dual grieving 2
things are a bit chaotic in my experiments with journaling by subject more than chronology. i feel certain i have journaled on this particular thread since march, 2020, but i can't seem to find the continuations. yet another reason for my experiment with continuing threads rather than starting new threads on subjects i have already started sorting. here be the entry from 3 march, 2020.
The question of which of my sons died first continues haunting me. Estrangement isnae a physical death, but it is the death of a relationship. My estranged son is still breathing, to the best of my knowledge, but he is less accessible to me than the son who died. The love and respect my dead son held for me lives on and fortifies me still. The love and respect from my estranged son died, whithered and blew off the vine long before he dubbed me Toxic Mom. That was many years before the tragic car accident this past September which left me with three orphans. My eldest son died first.
In my most recent grief surges, I have been letting myself grieve the loss of both sons. I am a childless mother. And life goes on.
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i'm gaining confidence in the strategy of allowing myself to grieve both sons in the same process. can a parent really think of one child without remembering the others? i can't. not so far, anyway. my family is a unit. what effects one affects all the parts. even if the estrangement from my eldest son ends today, the loving innocence of our early years is dead and gone. we can only go on from here.
as with the younger son who lies rotting in his grave, eldest son is gone. i am not welcome in his life. and life goes on.
the warren zevon song remains my therapy song for this grievous episode. for my eldest son, as well,
"sometimes when i am doing simple things around the house
"i want to think of you and smile."
there was a time when the love and respect between eldest son and i ran rich and thick. i sincerely do want to think of him and smile.
today i leave the mood icon squarely on okay. methinks i am holding steady. it still hurts, but life goes on.
Replies
I don't know what to write Arf.... I can surely read the pain.... I just want to hug you and say how sorry I am that you have so much hurt to deal with.... xo
is my grief therapy song shifting? in recent weeks i have been haunted by a song that has been with me since 1963 after it crossed the pacific as, "sukiyaki." it has been an international hit and has become a classic of many versions in many countries. recent days have found me learning selena quintanilla's spanish version without deep commitment. her version isnae very true to the japanese original and there are quite allot of versions to choose from, including the original japanese. i still mumble intentions of getting back to the study of japanese. so many languages and so little time and brain space. .
but selena's version resonates with me and, as i have studied, it is mixing dynamically with my grief for both of my lost sons.
the tears are flowing freely as i sing. . .
"por ti estoy aqui
"tan triste y derrotada
"te ve partir y hoy mi vida no vale nada
"te quiero a ti y nunca sere feliz
"hasta que vuelves a mi lado."
"yo se jamas volveras
"de que no sirve me vida si no estas."
"recuerdos de un carino
"que siempre estan conmigo
"de un gran amor que dio alegria a mi corazon
"pero ya no estas
"y mi llanto es cada dia mas
"quisiera verte junto a mi."
eldest son is on another round of rat sassy text attacks directed to hubby about "the cunts" in his life. are there women on this planet he doesn't call cunts? hubby is clueless which cunt(s) he is hating on this week, nor is he even curious. es's misogyny is comprehensive enough that once the word "cunt" emerges from his mouth, all women are interchangeable in his hateful awareness. a cunt is a cunt is a cunt. no female can be any more than a hole to squirt in.
the new element in this round is that hubby is sharing his piece of the rat sass (rat's ass) pie with me. herstorically, he hid that from me for reasons i still have to work hard at not speculating on. his reasons are his own, but i am maternally convinced that the paternal secrecy is a huge part of the problem. he came by the habit honestly. his daddy kept more secrets from his wife than he ever shared with her.
i still feel an uneasy peace in allowing myself to grieve both of my sons simultaneously. even if eldest son and i were miraculously reconciled today there remains much hurt and resentment accumulated over the decades since es began this slide into his middle aged. homeless abyss. healing would need to happen here in order to proceed with developing the miracle.
alas, that particular miracle isnae likely to happen. the born again experience works better in evangelistic church services than in real life. es has been calling me, "cunt" for a very long time and old habits die hard. for now, it is enough of a miracle that hubby isnae any longer calling me cunt behind my back.
processing. . . sorting. . .
let me tell you a secret about a parent's love
a secret that is best kept just between us
you see parents don't just love their children every now and then
it's a love without end, amen ~george strait
i don't care to do the research, but i believe this is as true for bad love as it is for good love. the love between my eldest son and i turned bad with the onset of his narcolepsy while he was in junior high school in the 90's. our love didnae turn bad with one fell swoop. it was a death of a million cuts. whatever the evolution of that turning, today it be a widely accepted fact that our love isnae good for anybody and i feel that bad love every day. it's a love without end, amen.
