With all the exclusion, the dysfunction, heartache and sadness, I still miss mom.
Im sad she never got to meet my granddaughters, her great granddaughters.
She never got to tell me how she felt inside, for the rest of my life I have to sit and guess how she really felt about me and a lot of other unresovled feelings I still have. I have to investigate every moment we had together. Maybe the truth is waiting for me to be found, somewhere? Some days I can feel the burning inside of my chest, the tears well up in my eyes, and I have the deepest, most unbearable ache I have ever felt, knowing I will never see her again.
I did find voicemails mom left on my old cell phone. When I accidentally stumbled upon them I felt absolutey sick to my stomach, I felt hysterical inside. She left me a lot of voicemails as her memory became much worse. She would call me when I was on my way to see her as she would forget that I was even coming. I played the voicemails, I heard her voice, and it was the most painful thing I've done since watching her take her last breath. I listened to all of them, one by one, hoping to find the answers, maybe she said something of importance? When alive, I kept waiting, day after day, for her to say something special to me, hoping she would give me the anecdote for the years of abuse I endured. A secret I never knew, or something so earthshattering that I would be able to say, "I understand" and not feel this way another moment in my life.
What did my life mean to mom? Did she find it hard to feel the same way for me as she did her own birth child? It sure felt that way to me, and I was like a little child, waiting on each and every word that came out of moms mouth.... up until she passsed away. My heart wants to believe that she loves me, but the reality of it all was that she struggled to have those feelings for me, I felt it, my husband felt it, as well as our grown children. They feel as though they grew up without a grandmother, and feel mom had no voice, no opinion, and sadly...she did not. She sat and allowed a lot of unfavorable things to happen, to be honest there was a lot of things she did not do that hurt just as much. These unfavorable things continued to happen up until she couldnt remeber much due to dementia.
My sister had said to me before mom passed, that I had the issues regarding adoption, insinuating that I had the problem. I stopped her in her tracks, I told her very bodly, that NO...I did not have the issues, it was moms and the rest of the family that had the issues. Why else did all this ugliness happen over the years, up until our niece got married recently? After her weddding, I checked out, I distanced myself from all of them both physically and emotionally as best as I could. I had to see mom at my sisters house until she passed away, so I had to keep things somewhat mellow. I have to say here, that regardless if other family members refuse to recognize what they are saying and doing , exclusion stinks, its paralyzing, its past devastating.
I see what it's done to our grown children, they have endured more than their fair share of disappointents with this family. They have all become so used to behaving this way, that it's normal to them. And sadly I blame my parents for this. Mom never had an opinion about anything and would say, everyone is different. That was her way of saying she refused to step up to the plate and make things right within our family. I still cant believe my nephews eulogy stated that my mom never did a wrong thing in her life. It was then that I fully understood he, my niece and sister did have a different grandmother/mother . How do I continue within this family when I feel so deeply different than the rest of them? I cant speak the truth around any of them. I have to listen and keep quiet and have little to no words from my mouth. I feel like this adoption sentence may last a lifetime if I don't find a way to unbury myself from the emotional wreckage I have been left with since mom has left this earth.
