So Many Layers

All I can do now is just ruminate. 

I’d be remiss f I did not acknowledge that mom had some measure of cognitive decline, which went largely dismissed by me or my siblings—as the signs were in keeping with a lifetime of her behaviors of demanding much more attention—the neediness. The constant calls. Perhaps awful things said to outsiders, forgetting if she had conversations with us or visits with us. The calls forgetting our birthdays or probably more accurately—what day of the week it actually was. 

I had gotten to a point with her where I was bold enough to acknowledge to her that I knew she was depressed. We had a couple conversations about happiness and how it is a choice. I wish I had been bold enough to ask her about her memory. I knew it all along, I saw signs, but no one else wanted to acknowledge it. 

Another problem, like I said in a previous post, about the final analysis is I don’t know who she was. She was inconsistent and kept me so unbalanced for so long. It was very much like psychological warfare at times. And then she’d be so sweet out of no where. This is what made it especially sad for me, that she did have it in her to be loving and engaged, and then she’d withdraw into reading her books. 

At her best, she had a perverse sense of humor. My best memories will be of her laughing. But sadly her lack of boundaries would often lead to carelessly cruel comments, or laughing at someone’s expense. 

At least if she were cruel all the time it might have been better, then we would have been able to better prepare or protect ourselves. But she had these moments of profoundness that just makes my heart ache—why couldn’t it always have been good? Things were always challenging with intermittent moments of good. 

An example of the good:

One time mom told me that her favorite time of her life was when she was pregnant with us kids. At times she would refer to herself as the incubator, and other times she’d refer to herself as the cocoon waiting for us, her butterflies to emerge. I think upon this now, as she has gone through her own transformation and flying off, hopefully to dad. 

I don’t put much belief in a hereafter. In fact, no. I am afraid of it. Life was difficult enough to survive, I cannot imagine ETERNITY and being reunited with the people whose job was to protect me as a child and did not. However, if there is such a thing as eternity and afterlife—I hope it involves another reality where we are all reunited HEALED and WHOLE. 

I just wish she weren’t so stubborn and afraid—things could have been a lot different. 

I think we both did not understand each other.