and still, life goes on. . .
no new contact. just processing. . . leaning ever so gently into the grief. as i lean ever so gently into the acceptance of the adult estrangement, the memories of the deep bonds i shared with the child are freer to jump the bloody fields of adulthood. just remembering. gone is gone.
my current email provider posts the first line of the last email in a thread on the in-box the last email from eldest son was may 4th and that first line was his, saying, "there you go, making things up again." guilty and unrepentant. i make life up as i go along, one step at a time. i fully acknowledge that my creative approach to life has caused more than one train wreck and amends are owed for the harm done. i solidly believe amends are owed to my eldest son. i will wear my toxic mom crown, by whatever name, with all due shame, until he, himself, takes it from my head. the toxic people fad has all but disappeared and i have yet to give him the opportunity to tell me his latest name for ^it^, but for now, toxic mom it is. my middle aged cherub is 42 now. he has had a great many names for ^it^ since the onset of his condition during adolescence. i ain't saying it like it is a bad thing, but es has inherited my talent for creative living and living with the little known condition of narcolepsy has honed his creative talents to a fine edge. just opining beneath my toxic mom crown.
in the brief email exchange listed above, i was making it up that he frequently curses me. he restricted the cursing to that particular email asking me to drop everything and sort massive photo libraries to find pictures of the dog we recently euthanized on his behalf. he wasnae available to consult about the need and all were confident he would be abusive in insisting we were wrong and morally obligated to continue cleaning up after the dog's suffering. bowel incontinence was the least of his misery, though perhaps the meanest of ours. the massive photo libraries he wants pictures from are from several tech generations ago and sorting those digital snot knots is tedious work that doesnae blend well with childcare.
the dog in question was a beloved family member. i do know i have a great many pictures of him. his pictures arenae the only ones lost in the massive quantity of those photo libraries. i have one external harddrive that has yet to be reorganized to please a selfie-queen, but. . . enter the anthony picasso psychosis over the cloudy its who keep insisting i must use their new and improved online art supplies.
eldest son has acquired a cell phone and made contact again, mostly with his father who has been sharing the textellas with me. nothing new in his textellas. just more verbose criticism of the people in his life. it is far more surprising when es shows compassion than criticism. the part that feels like real progress is that hubs is sharing the information with me as the updates arrive. data is far cleaner and easier to process while it is still fresh and distinct. hubby's previous business-as-usual was to wait until the facts are tangled and slimed before throwing the slimey mess in the clean-up woman's court.
es asked his father to give me the number. i hesitated to program the number into my phone but decided that a son's contact info was appropriate for a mother's cell phone, whether she is welcome to make contact, or knot. he didnae respond to my test text to see if i had programmed the contact info correctly and to give him my number in turn. business as usual.
i gave myself permission to act on the maternal assumption that he might like some pictures for his phone. i sent him precisely 3 pictures of the nieces and nephew, one picture of the youngest niece contained the dog and cat. the number confirmation was completed with his noticing the dog. emboldened by the fact that he responded at all, i sent him four more pictures of the farm roosters yesterday morning. no response. no surprise. back to the acceptance of my maternal grief. let go and let god.
es is on another round of text attacks on hubs and aa. "aa" being his last known ex and hubby's last partner in codependence. was it the 2014 breakdown where hubby and aa picked up the ball i dropped and started running with it? for sure, in my eye view, that episode was triggered by talk of a wedding between es and aa. i had to admire the teamwork the two of them were executing in trying to get es into the same offices/programs which i had already tried. i continued practicing detachment while quietly hoping that their unity would succeed where my lone stranger attempts had failed. support and unity are potent add-ons. i now sometimes think of my lone stranger approach as, "the toxic mom plan." hubs is still mostly strong and silent on his perspective of those years. i try not to speculate on **his** perspective. i take it on faith that he didnae truly mean most of the opinions we kicked up and down the tit-for-tat playing field during our attempts to discuss what was going on with our beloved son. i was still working in engineering and construction when hubby began calling my attempts to find solutions, "the neurotic housewife plan." "neurotic housewife" was our generation's name for "toxic mom." engineers can be toxic moms, butnae so much "housewives."
again i feel the guilt of being relieved that **i** amnae the one under attack. i be carefully monitoring my own smug spots. "i told you so" never solved a thing. the social distance between myself and the romantic exes remains further than i care to stretch my comfort zone, so i am trying to keep the focus on providing hubby the kind of support i wish had been available to me 30 years ago while i was attempting to sort the details of my then-adolescent eldest son.
