During my Thanksgiving world tour of long-begotten family I had an inadvertent connective conversation with my mom. She gave me an opportunity to air grievances toward her and rather than answer her directly, I went with an insight from a recent sisters discussion - about how we don't take her advice because she raised three strong independent women, and we don't take anyone's advice, and it's not because we don't respect her. And since I have always thought that her tendency to perceive disrespect from us rose from shame, I asked if she carried shame - and she said she wished she had been able to give us an unfractured family unit. To which I responded that, just like how I'm doing great in things that I have control over (home environment, hobbies, personal development) but not in the things I don't have control over (partner, children), she also didn't have control over the family unit; she made choices in an environment I never had to face (at my age she had three children between the ages of 5 and 10). I also said that rather than see herself as a failure (in marriage, in family), she should see herself as a success, from starting where she did to being a homeowner now, with hobbies and friends and no man to answer to. As she cried from my words I felt proud, of having done so much healing I was passing it a generation upward.
Then the conversation turned to Sylvester, and how he's really helped me grow, to which she could relate because having children, for her, really motivated and pushed her in ways that weren't possible otherwise. I shared how he would be dying soon, and she felt the impending loss, and said that it's the reason why she couldn't have a pet, because she wouldn't be able to stand the loss. And then I felt the difference between me and her, because I know that to love is to have loss, and I would not choose to not love in order to insulate myself from grief.
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My dad did not necessarily express joy at our visit, though he was very happy dropping us off at the airport, which I wasn't sure how to attribute. After our visit though, there were many follow-up texts expressing regrets at having forgotten to give us certain things, or taken us certain places, and wanting to save certain destinations for next time. I was processing my anger at his verbal abuse and wanting to set a boundary, so I responded that a next visit would be possible if he didn't verbally abuse us. He apparently didn't register any of what he said while triggered, because he asked for examples, and I proivded direct quotes, and he had no recollection so he asked me going forward to address things as soon as they came up, which I said I would've done, except communication had been nearly impossible due to his hearing loss. I recommended hearing aids, which he apparently had and didin't want to wear, but was reconsidering.
A few days later he shared that he had gotten fitted for a pair of hearing aids that cost $1000. Iris shared in the sisters chat that she was extremely shocked that he would make such changes, especially such expensive changes, and that it was due to my influence. I proceeded to sob in the shower at my dad's desire to connect and communicate - it simultaneously impressed upon me the intention of love, and the extreme barriers that trauma erects to prevent that love from ever being received, and in this case how it twisted that love into something quite the opposite, in the childhood trauma we sisters endured.
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Tonight I ended my first day without Sylvester at First Unitarian's monthly Vespers Service. I was grateful it just happened to have been moved from the first Wednesday to the second Wednesday this month. I figured that a space of candlelight and singing was just what I needed - and I was surprised to find that they added a community dinner beforehand, so I ended up being fed in all the ways. It was a balm to watch the minister's six month old baby, who I hadn't met before - a reminder that the cycle of life contains both death and birth.
During the service, I leaned into the simplicity of having sounds vibrate out of my body, joined by all the sounds vibrating out of others' bodies. We sang simple songs about breathing and spirit and peace, and I cried as I needed to, and I was struck by the enormity of how far I've come from the last generation - to be able to love so openly, and to grieve so openly too.
I wish for this to be attainable for us as a species, to be guided by spirit and spirit-as-animals, to shed the trappings of ego and shame, to embrace our true nature as beings of love.