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
it's hard to grief a near stranger who called me, "monster-in-law," but today is the fourth mother's day since her funeral and ? ? ? WTF are we in that psycho snot knot? her morbid obesity and crippling depressive disorder prevented her from performing the majority of childcare but her two older children loved her dearly and i have encouraged that love as best i can. baby sis was 9 months old when mommy and daddy were taken from her. she never had the opportunity to know her mother, at all. the children don't need to know that mommy and i had a hatefully stereotypical MIL/DIL relationship. mommy got many a click on the thumbs up icon for her monster-in-law bashing on social media. she was a digital whiz. video games and social media were her life. i still grieve that she never opened her bedroom door often enough to nurture real-time relationships, not even with her husband. i only believe my son grieved that fact even more than i did. i only believe. . . proof unavailable as of that fatal car wreck.
big sis is the primary player in today's grief. the first posthumous and covidic mother's day was barely noticed. there was no school or classmates to pressure the day. she was not yet old enough to be aware of calendar days. she was in pre-k the second posthumous mother's day and the pressures where on. are you my mother? i feel mighty special for being your grandmother, my love. kindergarten mother's day played out nearly equal. the first grade round is far more articulate in asking the same set of questions.
i feel as though i am relenting on the issue of allowing her to call me, "mom." her desire to do so is persistent and there isnae a doubt that i am doing the mom job, as appointed by the state court and seemingly embraced in the children's hearts. the dynamics here feel like a natural evolution of the dynamics which resulted in the 2014 MIL/DIL blowout where she called me monster-in-law and i called her dumber-in-law. setting aside my mental chatter with a dead woman and focusing on the living, growing needs of a 7 year old child. . .
letting god lead the dance.
grateful this day will soon be over.
methinks i need to let that child call me, "mom" while i grieve the passing of grandmotherhood.
time with eldest/estranged son? the anticipation is mounting with less than 2 weeks until the HDSA Hope Walk which will bring us together. together? i am wondering if i should make it a goal to remain as masked and socially distant as possible. just wondering. letting god lead the dance. the last i saw es was at ys's funeral four years ago this month. the last civil conversation i had with him was around his grandfather's funeral in october, 2016.
while i remain persona non grata, es has been working hubs like business as usual. where's my uncle glenn retirement plan? your daddy supported his eldest son until the day he died. where are my condo and daily tit for tat session? hubs is feeling called to dance his part. here ya go, baby boy. daddy's here. my baby boy is too good to be hanging out with all the damaged low lifes here on the street. let daddy kiss the booboo and make it all better, my 43 year old cherub.
hubs is feeling the call to dance his part, but resisting the urge. reality check, beloved. we can't provide childcare, geriatric care and palliative care for a violently disabled man simultaneously.
methinks the two bodies of grief have solidly separated. the guilt factor feels like the dividing line. the grief of death by vehicular fatality is almost respectable and comparatively little blame game.
the grief of estrangement is blame game city. some days i still need to remind myself that mothers are not the root of all evil. i still believe that 40 something men have roots and wills beyond the maternal reach.