Daughtering ~ Grief ~ Substance

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The last few days I've been rather....delicate.

This is the first Christmas without both my parents alive, the first Christmas where the house I was raised in is now in someone else's hands.

So many thoughts run through my mind as I write this.  I want to go off on a tangent about my visit to that house some weeks ago.  I met the new owner.  She is lovely, heart-filled, and absolutely adores that old house. She is young, in her early 20's.  It's her first home-purchase. I shared with her some history about the house and about Mom and Dad.  She works as an occupational therapist and was keenly aware of what that house represented to my father and the work it took for him to be able to stay at home all those years after his wreck.

Yet, to write of that tangent, I avoid writing the thoughts of Mom, the thoughts I went through this morning as I talked with my counselor.  I no longer hire counseling on a regular basis, but I needed some help. He had an opening this morning.

I wasn't a bad daughter, though in my teen years I was a wild one.  There was a period of time in my late teens that I would "bark" at Mom.  I can't remember what about, but I know I did at times.  On the other hand, as far as I recall, my parents never said, "I/we love you," to me; not until after I first said it to them.  That was shortly after I became a Christian when I was eighteen years old. I decided I should tell my parents I love them because the Bible commanded to honor thy mother and father.

Then I recall I told them those words again when I was in the 10th Way Corps at Emporia, Kansas.  It seems Mom had had surgery, a thyroid removal, and I told her over the phone that I loved her.  I was on the pay phone in the top floor of Owens Hall, the dormitory at The Way College named after Ermal Owens, the first Vice-President of The Way. Mom, Dad, and I more regularly exchanged those three words after Dad's accident.

I wasn't a bad daughter.

In 1995, Mom called me before her suicide attempt. She could have called someone else but she didn't.  She must have called me because she felt I wouldn't hold judgement over her or something; the point is, of all people she called me.  And I did go to her rescue; I think that's what most folks would do.  The doctors at the hospital said she would have died had someone not come to her aid; she'd taken enough pills to do the deed.

I wasn't a bad daughter.

I used to massage Mom's feet when I'd go to visit her in the years after Dad died; he died in 1996.  I'd soak Mom's feet in warm water, massage them with lotion, and then (to the best of my ability) cut those thicker-than-thick toenails.  Mom enjoyed that.  I cut her fingernails too, and would massage her hands with lotion. Mom or Dad had never hugged me that I recall, so we didn't hug.  I did stroke her head some and brush her hair in her elderly years.  I'd sit with her. I didn't clean up about Mom's house often; but sitting with her and massaging her feet probably meant more, huh?

I wasn't a bad daughter.

January will be one year since Mom passed.  I've still not touched the boxes that are strewn about in my dining room filled with remnants of the house where I grew up.  I tell myself that is understandable as I battle feeling guilty for not having organized it yet, or the rest of my house for that matter.  Since before I had major surgery in August, 2008, I've kind of let the upkeep of the house go. Hubby and son have stepped in to care for some of that.  Perhaps I'll call someone to help me after the first of the year; so I'm not alone.  Maybe I'll do that; maybe not.

Death seems more permanent now since I'm no longer sure of my beliefs regarding eternity.  I guess there is a bit of grief in that too, in the no longer knowing. Perhaps there is more grief in that than I consciously realize.

Grief isn't empty; it reminds me of joy and the substance of life.

I wasn't a bad daughter....

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