my confidence is growing in the dual grieving. that frightened adolescent boy is as unavailable to me as the 35 year old son and father of 3 i buried in early october, 2019. still i pray for the healing of my eldest middle-aged son, but that sweet, frightened boy is gone forever.
and the beat goes on. . .
yo se jamas volveras
de que me sirve mi vida si no estas
recuerdos de un carino
que siempre estan conmigo
de un gran amor que dio alegria al mi corazon
pero ya no estas
y mi llanto es cada dia mas
te quiero junto a mi
i will hold you in my thoughts
i will take you to my dreams
i will touch you when you come into view
while the summer is summing
i will watch your children grow
and feel you right next to me
the undisputed loss of my youngest son's death and the ambiguous loss of his older brother's estrangement seem to be mixing freely in the daily care of our three orphans, as well. questions about mommy and daddy keep ys's presence constant in my life. i really do feel him right next to me, sharing thoughts and dreams of their growth and development. mommy, too, but her place in my strictly personals is far more ambiguous. she called me, "monster-in-law." i called her, "dumber-in-law." let the social media cliches begin. i honor her love and respect for her children and answer questions as gently and honestly as i can, but i havenae many insights on what she might dream of for her children. ys and i spent many, many hours discussing his dreams for his children, beginning when he was a child, himself. i have 35 years of intimate insights on what he might have me do in any given situation. in many ways, i feel more connected with him now than i did while we were simultaneously juggling the roles and expectations of flesh.
how old world is it of me to believe a brother should care about the welfare of his brother's orphans? i have zero evidence that he even knows of their existence there in his isolated street life. if he does, i imagine him cursing them for utilizing his god-given entitlement resources. just more threats to his splendid isolation.
so i imagine, based on ancient herstory. fact is, that data is unavailable. so i grieve.
^it^ is what ^it^ is, whether i understand ^it^, or knot. . .
"tardive" something seems to be the latest darling of the lawsuit lotto crowd. i donae care to do the research, but it has something to do with prescribed medications. to my bored senses, substitute "big pharma" for "big tobacco" and it be pretty much the same expostulations preached from the same soap boxes. the brass ring is the court settlement which will pay better than uncle sam.
eldest son took up lawsuit lotto somewhere during the onset of his narcolepsy in the middle 90's. his creative lawsuit rants have been numerous, consist and intense. i was solidly in the habit of tuning them out by the time his narcolepsy was diagnosed in 1998. when i was the target of his latest lawsuit rank, my standard response was, "see you in court." to the best of my knowledge, he has yet to talk to a lawyer or discover the whereabouts of the office where one would file such suits.
his latest email contacts have been moaning about one of the tardive somethings. he has sent several selfies wearing a black cloth over his face to cover the ugliness of it. methinks he wants us to be shocked, but all i see is very corona chic.
while i work to forgive myself for the dread of wondering what role he has in mind for the imaginary court drama, all i pray is healing hopes.
just praying.
eldest son is on another vengeance rant. some odd weeks ago, his newest dog disappeared. es is convinced the dog was stolen by a specific individual and has been petitioning hubby for financial support in his vigilante justice. hubby hasnae been engaging the psychosis by simply not responding.
again i straddle the precarious razor's edge between relief of knowing he is still alive and grief over his condition and the vast social distance between him and this little ship of fools. i cannae remember the last time he asked over the welfare of others. perhaps 2016 when his grandfather died?
no new contact that i am aware of, but eldest son has been extra heavy on my mind the past day or three. is he still alive? vengeance quests might be more often fatal to the vengeance seeker than the target of the vengeance. i, personally, will shoot down a vengeance seeker for public safety. i don't care about the argument. i care about public safety. the targets are rarely as dangerous to public safety as the seeker. seekers rarely care about collateral damage.
i've been using the visualization of wrapping my beloved son in a warm blanket --that visual is especially easy on these cold nights-- kissing him tenderly and lovingly handing him over to god. please guide my beloved son to inner peace.
his little brother is standing next to god, ready to receive his beloved brother. he remembers when big bro was his hero.
this past friday was eldest son's 43rd birthday. i sent a brief email to the last email address i have for him. "happy 43rd birthday, beloved son. one of e's besties is turning 8 today. i will be singing happy birthday to both of you tonight."
he sent a two word response this morning. the folks who are familiar with standard rat sass will find it easy to guess those two words.
i am quasi-grateful to know he is still alive and contactable.
