Two Years Ago, Exactly

Hard to believe. It's been two years since this last voicemail from mom, the voicemail wherein she tells me she was informed the virus was in her nursing home. 

I spoke to her a couple times on the phone after that, relatively casual conversations given the dire circumstances. I was reassuring her I was contacting the ombudsman and the NJ Department of Health in regards to it--to no avail. And the last few times I tried calling her, either she was on the phone with someone else, or her voicemail was full and I wasn't able to get in touch with her.

Quickly thereafter (within a week thereabouts), she was "presumptive positive." One by one, each resident in the wing of her nursing home either died in their beds, or were whisked off to the local hospital to die. Eventually her roommate went to the hospital. At this point, mom was hysterical, screaming out for my father (who died in 2008). 

Hospice came in to sedate her before I even had a chance to say goodbye. She languished for another 11 days until her ultimate passing, pretty much neglected by hospice as well as the nursing home itself whose solitary task was to care for her. There was one CNA for 67 residents. They weren't even able to put her phone to her ear so I could talk to her. 

The sad thing about having a vivid imagination is that I can totally envision the position of her body, I can totally smell the neglect, I can totally hear the shallow inconsistent breaths. I can envision her corpse being handled with disrespect, and I can envision her corpse languishing in a refrigerator unit for fifteen days until it was cremated. 

I wish her final voicemail to me was something else. Something where she feigned being upbeat or cheery. Even one of her patented vague voicemails, in a terse clipped tone, "It's your mother, call me."

2020-2021 Photo & Meme Dump

In no particular order, here are some photos and memes I've had on my phone for quite a while, and I want to dump them herein, to free up space on my phone and perhaps a reader might find some use or enjoyment (if possible) from them. 

Also worthwhile mentioning, I don't give a shit if you're vaccinated or not. Wear a fucking mask to help stop the spread. The virus doesn't care about what *you think* your Constitutional rights are.

So, of course he caught COVID!

One would *think* that mom's death from COVID early on in the pandemic would be enough for family members to take this shit seriously. NOPE!

One cousin got married last year; and his sister got married at the beginning of November. The latter was a big, splashy, formal affair--one to which Maharajah and I were not invited. We would not have attended anyway, as the majority of those relatives are Trumpists and not vaccinated, but more importantly, they don't wear masks.

My sister and her husband attended this wedding, despite the fact my brother-in-law has Stage 4 lymphoma and an exacerbation of his MS. My sister showed me the photos--nary a mask in sight, so OF COURSE he caught COVID.

Several weeks later my sister resurfaced with a text, and in one breath she mentioned how OMICRON is going like gang-busters where she lives, and in the next breath she suggests we get together for Xmas. My reply was, "Are you effing nuts?"

She's an LPN. She should know better. And yet? This is so fundamentally ON BRAND for her. It's taken me a half century for me to truly open my eyes to her true nature, and it's just disappointing. I have to teach myself to just acknowledge my thoughts and feelings and let them go, because in the end they serve zero purpose, and just further entrench my negativity bias.

I'm angry because I lack the cognitive dissonance to set aside my legitimate worries and go visit her. So what if I am living in fear? I'm hoping my fear is what keeps me from getting sick or dying. 

Wanting To See A Connection To Choices We've Made

It's been over 17 months since mom died, and she hasn't seen fit to visit me in my dreams. I vacillate between thinking death and the afterlife (if there is any) gives us the ability to go wherever we want to be. I just have not felt her presence. I felt a splinter of her presence, with a very vague sense she apologized for leaving, but not something as vivid as the dream I had where dad visited me. Even in death with infinite possibilities of being able to move her energy wherever she wants to be, she isn't visiting me. 

Death is like being permanently & relentlessly abandoned and rejected.

Seventeen months of silence has given me nothing but time to ruminate and even question what I remember. I feel as if I were gaslighting myself, questioning reality as I experienced it, "Was she as bad as I remembered?" "Was she a good person who did or said hateful things, or was she hateful with intermittent moments of good?"  

I am pretty firm in my belief I wanted better things for her than she wanted for herself. And initially after she died, I was furious, and in some ways I still AM. I am not resigned to it yet, but my prevailing emotion these days is just pity. 

All this time also has made me analyze choices I've made in my life, namely chasing after men who were otherwise unavailable to me, whether they were married, or a different religion, culture, or skin tone.

My first husband was Jewish. And after four years of marriage, I converted to Judaism, in preparation for us to have kids. In a way I hoped also it would lead to me finally being accepted by his father. (This never happened.) 

