Monday, February 15, 2010

Funerals, babies and grandmothers

*started writing Monday, 15 February*

It's been a bit of a weird day.
My mother just told me this morning that there would be a funeral later today.
The funeral was for a very close family friend that has been fighting cancer for many many years.
Last week, my mother went to visit her... and just knew.. the end was nigh.
I wasn't expecting to have such an emotional response to it... but here I am... being emotional.

Firstly, this was an amazing woman... so full of life and love and passion.
My mother and her grew up together in Portugal and found each other again in Woodstock (Cape Town) decades later.
We didn't meet often, but when we did.. there was so much love between everyone.
Whenever I met her, she enveloped me with generous hugs and kisses. She made sure that the people she loved knew how she felt.
There is a bit more intricate family history... but suffice to say that she is a close family friend and she will be sorely missed by many people.
RIP Arlindina. xxx

During the service, there was lots of talk about her role as a loving mother. I think that was the part that got to my mother... and me.
When my mother lost her mother, it was a huge loss for her that she will probably never fully recover from. I think you can survive almost anything that life throws at you... but my mother doesn't WANT to. She misses her mother.. she needs her mother.. and, without her, she feels that her life is empty.
I can't say that I will ever be able to understand... until I lose my mother.
Wondering what that would feel like... lead to a lot more emotion than I was prepared for.
But wait.. there's more... *sigh*

I do miss my grandmother too... very very much.
We had a very special bond. I practically lived with her for a few years after a brutal attack at my parents' shop when I was about two. I was too scared to go back to the shop so I stayed with her in Woodstock while my parents worked. Also, during my primary school days, I would often go to her house after school.

Of course... these memories are tainted with memories of my step-grandfather.
I've spent far too many years in therapy and in depression to still have these horrible thoughts about him.
But.. I've been told (nods to Adin) that you cant control your thoughts. So.. I guess all I can do is watch them and try to understand why they're there.
I'm not prepared to discuss that man right now... but I do still hate him.
I thought that I had forgiven him for the things that he did... I don't know anymore.
But I still hate the fact that I wasn't allowed to spend time with my grandmother. He took her away from me.. and I needed her in my life.
I still do.

She was an amazing woman: strong, spiritual, funny, sweet.. generous with all that she had.
We would shop together, sow together, cook together, work in the garden together... pray together.
I also believe that she was a healer. Being a traditional Catholic Portuguese woman, she worked within her frame of reference, but I have seen her use touch therapy to heal sick people.
There were many people that would go see her to be healed.
She was the inspiration to explore the healing arts myself.

She was also the inspiration for my unborn baby.
I'm sorry.. I know that it's silly and ridiculous to still be mourning a 10 week old fetus.
I know there are people that mourn real tragedies... newborn babies, toddlers, real people that die.... *sigh* but still.
I named my baby Rose after my grandmother Rosa. It only really "lived" online in my stumbleupon world... but it lived.
So, yes.. the funeral touched a bit of a nerve around that.
Questions about whether I will ever be a mother still plague me.
Fears that I probably killed my own child still haunt me.
Sadness that it was probably never meant to be... still lingers.
And yes... I wonder if my ex-husband feels any of this pain.
If he ever really cared... If I made the right decision...
What if... what if.. what if...

So.. with all of this...
here I sit.

With these thoughts and fears and tears...
from deep dark places that I dont want to look at...
here I sit.

Here I breathe.
Here... I look up.
Here and now...
I carry on
And keep on walking.

xx