March 30, 2009
Okay! Dear Heavenly Father! I woke up from dreaming again about the past – triggered by the family stories I’ve been writing, I guess… questions, questions… trying to figure something out…
“Prayer” keeps coming up… I started to ask You questions, to talk to You, when I woke up… and the moment I did that, I instantly thought, no! I’m going to go back to sleep instead! And I instantly started to relax and was falling, sliding, gliding into oblivion.. and yes, I actually heard YOU calling me back, very quietly, but longingly… okay, so I’m here (and yes, relieved about it… I feel like I’ve been… imprisoned… in a dark no-where-place… not able to think. Like I had a lobotomy or something, only they left just enough, two or three, neurons connected, so that I still knew there was another place… a place I wanted to get to, but I couldn’t.)
This is crazy talk. I’m avoiding talking to You. I’ve probably been avoiding all along…. Okay so here I am. I’ve written all this foolishness when right from the start all I wanted to ask was the question that made me turn on the light and pick up this pen (because if I didn’t I would have forgotten again, lost Your voice, drifted off the sleep… and to avoidance or whatever it is… So here it is…
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME, FATHER?
Norma, my child, I love you.
Father, I know You love me. But I’m afraid. Okay, listen, I know that You love me, I know You are in control. I know all things work out for good, and that You can be trusted. So the crazy thing is – which I suppose means it’s crazy to even feel this way: to think this way – the crazy thing is that I’m not pleased about “possibilities” like having to stay here in this town, having to go back to “our church, Abundant Life” (that particular group, I mean… what about REAL Abundant Life? … that’s You speaking, isn’t it? Okay… so are You saying that You are going to provide “abundant life” for me in the middle of this life that I’ve wanted to escape from?
Listen, I knew I didn’t like this town much (except the beach and downtown walks and praying for the town when I used to do papers, and Sunday soups, and some pretty good friends and some dreams You’ve given me… the things that are really “me” I suppose… so are we back to that? … You know what, I think (of course You know this) I could a lot more easily and happily be hippy-dippy-teenaged-me (like I was looking at myself last night, laying there looking at my brown cords, and snuggly blue hoodie and long straight hair, and thinking, boy, I sure am not a “normal 53 year old woman’… and I asked my son that, and he said I just asked him the same thing – except that I said 52 years old – a minute earlier… which I did not remember asking him: I thought I had just been thinking it…
do You see? My brain, my mind, is drifting! I’m also afraid of getting old, of losing my mind, of getting, yes, demented! I’m afraid that all my writing is useless (and quite possibly stupid and just a little insane… like my mind has been getting the last few days!)… and I’m afraid of moving to Vancouver Island because I’ll be so far away from my other girls in Albertaland… but I’m so lonely here… I miss my girls, I want them all together… and I’ve been flooded lately with old memories… and I cry and I feel like a failure, and guilty… and yes, now I’m at a part in writing the family story where things are about to become more complicated, and maybe I’m afraid to get to that part… just like I’m maybe afraid to get to the teenager part of my childhood stories…
I’m also afraid of being alone… I’ve felt so alone lately…. Even seem “disconnected’ from my husband and son, even though they are right here. Even though my son and I have sat side by side day after day watching those silly TV shows… and at amusing moments looking at each other… smiling… raising our eyebrows… laughing together at the same things… it is nice, and it’s nice to have that connection again after so long… he’s really reaching out to me, I think… but we don’t talk… like we used to when we’d discuss his English or Social Studies assignments, or like when he was home schooling in grade 7.. I’ve felt so disconnected from my girls too…
And okay, here’s the thing: I’m afraid that my body and mind is getting old and breaking down. I’m afraid that the pain in my back isn’t just my slipped disc “acting up” again… I’m afraid that I’ve actually starting cracking my osteoporotic bones… and just as I’m writing this I’m seeing my grandma all bent over in her wheelchair with holes in her face (from the melanoma surgery) and her wig (because she was taking radiation) all askew, and a huge hump on her back (from the osteoporosis), and Grandpa looking at her with love… and my mom going crazy (dementia) and saying and doing nutty, weird, scary things and not making any sense any more and ending up in a nursing home all alone, with even dad not visiting her any more because it made him too tired and hurting when he was dealing with his own terminal cancer, and when she did get visits from me, I wasn’t the sweet, loving daughter I should have been. I was uncomfortable and afraid and she probably knew that… she was, well she seemed to be, a lot happier seeing the nurses than seeing me…
Is this what it’s about, too, Father? Lately I’ve been thinking about her a lot. And feeling sad. And hurt. And scared. And alone. I’ve missed her – missed the mom I had who was young and vibrant and smart and pretty and popular… and then she wasn’t anymore… and I’ve never been like she was (though I wanted to be)… but I’m so afraid of becoming like she became… and I’m afraid You aren’t going to protect me from becoming a little, shriveled up, ugly, sick, pained, lost, alone, shriveled up person in a wheelchair, curled up, lost, scared, unable to communicate, dying in a hospital bed, lost and alone, in a place, a dark, lonely prison place… like my mom with her dementia… and my dad with his cancer… and my grandma with her cancer and osteoporosis… even my grandpa who was one of the most interesting, smart people I ever knew, my hero really, seemed to be kind of losing his mind at the end (well he was 95 years old)… well, my other grandparents didn’t have those problems, grandpa just sat down from a nap and didn’t wake up, 87 years old, nice way to go, eh. And yeah, with my dad it was just the last few weeks of the cancer that just ate him up from the inside so fast till he just disappeared into a shell-body all wizened up, curled up, incommunicable.