I also think of how my first husband was a byproduct of domestic violence & rape, and he was also LITERALLY an abortion that lived. He was not wanted by his father, and quite frankly, what kind of mother tells their son they were an abortion that lived? (His fraternal twin was aborted, and by the time they realized this, it was too late to do anything about it.)

I think of the devastation of my divorce, and I cannot help but think of similar themes with my siblings.

The lesser of the parallels is: my sister married a man who was the byproduct of an affair. His birth father didn't want him--and still doesn't want contact. His birth mom died, and he was raised by his maternal grandmother. Despite this genesis story, my sister's marriage has lasted 30 years, and seems healthy/functional enough.

The greater of the parallels is: my brother married a woman, who, like my exhusband, was Jewish. There are far more parallels between my brother's first marriage and my first marriage. Stunning parallels, in fact. 

(I now wish I had asked my parents what thoughts they might have had where 2/3 of their kids married people who were from a different religion than our family was.)

Just like me, he went through the conversion process (though there is a lot to be said about his conversion!), and he had a Jewish wedding. 

After several abortions (after genetic testing they realized those fetuses carried the gene for the health issue his wife has), they finally had a child together.

Not only was his first wife Jewish, but she also hung around, benefitting from his regular paycheck. Unlike my first marriage, she stuck around twice as long as my ex did. And just like my ex, she left him emotionally devastated and destitute, just like my ex. Within a week of her leaving him, she left him with the mortgage in arrears and the house about to be foreclosed. She destroyed his world.

I see parallels between all three of these spouses--though my sister's seems the most functional of all the "first spouses."

I see us all as having some degree of abandonment or rejection life trap/schema. Each of us gravitating to people who were either damaged goods, or with tragic genesis stories. 

I say this not with any snobbishness, but I feel my choice in my second husband was more grounded than my first. I wasn't making a desperate choice. I wasn't looking to be saved. I wasn't looking to save anyone. I wanted someone with less emotional baggage than I had--and I think I got exactly that. 

I see us all as having made similar choices in mates. And even though I have remarried, I married someone who isn't from the same culture or religion I was raised in--yet despite that, his family have accepted me completely. I truly feel like Ruth from the bible.

I am not sure if this post is cohesive, or if I just merely WANT it to be cohesive. I know I want it all to make sense. And therein is my suffering: my attachment or expectation or need for things to make sense.

I see each of our marriages as byproducts of being emotionally abused--byproducts like how water ripples when you cast a stone into it. 

The First Year Elapses: Sweet Sue

Hard to believe it's been a year and five days since my friend Susan died. And one would hope that the last blog post would have been THE LAST blog post wherein I detail her widower showing his ass. Alas, you know how that old quote goes about "Those who feast upon hope..." do (they die fasting). 

So where we left off with the widower, like any true, malignant narcissist, he worked his way through all the contacts in Susan's cell phone, attempting to both, try to control the narrative, as well as try to put the squeeze on everyone for money, presumably for her funeral expenses (which we all know Susan's 87 year old mother on a fixed income paid for everything).

So it's been a year, and Susan's mom paid to have a headstone put on the grave, with "Susan K." No last name, as she is interred in the family plot. This detail incensed The Asshole (who didn't pay for funeral expenses, nor did he pay for the cemetery expenses). The bee in his bonnet is because HIS last name was not on the headstone.

Rather than just let it go, he decided TO SPITE her mom, he's going to pay to have Susan's body, as well as the body of their infant who died, dug up and moved elsewhere. One would assume if he is going to all this trouble, it would be to have the bodies buried elsewhere, at an inconvenient distance, so that Susan's mom can't visit the grave. This is where you and I, dear reader, would be wrong.

He is going through the trouble to obtain the proper permit necessary, as well as the expense to dig up the bodies; however, this is where it gets even crazier: he is having them buried elsewhere WITHIN THE SAME CEMETERY.

Fortunately for me, after last year's attempt at shaking me down for money, I blocked him from communicating with me further; however, I am in contact with Susan's cousin who keeps me updated on what's happening out with Susan's kids and her mom. 

Despite Susan's mom owning the deed to the family plot, Susan's widower is technically her next of kin, and is well within his right to do whatever he wishes to do with the bones. 

Fortunately they live in a relatively small town where everyone knows everyone else, and either the owner of the funeral home or the manager of the cemetery is a friend of Susan's cousin, hence we know where the bodies will be moved. 

Even in death he continues to control Susan. Even in death he continues to be a raging asshole. 

One of my dad's favorite sayings was, "Don't go away mad--JUST GO AWAY." This asshole refuses to realize no one wants him around--and this includes his own family (who, mercifully for them, live on another continent).