hubs has been hammering together a will for our greatly altered estate. the last one he hammered together was while he still had two living parents and we shared two loving sons. somewhere after 2011 when we bought the toxic mom throne. that toxic mom throne is still on our asset sheet, but we hope that will change soon with the sale of the property and the buy out of BIL's share of this farm.
it is actually two mostly identical wills which hubby has hammered together. we have chosen to pool our financial resources and share most of our accounts and assets equally. we arrange individual earnings, pensions, etc., to be shared as equally as possible. all are deposited into shared accounts with access granted to the other in the case of an emergency. during the first decade or two of our partnership, i maintained a secret escape account which would allow me to set up house in the event of domestic abuse, but i never did use it. every single one of my frantic flights was financed from our shared accounts. somewhere around the time hubby hammered together the first set of wills, i relented on the escape account and it, too, is now a shared asset.
the second paragraph of my personal will states that my eldest son is to be excluded from all inheritance. legally, es isnae hubby's son. hubs never adopted him and i was already pregnant when i met hubs. daddy made three. i never questioned or pressured hubs on this issue. he had a pothead poet's list of ethical disputes with the process. i accepted his decision at face value and kept my son's surname far more than i kept my baby-raping daddy's surname. women donae have surnames of their own in our culture. i have often wondered if i could drop the second name, entirely, and operate under a single name. doing the research on that process never quite made it over my busted give-a-damn. hubs has honored his commitment to the poetic ideals of his decision to forgo the adoption process. the legal maneuverings he has been forced into in order to stay an active part of eldest son's life have been more dramatic than what i imagine the adoption process to look like, but i can only imagine, and not too well at that. i havenae ever been through the adoption process and i donae care enough to do the research.
my suggestion to include that exclusionary line quite solidly offended hubby's poetic ideals. i insisted that it is one of the details i hope will change in the future, but, for today, any inheritance would only be stuffed into a crack pipe for smoking, be the crack pipe metaphorical or literal. i donae care to breach the two-word boundary between us to do the research on whether the crack pipe is literal or metaphorical. i believe all i need to know is that my toxic mom honors are still sacred.
maintaining proper social distances. . .
the woman (aa) who has been watching over the urban homestead is taking her sweet time in handing the place back to us. grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe. we have been officially on hold since november and losing hope of ending the relationship on a good note. you ain't the only one who has an lfl (long fucking list) of stresses and excuses, my friend. please stop adding to ours.
sigh. . . yes, i am guilty of impatience to have that item off the lfl. that particular item has an lfl of its own. the grief bond between that house and both of my lost sons is another item with an lfl of its own.
this friday hails the start of local spring break. the plan is for the munchkins to do their maternal family visit. that has come to feel routine, but part of that routine is the maternal family drama over the lfl of logistics of a three hour drive. everybody in that family is sickly enough to be on disability and they seem to leave all of their vehicle maintenance to the day of the drive. according to ys, his in-laws simply enjoy complaining. everything is a drama for them.
it remains uncertain whether i will spend next week at the urban homestead or take advantage of the planned free time to work projects here. it doesn't take much more than discussing the theme with hubby to remind me of just how much i have lost.
processing. . .
happy 39th birthday beloved son and father. it is your 4th posthumous birthday. this morning i imagine you hanging out anew with another important figure from your childhood. you greeted him friday evening with, "welcome to the dumbshit drivers club." the details of his traffic death remain lost in the funeral chaos, but for sure, he is gone. i amnae certain how old he is, but his seventy-something death doesnae feel as tragic as losing you at age 35. his decades of drug abuse had taken its toll long before the traffic death. as of your funeral in 2019, he was still very "young at heart" and probably still using enough drugs to "prove it." two of the the four "children" processing his death this morning have lived independently of him since they were teenagers 20 odd years ago. one lived the last of his childhood with his oldest sister. the fourth is a tragic recluse still hiding in the same littered rathole she was raised in. i think it possible that her awareness of life outside her closed bedroom door isnae extensive enough to have noticed she has one less roommate this morning. possible but in fact, i donae know and donae care to do the research. i remain unable to forgive her parents for having guided her toward her current career as a benefits collecting retard. i still believe that she is the same flavor of "retard" that i am and could have developed the hidden genius which so often presents as "retarded" during the developmental years. her unclaimed son is currently living with mama's big sis and has maintained a close virtual friendship with your eldest son.
i mentioned your birthday to your two oldest children while we waited for the bus this morning. they were interested, but not interested enough to interrupt soccer season for a celebration. methinks you would want it that way. just thinking. . .