Posts tagged ‘personal reflection’

So here I am. Home, alone. My precious GirlyBoi at work, the kids in thier new home. And I miss that little man so much. He was rarely here during the week; still the kids would pop in to pick up mail and whatnot, and I’d get to see his beautiful smiling face for a few minutes. Watch his face light up as he recognized me. Lift him from his carseat/carrier and cuddle or play with him briefly.

The tuesday before his death was such a day. I was really happy they had come by, as I’d gotten a handful of fun new toys/teethers and what pass for rattles today for him. They are such cool toys; bright colors, a mixture of textures and shapes to stimulate little minds, cute little noises (soft coos and giggles…not the shrill sounds of Fawn’s baby-hood that were so irritating). And clothes. Some lil long sleeved onsies in green and gold with decorative stitching and a tan pair of soft cotton pants to match. And a lil man’s outfit! Oh, my! A tiny collared button down shirt; white with thin black and red plaid lines with a black and grey and red pullover v-necked sweater with black corderoy pants. It was my thought originally to keep those things here for Bishop on the weekends when he was usually with me and Grammy. A few things for him here.

He was groggy from the long car ride and it took him a second to focus as I said “There’s my precious man! Do you have a smile for your Grama, handsome?”, then his face lighted up with a laughing smile and he raised his chubby lil arms to me to be picked up. How could I resist my lil prince? I opened his seatbelt and lifted him saying, “You love your Grama don’t you” and I swore that beautiful baby said, “Ahh Luh You”. (I blew it off as a Grama’s over-active imagination, even though we all were sure that those would be his first words. We all said it to him so often. The morning after he passed, the kids told me he’d started saying it that week. “I love you”. Bless his heart; I didn’t imagine it.)

I picked him up and sat with him on the loveseat in the livingroom. I asked the kids to help me open his new toys. He sat on my lap, straddling one leg and gripping my thigh with his little legs. He sat up on his own, with no support and cooed and laughed and hollered (He was very expressive, and loud, as are we all!) as he tried out each of his new toys. Of course they all went into his mouth. He loved the little bug that flashed as it cooed and made giggle and chirp and uh-oh baby sounds. And the circular red and black and white rattle with the spinning wheel. And the others, all. I’d also picked up a little strappy toy with spinning frogs and beads and mirror for the car seat. We fixed it to the car seat before we put him back in to go home. He loved them all so much, I ended up sending all but the little bug home with them for him. I kissed him and told him I loved him before they left, but he was too intrigued by his new toys to pay Grama much mind by then. The kids said they’d be back on the weekend.

Two weekends have now passed without my lil Pharoah here with me. My arms ache, literally. The weekends are the worst.

I can only imagine what my poor Fawn is going through. And Aaron. That precious baby was so loved. They were so attentive to him. Just loving him every second. For six short months their whole lives; every thought, each act, every decision, every moment- was filled with Bishop. What a huge gaping hole he has left in their lives; in all of us.

I’m trying hard to “do” my life. The joy of it has left me for the nonce. If my heart isn’t filled with grief for the loss of my lil Pharoah, it’s consumed with grief and worry for my Fawn and our Aaron. The future is a “don’t look” for me. The Holidays that I so love loom before me, bleak and joy-less. My holiday season begins with Hallowe’en. It’s the Witch’s New Year, and the most important ritual of the year for me, as I invite my dead; Jerry, my late husband and soulmale, ancestors and friends who have passed to join me for the Holidays. I honor them and their memories with food and drink, stories and mementos. I never dreamed that our lil Pharoah would be among their number. I can hardly bear to look at my Dia De Los Muertos Altar covered with white candles for Bishop’s remembrance. I was so excited about Bishop’s first Yule, and now I don’t know how we can survive it. I can’t think of these things right now. Back to house cleaning.

Love and deepest gratitude to all.

About midnite last night I had run out of steam. Finally. I’d raged all I could rage at my family and myself, I’d cried until my eyes were almost swollen shut, and I decided to take sleeping meds and get a good night’s sleep.

It was a good idea.

I slept straight through until 10 am this morning and awoke with a calmer heart, a clearer mind (horribly red and puffy eyes, though! Eee Gads, but I’m an ugly crier) and a surrender. Acceptance.

I’d made what calls I could make (done the footwork) and was finally ready to let go and turn the results over to my Higher Power (aka: the Universe, the Gods, the FSM- whatever).