Grappling

Right now, I'm still grappling with my anger/rage issues towards my parents. I was able to be more honest with my dad while he was alive, but only to an extent. And well, with mom? I was never entitled to express anything negative, much less express anger towards her. 

The relationship was always unbalanced with me doing the bulk of the emotional heavy lifting, self-censoring as a form of survival to avoid her wrath. 

Death does not provide any great resolution or closure--it merely provides a cessation of the active nature of verbal and emotional abuse; however, all those entrenched neural synapses and pathways don't magically reroute or heal themselves after a half century of repetition. That's mom's legacy.

It all has made me a distrustful skeptic, incapable of embracing change (unless I am the one initiating change). 

And if that weren't enough, the pandemic has been sadly illustrative of the true nature of too many people, frothing their recklessness and selfishness right on the surface, unashamed and self unaware--and this has made me withdraw even further away from in-person socialization. This will be COVID's legacy--in addition to the 600+K people who have perished--many of whom could have been spared an early, painful demise, scared and alone like my mom was.

35 Years Later, I'm Still Furious

April brings with it many things. Right now, mom's anniversary is almost upon me. Right now is a week before her death, and is also the anniversary of the final week of silence before her death.

April also brings with it a tremendous amount of unresolved anger over how much was stolen from me, by both of my parents, but my dad in in particular. The anger is all frothing to the top.

I am reminded of April of 1986, a couple short months before graduation, when I realized all my school mates were getting their acceptance letters for college. I remember inquiring about the four years worth of "room and board" mom insisted I kick back from my summer jobs, all with the promise she'd hold it for safe keeping so I'd have something when I graduated. Or the little bit of money nana set aside (perhaps enough to pay for books or a semester's tuition at a community college). or the 33 shares of AT&T stock aunt Jean left for each of me and my siblings.

I was two months away from graduating, and I came to the fast conclusion that I was fucked. I had no plan, and I had no hope of ever leaving my parent's home. Add to that, mom interfered with every single relationship of mine, so she also ensured I'd be behind the 8-ball, and wouldn't be able to have kids, either.

April brings with it a tremendous amount of anger and sadness--mostly with the awareness I never have lived up to my potential.

I remember them refusing outright to give me their income tax info so I could see if I qualified for student loans. And when in desperation I joined in the military, both parents had to sign off on my enlistment packet because I wasn't yet 18--mom soon had changed her mind, and was trying to get our family priest who was pretty well connected at the time, to reverse my enlistment. Why? I don't have a clue, but I can only deduce it was because she was losing control of me.

I will be 53 in August, and I am still processing this. I don't know how to accept it. I don't know how to move on from it. I feel like I am fighting a singular battle in a tissue paper bag. Should be easy enough to extricate myself, and yet the 18 year old version of me is still in there, fighting the good fight, and demanding justice.

I have gotten closer to dad's sister in the last couple years, and this was an ice breaker to her (after she mentioned something about how nana's house was to be the inheritance for her and her sister), "I don't know what I hope to come of this, but you do realize dad stole from ALL of us, right?"

I went into detail of big things and small things, of the time my sister came home from school to discover mom and dad sold the antique bed which was in her room--and they did not even have so much as an army cot for her to sleep on when she came home. 

I told my aunt, "it got so bad, I knew at a very young age not to let dad know if I had money, because if I had two nickels, he'd try to screw me out of one of them."

My aunt is further along in her journey than I am. Everything I said was nothing new to her. And what she shared next, well, it did not surprise me. Sadly. She informed me when she was little and nana gave them money for birthdays or holidays or special occasions, she could keep a bit, and then her parents would say she had to "save some." Turns out, her father (my grandfather) used it to buy booze.

I am just so angry and sad and disgusted at both of my parents. I think of mom's plaintive question, "I was a good mother, wasn't I?" And my god, how the fuck was I ever supposed to answer that one honestly?

I think of every shitty thing I've done, there's a lot to be ashamed of. There was a alot I did before I even discovered this thing called self esteem or self worth. I'm sure I shared it before, but people like me made the shitty decisions I've made over the course of my life because I did not have the resources, support, or esteem which my parents should have instilled in me. I came to that realization maybe 2-3 years ago, and it still resonates with me.

Everything I am is MINE. No one groomed me. No one gave me support. These people who squeezed me and my siblings into this shitty world they didn't give me shit other than LIFE. A life I did not ask for. A life I struggle with regularly.

I have come so far from those days in April 1986--and yet at the same time, I still feel like a failure, and a parasite. That anything I have or have accomplished is because of my husband, not of my own determination. 

I am so sad and angry--and hate my parents right now. I'll never get justice. And it's just as well that neither one of them have visited me in my dreams because all I'd tell them is to go fuck themselves.