I held my private investigator's license some years ago. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time in my life to have it because I didn't have the contacts I needed, but it was something I wanted and I did it.
There's a reason I did, too. I'm nosey. And patient. And methodical. I don't mind sitting for hours, looking up information or watching someone forever, waiting for the slip up.
Because everyone does. Eventually.
When my network engineer/I.T. second husband, now ex, was sexting with a woman in another state - back in the mid-90's when home computers were not as plentiful as they are now and AOL was pretty much THE on line gathering place - I suspected and then confirmed the fact when I cracked his email password. Not once, but twice.
When my third husband, now ex, was stealing my kids' Christmas money and using it to buy meth and then replacing it before I found out - I found out. Seeing the money gone. Keeping my silence. Watching. Waiting.
When you want to know something that someone doesn't want to tell you... best way to find out? Shut up. Listen. Let it go. It will come out.
It always comes out.
It worked that way with my mother. When my daughter was born, 27 years ago, my mother divulged that she didn't like my grandfather; her step-father since she was 6 or so - something I'd NEVER sensed in my whole life (I'm absolutely naive, but never thought I was obtuse so really don't think there was ever an indication a child would pick up on). Why, I asked. She never would tell me. Over the years I learned that at least part of it was because she was devastated when my grandmother divorced my cheating, Navy-sailor-with-a-girl-in-every-port biological grandfather. She always wished and hoped they would get back together. That her father would come back. And thus ensued a life-long abandonment personality problem for her, and a life-long dislike of the man who took her father's place.
But that wasn't all of it. What then? Tell me, mom? Why don't you like Baba? Why do you hate him?
She never would tell me; only saying years later that she didn't want to affect the way I felt about him. Which, of course, just spawned more questions from me.
Then, I didn't know to wait. But it wasn't long before I did.
And so I waited.
7 years ago it came out. It took 20 years and some gentle, occasional prods, but it came out.
He'd sexually molested her, she said.
I was 40 years old. She'd always encouraged, even fostered, a very close relationship between me and BOTH my grandparents. She'd left me with them for periods of time during summer breaks. They were like parents to me. He was the ONLY man who had ever been a constant in my life, including my father and the step-father who was as like a father as any could be and who I called Daddy.
And she wanted me to turn my back and walk away from him. 82 years old, in poor health, and more than that, there for me with love, support and encouragement since as far back as I could remember. My brother and sister did. Never looked back, either. They had no other choice, I don't think - but even as I say that I can't comprehend it. We choose the stands we make and to do it whether it's personally costly or not is the right thing to do. I stood with my grandfather because I felt like it was right.
There were reasons they did, I'm sure, not the least of which I thought might be tied to the fact that I was sent to live with my father by my mother when I was 15. I "made it out". They didn't. And they couldn't do anything other than back my mother up. I understood.
But it hurt terribly. It drove a wedge into our entire family. Because they walked away. Because I wouldn't. Couldn't.
My sister-in-law understood to some extent. She understood that with all the abandonment I'd had in my life, he was the one person who hadn't. She understood that after a life-time of my granddad loving me, of my mother waiting until I was 40 to "tell the truth", of him being there my whole life, I couldn't walk away.
And finally, after 10 years of mental and physical misery and emotional devastation, the last 7 of which were a slow decline into the horror of Alzheimer's for a man with a masters in electrical engineering and a doctorate in education, he died last September.
And I was sooooo angry.
Angry that he was alone except for me and his wife's family.
Angry that I was alone except for my son and my granddad's wife's family. Angry not that I had to handle the tanglible things alone... but that I had to handle the emotional things alone.
I told them he was gone after he was buried. His wishes. Though I'd have done it anyway. False platitudes or any other emotions beyond sincere sympathy would have sent me completely over the edge.
My sister-in-law sent sympathy for me. My sister did, too, through text. My brother was silent. But that's nothing new.
My mother, though.
My mother called and left a voicemail. Terse. Angry sounding. Saying all the "right" things. But in a way that made every syllable a lie. And made me more resentful and angry. And let me know that I was right not to have told her/them.
I've waited to blog it. If I haven't learned anything I've learned to wait.
I am, after all, the Queen of Compartmentalization. Wall it away and look at it later when it doesn't evoke the same level of emotion.
So I waited.
Now I can say what I haven't except to a couple of very trusted people.
I've never known what to believe... my mother who, in her younger years before my brother and sister, was an amazing mom... I always felt protected and loved with her. After marriages 2 and 3, not so much. After her third, she lost it. Depression so deep she couldn't get out of bed. So I cared for my brother and sister like she should have. And learned for the first time in my life to truly resent my mother. The selfish side of her that I was left with in the wake of her third divorce.
Because of all of that, I always felt like a parent to my brother and sister, rather than their sibling. Which was ok. Until all of this.
When they turned their backs on my granddad, it truly felt like they'd turned their backs on me. I didn't blame them. I understood why. But Jesus, Mary and Joseph it fucking crushed me.
Within the year after my mother and siblings turned their backs on my granddad, he mentioned on one of my visits (he lived 3 hours away, irrelevant), that he intended to cut them out of his estate. Shortly thereafter, on a visit to my mother (5 hours away, also irrelevant), she asked if he had cut her and them out of his will. I told her I didn't know. It made me angry that she asked me; put me in a shitty position, put me on the spot. Then, some months later, my sister and I were talking and she commented asking essentially the same thing... and I told her. That he'd mentioned it. But that I had no idea if he'd followed through. It made me angry my mother put me in that position asking so I said I didn't know, but my sister was another matter; I trust her and love her so I told her.
A few months later, at my Christmas visit to my granddad, he mentioned he'd gotten a card from my mother. The first contact in over 2 years.
A message addressing her accusations? A letter damning him?
Nope.
A Christmas card. Seriously. A Christmas card.
::blinkblink:: What the FUCK?!
More followed over the years. Every one made me angrier and more resentful towards my mother than I already had been. Because yes, I felt like it was monetarily motivated.
And then, years of physical, mental and emotional agony for him later, he finally died.
And then my mother's angry sounding message. Which made me angry. Jesus, the circle is vicious.
And in the 7 months since he died?
I've pushed it away. My mother has returned to "normal". Calling. Wanting to spend time. Wanting to be close.
At first I resisted. I was sooo fucking raw.
Now, not so much. In my universe, I've had enough time to begin to heal and to let it go. Mostly. Enough so I can return her calls and talk with genuine affection to her. I had to. If I didn't want to let it all eat me alive inside, I had to. For my OWN sake and sense of well-being, I had to.
Because besides learning to wait and watch in this life, I've learned that I have to forgive and move on. Not forget, I don't forget. It makes me smarter. But I can forgive and move on so that I am not eaten with the negative emotion that comes with hurt.
And if 7 months has let me heal this much, then I know I'll heal as totally as is humanly possible in time.
Because you see, in my universe, I've learned to dance. And wait. And watch. Just ask my friend Ericka.
No comments:
Post a Comment