You can pick your friends...
It took me a long time to come around on the family thing. People had to die off. The last Christmas I spent with my Aunt I thought "how small and frail she is". She was sick...needing oxygen...it was a miracle she got out of her house to my brother's house the next town over. Winter. Treacherous sidewalks, steps, and roads. Things I fled when I fled south.
Fragile bones. Like a bird.
What a relief. All my life I'd been intimidated by this woman without even realizing it.
Didn't realize it till the threat was gone and she was just a frail little old lady like so many others I encountered working as an RN. (I use the terms 'little old lady" and "little old man" respectfully, like they do in Spanish and Japanese)
It was me who could comfort her. She cried when my brother played "auld lang syne". So many people gone. The older you get the more people go ... away... die...Memento Mori
But I was free. Sudden---it happened suddenly---I felt free. I felt grown-up. I felt responsible. My family had changed. Now we were the adults. And you know what?
It got better.
I don't want to imply I had a bad childhood. I had a good childhood but bad things happened. Epic events left unexplained. Missed communications. Aspergers (before it was cool) left me sort of helpless in a sea of misunderstanding.
As we grew and aged we learned. We learned how damaging harsh words were. We're still learning. My 2 nieces are the finest young women I know so my brother and sister in law did something better than my father did.
He had to do it alone. I'm the youngest child of 2 youngest children. My father the youngest of 12. My mother the youngest of 3. Not a position of power from which to launch into the world. My place was an especially potent "lost child" spot.
They married, had us, loved us...then my mother died. Damn.
No one bossed anyone around in my family except for my brother, the only first born child in our family unit. And he was softened by our mother...he was 16 when she died. I'm forever grateful for that influence.
I was, and in many ways still am, a lost child.
There's a lot to process and i'm grateful for my friend who went through grief counseling recently and gave me the name of her counselor.
I'm really not able or willing to write about my father without talking with someone first. He was a good man...didn't drink, didn't run around...worked every day of his life and provided a good home. He loved us, my brother and me. I'm sure of that.
Our mother's love is infinite because it peaked and died so early like a comet that keeps coming round and round.
Happy New Year.
