Grief

Talk about taking things literally. I was thinking about how difficult it is to sever the apron strings, and then remembered that when I received my box of "stuff" from my sister yesterday, the stuff from my Mom's place, the detritus I get to keep now that my 94 year old mother has left the earth, in the box were several aprons. I don't know where the aprons came from. They weren't Mom's. They weren't mine. I expect they came from the "free table" at the senior housing where Mom spent her last 6 years -- the happiest years of her life. She loved to get stuff from the free table and put it in "my" drawer where I left things behind to wear when I visited her. A couple pair of shorts for the summer, a hat for the winter, slippers and p.js., a nightgown that disappeared and was replaced by underpants I've never seen before. Back to severing the apron strings ... do we ever really leave our mothers? Maybe sons do. Daughters become their mothers. I hear Mom's voice come out of my mouth now, even when I catch myself snoring. It's disturbing. Her words talking to my cat. Her voice telling my daughter I didn't mean to bother her. Shut the hell up, Mom. I hated when she said that to me.
I find myself so angry these past few days. Angry at my sister for her lack of communication, because I feel so shut out. Angry at my Mom for not wanting me there at the end. Angry at myself for not going anyway.
Then I remember when my first husband killed himself more than 25 years after I left him, but still soon enough for our son to perhaps have a life. I was suddenly thrown back into my life 25 years earlier, haunted by fear of him, recalling how I left him -- and my son -- remembering how I had feared for my life, wishing he had killed himself before I left so that our son hadn't spent those years with him. Angry that he hadn't. Angry that I hadn't killed him myself after all. Angry that I allowed our son to grow up with him. Angry, then sad, then relieved. Finally, relieved.
I remember ever further back when my Dad died. I was 7 years old. I wasn't angry then. Just scared and horribly sad. That was when I first lost not only my Dad, but also my Mom as she had to go to work at two jobs. We lost our house too. I guess it's time to start letting go.

Father's Day: My Dad

I was a daddy's girl, but I called him Dad. Many of my earliest memories are of my Dad. He took me with him to the woods, fishing, "hunting" although he never killed anything in front of me after the turtle incident when I was two. We were fishing and he caught a turtle and killed it. I freaked. He fished and hunted for our protein, but I was not having turtle, even at two, believe me. I was 4 or 5 before I figured out that the squirrel and rabbit we ate was the same as the ones running around outside. (duh). I stopped eating them then. I never ate deer. I think he only brought it home once and that was only part of one that he was sharing with a relative. Anyway, after the turtle, he did target practice when we went out, but mostly when we went tramping around the woods he was teaching me how to be quiet, how to identify plants (poison ivy, edibles), how to find my way back home, how to track animals. He also taught me how to shoot when I was about 6, and made me a sawed off .22 when I was 7 -- the year he died of a heart attack.
When I was 4, Dad taught me to read and tell time. Reading was the greatest gift, and he had infinite patience. I sat on his lap going "what's that word, Dad?" and "what's that word?" until I knew all the words. Then he, Mom and I sat and read together every evening until bedtime. Dad always tucked me in and sang to me as long as I can remember, until he died. He also used to ask me if I would always be daddy's little girl and if I would always sit on his lap. I would say yes, and he would say "even when you're 14?" And I would say yes. We never had the chance to test that promise.
Dad wanted a boy, but he got me. There had been a boy before me, but he died before he was a full 24 hours old. So, he had to make do with a girl. I would never have guessed that I was second choice. Not when I was little. If he had lived until I was a teen, things would probably have got tense. He didn't, so I continued to idolize him.
Dad has been gone a very long time now. I still miss him. I have come to see that he had his flaws, as we all do. I think he did his best to save me from my mom and that's why he took me with him to the woods, to his work when he could. I wonder whether he was happy with my mom, or whether he stayed with her for the sake of me and my sister (she was still a toddler when he died). Whatever the reason, I'm glad he was there to the end. My heart broke the day he died. I prayed on my knees every night for two years to be taken so I could be with him. That didn't happen, obviously.
Here's to you, Dad. You were the best. If reincarnaton does exist, I hope to see you in the next life.