of this love. When I was talking to May today I told her that one thing I am sure of is that she and her sisters and her brother will never have one second of doubt that their mother loved them. And she agreed. And I'm pretty sure she meant it.
"Unless you get a brain tumor and forget," I told her.
And we laughed about that.
Love and laughter. We have it all. And when we have tears we can hold each other and cry with each other. We don't ever have to feel alone either in our sorrows or in our fears or our joys. Never.
None of us are strong enough to do it by ourselves.
And we don't have to. We have each other to hold on to, to kiss, to hug, to love, to laugh with.
And today was a day in which I was reminded of that in great and joyful ways.
Yep, Hank, Thanksgiving at Lily's this year! If she feels like it.
If not, we can have it here. I have a dishwasher and I sure as hell know how to stuff a turkey.
I am going to town to stay with Gibson so his parents can sign on their new house.
Finally, and at long last.
It is a day of great joy for them, for our family. A new home for Jason and Lily, for Owen and Gibson, for the little girl coming and there will be trees and a grand yard and a house with plenty of room for all the love in the hearts of the people who live there.
I've been feeling quiet all day long. All this beautiful day long.
My brother's comment on my post last night has brought so many feelings to my heart. And what I said in my response to him was entirely true. I would like for him to start his own blog. He is a fine writer and a fantastic photographer and it would be wonderful if he would write his own truth and his own history.
But.
This is my blog. Where I write my own heart.
It's not just about my children and my grandchildren and chickens and gardens and the damn weather.
It's my place where I can relate what I remember, what burdens me, what will always burden me.
This whole situation is such a perfect example of what growing up in a dysfunctional family is like.
And right now, I can't say what's in my heart but I can say this- last week my brother sent me 23 pictures from our family when we were children.
And I'm still not recovered from the horrible memories those brought back to me.
It may be as simple as this- those pictures bring him happiness or maybe no exceptional feeling at all. They are simply, to him, images.
But they bring me horror.
And such sadness that I can't even say.
It is cool this morning and I have the doors open to let the air and light into the house. Fall's sweet first kiss is upon us.
The sky is that shade of blue. That washed-five-hundred-times Levi's shade of blue. Paul Newman's eyes shade of blue.
The pinecone lilies are turning red.
The crickets are singing leisurely, languidly.
I am here and have eaten two fresh eggs and might defrost the tiny refrigerator I keep in my kitchen where I store grains and beans and so forth so that the critters don't get in them. I can barely close it now and have been planning to do this for a month at least. Today may be the day.
Whatever I do today, I am going to do it in the style of the crickets. Leisurely. Languidly. I feel bereft of energy, of the desire to do anything at all, to be honest.
Like the chickens, dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep.
About four o'clock yesterday I got the word that the memorial service for our Taylor's mama who died a few weeks ago, would be this morning at eleven. Although I am not even sure I ever met Taylor's mother, Taylor herself is a part of our family and always will be and so of course I had to go to the service.
I wasn't looking forward to it- I mean, who looks FORWARD to a memorial service- and when I got up this morning it was pouring rain. That kind of rain which seems happy to be where it is, no plans to move on any time soon.
But I had to go and had agreed to pick up our friend Togi from work to take him and that cheered me. Togi is man I just adore. On the surface two people could hardly be more dissimilar than Togi and I are but somehow, on some deep visceral level, we are much the same and every time I've ever had a conversation with him, it's been a good conversation. We skip the boring shit and get right to the real shit and we make each other laugh and I think we understand each other in a lot of ways.
Today was no exception.
When we got to the church, the rain had slacked some and we were very early but we found Hank and our friend Anna and we all settled in. Now Anna is a good Lutheran. And her church family is a good family. They are supportive of her in many ways and have been there for her when times were roughest in real and concrete ways. And she loves her church. She is a Christian and a church-going one at that but she never says a thing when I spout my atheist stuff but usually just laughs and she knows I respect her and even what she believes because if Anna believes what she believes, there's a reason. She's one of the smartest people I know. So I sat between Anna and Togi, who is also a Christian although the Jesus he follows is a radical Jesus and he and I share many beliefs about religion.
So before the service started, I told Anna to please not be offended if I didn't say all those creeds and things because I just don't believe them and she said that was okay and I didn't and she did and that's totally cool. I did not feel uncomfortable one bit.
