** Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and perhaps share advice. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. :-)
Just some musings about family today.
Especially since tomorrow is Mother's Day: I always intend to call my mom regularly, but I forget to. Hopefully you all are much better than me at keeping in touch with your mom if she's living, and your grandmas if they are living too (I'm not even reliable about sending my grandmother a card at Christmas). Or whoever in your life is cheered and comforted to hear from you.
I did call Mom today though. Our relationship used to be full of anxieties and pain and it was miserable talking to her on the phone, but it's gotten a lot better over time. We have actual conversations now, that are relaxed and pleasant and productive.
My dad and I on the other hand have an even poorer history. We've made some gestures of mutual forgiveness and peace in the past few years, but we really do not talk at all. He and I are both shy, but he's so much so toward me that he won't stay on the phone long enough to really say anything. We may have only talked a total of ten minutes in the 6 years since I moved away. I don't crave conversation with him, or know what I'd want to say, but there's a hole in my heart where there's supposed to be a dad. He doesn't know how to be, and I don't know how to be his daughter. I don't think we even know each other anymore.
Well, Mom told me today that Dad has several spots of melanoma, skin cancer. Mom worked as office support for a cancer research lab for many years so this is something she knows about. If it's been caught early enough the spots can be removed and he may be fine, but if the cancer has metastasized and spread, he's in trouble.
I'm contemplating the wound in my heart, and also the deterioration and suffering of bodies as people age and get sick, and the grief I have once or twice glimpsed in Dad that he was not a better father and that he and his children are alienated. My whole family was emotionally abusive with each other, and I fled and haven't been back, and have really become a different person. But, like so many other people before me I guess, I've come to realize that it was a part of my own heart I fled from. I am not really whole in myself unless I am whole in my relationship with my family. It's so hard, and you never know how long you will have to do it.
But, I have hope...
So what part of your life needs some hope?