Family, My Family

I can't believe it! I really can't. Finally! My mother found a way to apologize to me about the things she thought of me, and said about me to others. It only took her to pass away and bug me for six months from the great beyond until she got to learn the truth about her most difficult child.

In the nuttiest of shells, it goes a little something like this. My mother died this past December. Ever since then, she has been pestering me when I sleep. Coming to me in dream format. It started the first week of January. About ten days after she passed. She appeared three times that month, and all of them were basically the same.

It was nothing more than her getting in my face, screaming and yelling at me. She was very angry. She was angry because I didn't come to visit her in her last remaining days to say goodbye. She was also angry that I didn't attend her wake, or her funeral. Hell, it's been six months and I haven't even been to her grave, even though I do know where she is buried. I also explained to her, eventually, that I said my goodbyes when she was still alive.

In the first dream, I explained to her that I was angry as well. I was mad because when she found out that August that she had cancer, she failed to pick up the phone and notify me. She failed to reach out and fix our relationship. The one that SHE broke.

I knew why she did it. Or in this case, didn't do it.

It was because not once in her life has she ever apologized to me for anything. In our head to head collisions, that began after I joined the Army Reserve, she also had never reached out to me first to try and fix things. I was the one who had to do that. I never understood it because she was always the one who flamed the fires, and attacking me, and yet I had to be the one to be the bigger person or else she and I would have never had a relationship of any kind. 

I now find myself regretting that. In fact, the last time she and I spoke, which was on the phone, (and yes, I reached out to her) I told her that I regretted that. I went as far as to tell her that I regretted  ever coming back to Ohio after my Navy days were done. I told her that if I could do it over again, knowing then what I know now, I would have stayed in the Navy for at least another two years, or maybe gone to California to pursue my writing ambitions. Or perhaps have stayed in Norfolk, Virginia.

Anything would have been better than doing it the way I did it.

I think that may have broken her heart. Good! Now she knew how I felt all these years when she would break mine. I never was good at revenge. Maybe that's because I hated it. But she had to know the truth. Mostly because she asked me if I had any regrets in life. If you don't want to hear the answer, then don't ask the question.

So, for the three dreams she came to me in, we stood face to face arguing. She wanted to know certain things about my military life and other mysteries about me that she found intriguing. One thing, among many, was she wanted to know if I was gay. I told her, "No."

She went down a list and I answered each one. I found it odd that she never asked me these things when she was alive. And I had a few things I wanted to ask her in return. She struggled in her replies. Often times stuttering. By the third dream, I told her not to come to me in her angry fashion anymore. She had plenty of opportunities to ask me anything when she was alive, but she failed to do so for whatever her reasons.

It was too late for her and I to fix anything between us. The reasons are no longer important to me. Basically, I was telling her to stay away from me. It was over, and there was nothing more she and I need to discuss.

Then came February, and with it, three more dreams. Only in these dreams, she didn't confront me. Each of the dreams were nothing more than her snooping around me and my friends. We were always gathered at a house familiar to me. All of my friends, living or deceased, were there.  We were doing nothing more than chit chatting quietly. I was talking to a couple of my friends when I noticed my mother sitting on a chair in the short distance with her ear turned in my direction. I had to softly tell my friends to ignore her. And whatever they did, do not speak to her about me. She was just trying to 'dig up some dirt' on me. She was trying to figure a few things out.

From March to a few days ago, she continued to pry, and a few times, 'set me up' with various scenarios. Apparently, I passed her "tests" with flying colors. In all, it led to one thing, that she now realizes that she was wrong about me in many, many ways. She finally has gotten to see the truth about me, and what I stand for in this life. She now knows who I am. She now sees how wrong she was in her life regarding what she thought about me, and who I am in this world. She also realizes now the force behind my writing.

I finally understand a few things, too. First, she never wanted me to leave the military. She enjoyed talking about her kids, and she really loved to tell people that one of her kids was in the military. When I left, she could no longer say that. I had to explain to her that it was, after all, my life to do with what I wanted.

Now she finally gets it.

I also learned that she did not care one bit about my writing. In fact, she confessed to me that she hated it. She blamed my leaving the military on the writing. But like I mentioned earlier, she now has come to see the force behind it, and she is okay with it. But now it is too late for me to give a shit about what she thinks.

We have made peace.

However, I told her that I did not want her 'visiting' me or 'checking in, or on' me any longer. She needs to spend her afterlife time on the three other kids that she loved more than me. And on her grandchildren. I want to be left alone. I have no plans on joining her when I die. I plan to go my own way, and do my own thing. You see, I have the heart of a Joan of Arc, but the soul of a gigolo.

My mother finally sees this, but it's too bad she didn't see it when she was alive. Our many fall-outs would have been avoided if only she had trusted / respected me a little bit more. Sometimes we let our pride get in the way of the truth.

She was a prideful woman.

But it is true, she cared more about her other three kids than she did me. There was a pecking order, no matter how many times she would have said, and maybe did say, that she had no favorites. She was only fooling herself, and she was never fooled.

She has now promised to let me be.

I thanked her for the wonderful childhood she gave to me, and those are the memories I choose to carry with me until, and when I pass over. A journey that I may be closer to than I would ever admit.

My horse is already saddled up, and I am ready to ride.

As for my siblings, we still are not in contact with each other. They have insulted me, disrespected me, and they believe everything is all my fault. You can't fix a relationship with people who think they are better than you, and you are to blame for everything. And so it would appear that we will never speak again to each other in this life, the afterlife, or the next life. At least I hope we never do. I have no plans to hang around them in any time or dimension. We just don't mix. They have made it clear that they don't give a monkey shit about me, and I have had to learn to not give a monkey shit about them.

Meanwhile, I am still exploring. I am trying to find something that I failed to find in this life. Maybe I will find it in the afterlife, or maybe I will need to return to this world in my next life and hopefully, find it then. And what is it that I am trying to find?

That's for me to know ... and something my mother finally understands.