I'm a dumbass Mom.
I cannot help but wonder if we ever reach a point as parents where we can truly insulate ourselves against the
poison arrows our children toss even when I doubt they realize they're' tossing them?
Today is a full month and change since Christmas. My son, my first born,
My Little Man, who has not been My Little Man for a very long time...too long...arrived at my home today to deliver the Christmas Gifts collecting dust at his home all this time.
I know it's always the thought that counts. He lives an hour away...so it's understandable he could not have found the time in his world to come and bring the gifts that suddenly today, because he had business nearby...he HAD to come and deliver.
Business...hmmm another thing to place before whatever should or shouldn't exist between us. Take away the veils, and business is the true motivation for him coming here today, without bothering to find out if we'd even be here....and only so he could drop the stuff off and turn right around and leave.
I just now opened his gifts up. I think I have known in the pit of my stomach all afternoon and into this evening, his gifts would
open new wounds, and scratch the scabs
from old ones.
I ache for the mistakes I made, a single parent, escaping a violent marriage from a man with a federal badge. I made so many mistakes as the doctors rebuilt my body enough to make me capable of functioning somewhat like a human being again.
I made so many mistakes because I did not know how to be an effective mom to a son with so much anger inside him...justifiable anger, and yes, I own some of that anger...but not all.
Still his sister and I were the only ones here for him to aim the intense rage living within him at.
There comes a time when sanity and something sort of like peace requires breaking the ties and letting him live his life...
We did that.
If only he could do the same for us.
Tomorrow's my daughter's birthday. She checked her e-mail around three o'clock this afternoon when we returned from celebrating her birthday with a lunch out. Her brother's wife sent an e-mail after 1:00 saying they'd be stopping by long enough to drop off gifts but leaving right away.
Naturally she thought they'd remembered her birthday. Surprised the living daylights out of her...so imagine what it did to her when they arrived, and the gifts are our Christmas Gifts?
When I explained why we weren't here at the appointed time in the e-mail we didn't get until we got home, (they were to be here at 2:15,) he jolted and hurriedly said "Happy Birthday" to her?
We did not expect anything for Christmas. Haven't actually expected anything for a long time.
My son has a granddaughter, Jade, we've never met. I've made her winter hats, and bought her birthday gifts, and Christmas gifts, but in going on four years now, we have never met Jade.
I'll never have grandchildren of my own, so this great-granddaughter by marriage seemed like a miracle...but in all these years we've never met her.
The last gift I opened, wrapped in the Sunday comics from a newspaper was this
...and my
heart broke, took a nose dive, and shattered. I don't know Jade, and I'm not sure I know my son or my daughter-in-law, Jade's actual Grandma.
Homemade cookies beyond stale...and a summer tank top for Kat...came to her today, the day before her birthday, and over a month after Christmas.
No matter how well you think you've protected yourself from being hurt by your children, they find a way. I love my son, but I really don't want to
cry any more because of him. Is that wrong?
2 comments:
Sweetheart. Try and let him go. And down South, it's not dropping in distance. (P. S. This is the basis for a book not quite as dark but such as powerful as Twilight Comes.)
What he did hurt. We'd gotten to the point we rarely even thought about him. When I opened that comic page wrapped gift and found Jade's picture and handprint, my body literally froze. Kat was watching me and kept asking me "what did they give you?" but I couldn't answer the pain was that overwhelming. I finally was able to carry it to her, but I still couldn't speak. I handed it to her and made my way, somehow, back to the couch and waited for her reaction. All SHE could manage is, "I'm sorry Mom."
Later she told a friend online how ironic it is her brother can never remember her birthday, but manages to show up in time to ruin it anyway.
We don't seek him out...I learned my lesson the one time I needed to beg him to bring me home from a five day stay in the hospital. (I nearly died.)
We don't seek him out. There are some people in your lives that are just too toxic to try maintaining a relationship with. He's such a person...but whether it be months, or years of no contact, suddenly, one day he shows up undoing the healing accomplished during his absence.
I cannot completely write about my marriage and that ended on 12/5/83. The pain my son causes is fresher, rawer, and yes, deeper. But someday I will.
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