But mom was like that for so long. And even her really good friends, lots and lots of them, didn’t want to see her anymore. Well, they wanted to see HER… they didn’t want to see this helpless, lost stranger who was all that was left of her… At least my grandma, with all her sickness, still had her mind and could talk to me sanely and lucidly, even in she was curled up and kind of scary-looking in the wheelchair, sometimes too tired and in too much pain to be able to always talk… but she was still there… but my mom wasn’t… well, sometimes she was, just a glimmer… and those occasional glimmers made me afraid that she was there a lot more than a glimmer after all, and that maybe we just couldn’t see it, and maybe I wasn’t kind and loving (well, I’ve never been, not like her, everybody loved her…) and maybe knew I wasn’t kind and loving… and maybe she was lonely and hurting and alone… and if she was lonely and hurting and alone, and everybody had loved her, how will it be for me (who everybody doesn’t love like they loved her, to start with?)
I do want to leave a mark. I do want to make a difference. I do want to be remembered in a good way. I don’t want to shrivel up and be a problem and then just die and people forget about me, block me out because the end was painful and people just don’t want to think about that. I want my life to count for something good. Useful. Famous, ha ha. Oh what the heck. I just want someone to love me no matter what. To need me. To think I m pretty and fun and smart and useful and bright, like my mom WAS. I don’t want the “was” part. If I’m going to have to become old and tired and in pain and stupid, I want to die now. (And even then, I don’t suppose people will remember me in the happy way they remember her).
I miss my mom, Father. But I don’t want to think about her, because there’s a part of her that I don’t want to be like. And that’s the part that is huge in my mind. A monster in the closet or under the bed just waiting to grab my leg and drag me under, as I turn out the light and leap for the safety of the bed under the blankets, curled up, fetal posture (oh dear…)
I suppose it’s a silly thing to ask.. and I do want your will, not mine… and if it really is Your will, it’s okay. You go ahead and do whatever is best, You know… but Lord, please, if it isn’t “needful” then I’d really appreciate not ending up like that. You know?
(And I WOULD like to live by the ocean… and be a bit of a hippy, You know… and Esperanza or something like that might be nice… I guess my old dreams are still hovering around. But my husband deserves happiness too, and the kids as well. I don’t want to be selfish. And goodness know You’ve already given me far more than most of Your children can ever dream of. So I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be wishing for more, I shouldn’t be “selfish.” The thing is, where does my longing to help others, end, and my longing to be loved and recognized and appreciated, take over?
…. Later…. Feeling much better this morning, after writing all that… so made breakfast, did dishes, tidied living room and kitchen, went to Walmart to get a couple things, home, hubby to sleep, and my son and watched 4 more episodes of House. Then I cleaned the upstairs bathroom and did 3 or 4 loads of laundry. Watched some HGTV. Bible reading… even my prayer book which I’ve been avoiding. Also did book-keeping… I really need to get some income, it seems to me… I’ve been wondering how we can cut expenses… eat more simply, don’t eat out at all, cut off cable TV… But I don’t know, Lord… these are things that hubby enjoys, and after all, he earns the pay cheque. So the only answer that I can see is me getting some work… Wonder what You have in mind??
…. later… man, oh man, the pain is back… big time! too much “feeling better” I guess!
