Do you ever wonder who will be the one filling in the details of your story when your not there to do so? I watch this serious this is us. It’s had me reflecting as I watch them seek the story to their parents who have passed on. Who will be telling mine.
Will my children seek out to find out who I was in my lifetime? Before their existence and before they were old enough to remember? Maybe the things that have faded that they want to reignite in their minds.
I hope they see how they brought me from the sadness. My drive was always them. Wondering what the impression I have left on those I have come into contact with was. If it will be told to them one day.
Even from my grandmother I never heard a positive story. Remembering back to my grandma saying that I was just a baby at my parents feet the whole home reeking of the smoke she hated so. She spoke of her anger that day and the rage she projected to my parents. Hearing this story so often as a child and teen it’s set in stone in my brain.
My father’s mother has her story she implanted too. The one of my mom cheating in some hotel next to her work. My grandma playing pi and telling my dad so he could bust in. Beat up everyone and then snatch me back from the floor and run out. Just to leave me behind with someone else later. Her story was to put a bad taste in my mouth about my mom but it always left me feeling more abandoned by him than angry at her.
Will my children be faced with these same stories one day… Someone else’s version of my events. Never was there a longing for me to know the real story. For me to care why they lacked in parents they would have had to one day become parents.
When my mom sat in my yard in her lawn chair hearing of my cancer diagnosis honestly I thought that day she was going to walk into the role of the mother I had always needed. Every word out of her mouth was saying she would. “I want to support you and the decision you make” ” I want to be involved with my grandkids and build on our relationship. Sleepovers and time together.” It was all just words and none came true. In fact I think she let me down more after that than she ever had because I truly believed that day I was going to have a mom.
The last Christmas at my Mom’s home I realized was the very last time I would ever willingly allow her to hurt me. Or watch her hurt my children. When I did that I decided her story as to why she couldn’t be what I needed was not important. Before that I always had this thought that her struggles must have truly been to much for her to be a mom. That Christmas left me knowing that her story was hers and not mine. I didn’t care as it never became part of mine. She isn’t a part of my life.
No longer was I yearning to understand how she could have allowed me to go through so much pain as a child. How she could not have ever gotten me help. Cause there isn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t do to help mine. I’d die before knowing they were homeless… not eating…. alone… I’d take my last fucking breath before I would know their home was being emptied onto a street. Their children’s belongings being grabbed up by strangers. There is not a mountain I wouldn’t move for my kids on their worst day. I can’t find a flaw in my kids. Not one. I rest assured that I am not her. No matter how my story is told to the kids they will never think they were not loved.