There is a certain peace and freedom in the concepts of surrender and acceptance that is hard to understand for alot of folks. Most “program” folks know what I’m talking about, as do some other folks who have discovered the wisdom of living life on life’s terms through whatever philosophy/experience has taught it them. I only wish sometimes that I weren’t so damned hard-headed. That I didn’t have to push and shove and rail at my limitations for so long and hard before beating my ego into submission. I really hate days like yesterday when I’m just so sure that if things/people would just behave, (read: do my will), then all would be well in Thornesworld.

So I poured my coffee, booted my computer then fed and loved my birds a lil, got Grama’s meds and breakfast going and came back to check my email and do a lil blogging. While waiting for everything to load on this slower-than-molasses-in-january dialup, I decided to call the number my brother gave me for Dad, again.

It rang.
I held my breath.

My Dad answered.

And he sounded tired and a lil groggy, and I told him I love him and he told me he loves me, and he said he was feelin’ pretty beat up and asked me to call him back tonight and I asked him to put Mommee on and told him I love him again.

So Mommee sounded tired and stressed and pissed at me. (I love her for that- does that sound crazy?? We’re alot alike, my Mommee and me) It’s just like my Dad and me to let blood under the bridge go and just love each other and instantly forgive, but it’s just like Momee and me to be more protective of our loved ones and stay a little mad. I adore her. I would be exactly the same way if someone had blown off my Girlyboi. LOL

So they had thought I was mad at them. They thought I stopped calling because of that time I mentioned in an earlier post. That time I felt that my family had let me down. And it seems that it was made worse by my brother. Figures. So all I could do was own my part; that yes, my life was insane back then and for a year or so I couldn’t pull my head out of my ass or the ongoing drama that was my life, to think of anyone else, but all in all there was no real excuse. I’m a lop about keeping in touch sometimes and I’m sorry. She’s still pissed, but she’ll get over it too, because there is alot of love between my Mommee and I. Bless her heart. She did lighten up a bit when I told her that she and Daddee were Great Grandparents; that our F had a son, lil Pharoah. (She has a super mushy soft spot for babies!!!)

My Dad’s prostate was removed. He’s okay for now, and that’s all we know so far. Lab tests and all that will bear more results. I’ll call my Dad again tonight, after he’s had a chance to rest a bit and when cellphone minutes are free.

I have a phone number and an address and I’m putting all my contact information for EVERYONE in a good, old fashioned hard copy address book. I’m not losing anyone I love again, if I can help it.

I really don’t know how to feel about this. Oh, what a ridiculous expression. As if one had a choice of how one was to feel. Perhaps a more honest wording would be “I don’t know how I feel about this”. Sad, definitely. But a bit lost, too. Almost, (but not really) numb. I suppose I feel somewhat separate from it, but there seem to be some deeper feelings lurking just below the surface. I can feel them in my solar plexus, clogged there like a swallowed lump of poorly chewed food. That’s pretty apt. The knot there,the lump of feelings can’t seem to decide whether to move upward, to project itself from my chest in a vomitus outpouring of feeling, or to insinuate itself deeper into my bowels to perhaps be digested.

I find my head ceacelessly circling around the issue. My Dad may be dying. He definitely has prostate cancer and has just recently had surgery. Those are the facts as I now know them. That’s it. That is the issue at hand. That’s what I want to feel about, but I find my mind travelling off to fucked up family dynamics; the where the why, the how we could lose touch and it not really matter.

I keep returning to my brother saying that Dad and I had had a falling out. Is that true? Do I not remember that? And if so, is that to my credit or to my fault?
Fucking family dysfunction. I have no idea.

If Daddee and I had a disagreement or some sort of hurt feelings thingy back in 2003 when I was moving out of Fontana, I can’t thinkthat it was a big deal. My life was a horror at that time. I was moving and divorcing a man whose mental illness turned out to be more than I could deal with. There were death threats and sheriff reports and restraining orders and all manner of ugliness and drama that I don’t often choose to revisit in my memory. I was really physically sick then, too. My FMS had me in a wheelchair much of the time and in bed most days.

I remember that my brother and I got into it back then. It took us a few years to get over it, or at least to decide to move on with our relationship and leave it in the past; just another example of two very different people bumping heads yet again. I do remember feeling very abandoned by my family during that terrible time. I remember being resentful that there was no-one available to help me, me the caregiver/helper to the family, when I needed some support. I suppose my Dad may have been involved in that feeling in some way that I can’t put my finger on now, but I really don’t remember any specifics.

Is my brother projecting our disagreement onto me and Dad? And why does this really matter, now? Am I using this whole question as an avoidance of feeling whatever I might feel about my Dad having cancer? Or is this process?

I feel so separate from all this.

fuck.