And we shared a hymnbook and I sang the hymns because I grew up singing those songs and I know them and that was cool too, although can I say that these particular Presbyterians could not possibly sing any slower and every hymn was a dirge to wade through although at one point, the organist (and they do have a nice organ) got a little jiggy with it and that was nice. Anna had helped Taylor organize the event and all of the hymns and prayers and she did a good job and the minister did a good job and he'd known Taylor's mama as well as Taylor and her sister, for thirty years so he could speak from the heart to Taylor and her sister which makes a huge difference in such circumstances.
This was the same church my mother went to and at the reception afterwards, several people came up to me and talked about my mother. Which was not always comfortable for me. One woman told me she'd gone to see Mother the day before she died and that she'd been furious with the way the nurses were treating her and had even complained to the supervisor.
I'd seen Mother the day before that and it was a horrible experience. She was so angry and was taking it out on the nurses and staff and saying terrible things about them which I knew weren't true. Between the onset of dementia and the pain she was in from having broken her ribs and the drugs she was on for that pain, she was not in her right mind and she was accusing everyone of things that they were not guilty of which is not uncommon behavior in such circumstances. And this woman who was talking to me today had no idea that the things Mother had told her were not not exactly representative of the truth, so to speak. I feel bad for the nurses she chastised. I wonder what Mother told her about me, if anything. She wasn't happy with me the day I went to see her, I know that.
But it didn't cut me, this conversation, the way it could have. Or might have, once.
I remember at least a decade before my mother died, talking to a friend of mine about my troubled relationship with my mother. She told me, "Mary, you need to work these things out now because one day she will die and you will have regrets for the rest of your life."
As much as I pondered that, I just didn't see then or ever how that was going to happen. The working-out part, at least. I'd given up by then.
Mostly.
And whether the burden of that impossibility rested on my shoulders or hers or both of ours, I accepted it. And yet, I was a bit afraid that my friend had been right and I would go to my grave with regrets.
Well, I do have regrets but not the kind my friend was talking about. I regret a lot stuff about our relationship. A LOT! But I don't think I could have changed anything and I'm at peace with that and although I may be deceiving myself, I think I did the best I could.
And she may have too. That, at this point, is neither here nor there. It is just the reality of it.
There's so much blah-blah in our culture about forgiveness and understanding and healing and you know what? Sometimes I just don't think it's possible. As much as people talk about how forgiving someone is for our own sakes, I disagree. And what does that even mean if you're doing it for your own sake?
Forgiving someone (and I'm not necessarily talking about my mother here) and coming to peace with the knowledge that something unforgivable was done to you and/or someone you love, are two entirely different things.
Will I ever forgive my stepfather?
No. And so what?
While he was alive I had no desire whatsoever to allow him to believe for one second that I forgave him. Am I a cruel and unenlightened being?
Possibly. But I don't think so.
And I've seen so many people suffer and waste so much damn energy because they feel it is their duty to forgive a parent or someone who did them irreparable harm and they have been told over and over again that until they are able to do this- to forgive the unforgivable- they will never be able to heal.
Guess what? Some things you never do heal entirely from. Ever.
I always liken it to a friend of mine who had polio as a child. Did he survive the disease? Yes. After years in an iron lung. Is the virus still in his body? I don't think so. Will he ever be able to walk without crutches?
No.
Some things a person can heal from entirely and truly and go on, stronger than ever before.
Some things however, will leave marks, scars, even deformities that will never go away.
And how ridiculous would it be for someone to suggest to these people that if they just forgave their disease, their accident and let the pain go...they would be fine and whole again?
No one in their right mind would suggest such a thing.
Do I think that it's entirely possible to release a lot of the anger and do a lot of healing from emotional injury? Yes. I do. Obviously. But a lot of that has to be acceptance that it happened along with the knowledge that it was in no way the fault of he or she who was abused or abandoned.
And often, just those two things are about the hardest thing you can do.
Well, as Lyle Lovett sang in this video
"God does, but I don't,
God will, but I won't
And that's the difference between God and me."
Such a great song. Definitely a favored hymn in the church of the Batshit Crazy.
I'm glad I went to that service. Not even so much for Taylor although I wanted her to know that I care about her and love her enough to be there. But also because I got to be with other people I love (May and Michael and Mark were there too) and because I got to share a hymnbook with Anna and because I got to talk to Togi and because I was reminded of a difficult time and it was okay.
Plus- all those great little crustless sandwiches and the punch with sherbet in it. Good Lord, but I love church-lady food.
Well, I guess that's all and god knows it's enough.
And so do I.
