My routine visit with Mom last week was probably one of the better ones that we have shared over this past decade. We had insightful and meaningful conversations about spiritual paths or our individual personal growth. The cornerstones of our journeys may be vastly different yet the ebb and flow are quite similar. Everything dovetails evolving into a new level of consciousness.
At the age of 94, she is still seeking endless and desperate forgiveness from her interpretation of “God”. I attempted to soften this non-stop self-punishment in a digestible language for her. At the same time, I encouraged her to find her spiritual tribe for where she is at in this moment of her life. A place where her version of nourishment is met and community is felt. It is not for me to decide where that is or may look like. Yet healthy encouragement was made.
One of the most difficult things to do as a human being. Who holds polar opposite beliefs about the process of life with an aging parent. Is to set aside our views and communicate fully from a place of compassion. The suffering and shame that they may be experiencing as they count down the years on the clock are overwhelming and often unnecessary.
Some insight leaked out through our 4-hour conversation. I finally understand in better detail how she and my father met and the circumstances to why they married. She spoke fondly of him, this was another first for my ears. A gentle reflection on those early more youthful dates felt warmly shocking to hear after decades of understandable disdain for each other on both their parts. Alcoholism was largely a part of his life in those more innocent times. She acknowledged the red flags yet highlighted that he was a gentleman with her. Describing with affection dinner dates and safe rides home.
I learned how her grandmother whom she held on a pedestal passed. By way of strangled intestines, a result of a prolonged and untreated hernia. She died dramatically one Thanksgiving, the year undisclosed. This is when mom decided to marry my father. It was her grandmothers wish to see her safe and married before she passed. The death was unexpected, the wish fulfilled, and since mother was to be tossed out into the streets as the house was willed to an auntie. An immediate solution had to be found, hence marriage. Much of this story in itself is another tale for another time.
Portions of her memory are selective. Especially in regard to her two brothers and how and where they lived. I understand trauma and generational trauma more than I would like. This understanding allows me to have a bit of insight into her own mind and nervous system. Unconscious selective memories make life more digestible. I try. to remember that, especially traumatized people of a certain age didn’t have the word trauma as part of their accessible vocabulary. CPTSD & PTSD have not yet been part of popular culture at the time. Not to mention the many tools and autonomy that we are fortunate to have today.
Oddly, I learned more about her potent yet understandable fear of men, distrust of women, and fear of most everything in life. Essentially she was a girl then woman who felt unsafe in all the realms of her perceived reality, with everyone and everything. So many topics began to make sense as the day went on.
She shared with me for the first time how she performed her entire catechism in Bohemian. As this was a language she knew from her mother’s side of the family (I had no idea the language existed in the family). She spoke of her years at St. Agnes of Bohemia Catholic church on the south side of Chicago. She expanded on previous conversations about the tears she shed over the possibility of attending a co-ed high school. Pleading with her grandmother to allow her attend an all girls Catholic high school. As boys meant “trouble” for girls, leaving them pregnant and unclean. As the boys would step away without responsibility, a message endlessly massaged into her by her grandmother. Her panic prevailed and she was allowed to ride a trolley to an all-girls school where she could feel slightly safer. Her grandmother footed the bill “she paid for everything” she said, a new blouse when needed, underwear, and tuition.
She spoke favorably for the first time of the nuns and their admiration for her speaking/reciting in Bohemian with greater ease than the rest of the girls. She also flashed back recounting once more the hours of endless rosaries desperately recited, both day and night as a young girl. Often waking from traumatized slumber with broken beads in her bed from praying so hard in her sleep that the rosaries would snap. A result of relentlessly having pumped into her soul the lies that she was a bad and dirty girl. I breathed through these stories, some old, some new, some told in fuller detail. My heart ached thinking how messed up things must have been for her and my uncles.
A soft, profound, and meaningful apology arouse at one point. “I am so sorry for what I did to you boys”. meaning my brothers and I. She has apologized and tried to make amends over the years for many of the events from our childhood. Often followed by words or actions counter to healing, mean and spiteful leaving my brothers and me hurt or confused. This time I kept in mind that I believe that she genuinely is sorry. At the same time, an ancient reflex will mostly kick in, and when something hateful is said I try to remember it is only an old pattern or habit.
I try to make room for all the parts of her as I do for myself these days. After all, a hurt person who has been unhappy and fearful for many decades, who believes betterment is either not accessible or deserved will most likely lash-out. When unexamined rage, hurt and anger are left untreated they shall arise in many forms. A seeping wound is still infectious no matter how many bandages of denial are applied. Or “rebuking the devil in mind” through prayer and begging.
I expressed some of my thoughts. When coaching clients I often say “It is easier than you think”. Meaning, the work can be incredibly challenging to do, actually at times very difficult. But living as a healthier person is easier and more accessible than you may think. Especially when you never knew it was even possible. Children of CPTSD do not know there is a different way to live. Trauma normalizes the abnormal, as the saying goes. Just because it was normal for you, does not mean it is or was normal. When we heal and I still hold future hope in mind for my mother in her own range of comfortably. I hope that who she can become (at peace) is worth it, this is what is easier, brighter, kinder, and more fulfilling. Again many do not believe they are even worthy of change or happiness in any appropriate way.
Gosh, there is so much that took place through words and space. A few hours could easily fill chapters in a book. All the above and more if flushed out more gracefully could be quite moving. The older I grow the more I see how much she and I are alike. Only in different stages of change and attainable capacity. More importantly, each day I see that we are the sums of the stories we are sold. We learn of the world and ourselves from our caretakers and systems. For many of us, the unlearning becomes our mortal work. Always unlearning and rewriting what we thought we knew. Much of it never true, about us, the world and all that is. This statement varies in depth and meaning for each of us. We may not be able to choose what we learn as children, especially without adult intellectual abilities. But we can do our best to unravel and weave something new.
Forever
Runty
Empowered Runt Images 