Saying Goodbye the Hard Way

 My mother-in-law passed away last Wednesday. I have had a very challenging relationship with her. Since the day we met, she never quite warmed to me. Nor I to her. I have written and deleted many blogs about the little hurts, perceived offenses, and overall poor quality of our communication. When you marry the oldest and favorite son to an undiagnosed narcissist… it’s guaranteed to have some highs and lows. But her choices finally caught up to her and her liver failed a month ago, bringing her in and out of the hospital and finally… took her life just after New Year’s. My husband knew she wasn’t doing well and bought a plane ticket home, realized she was worse than he thought and moved his ticket up… and was in the air when I got the news that she passed away. We kept the news from him while he traveled, but after he landed and was picked up by his brother, he finally heard the news. It was devastating. He didn’t make it in time to say goodbye, but he wasn’t with our little family either. So he was just… at sea in his loss. 

   What do you do when someone you struggled with trusting… is just gone? She was complicated. She loved my husband and our children and loved me in a way as well. She had her traumas and her demons. I think even if she had been a healthy person, our personalities would have clashed anyway. Her sense of humor was different than mine… she was a fan of schadenfreude. Her love languages were different than mine. Her communication style was different than mine. She prided herself on being direct… but I never experienced that. All I experienced were long-held grudges I’d hear about secondhand. 

   But when times were good and she chose to love me instead of resent me, we got along well. And when someone loves your kids, its easy to look past personal slights. Towards what turned out to be the end of her life, she was never really around. She was drunk or hiding a majority of the time. Part of me thought it was me she was avoiding. But really, she was just battling her own demons. 

   Since she’s passed, there’s this expected sense of sadness, but also some anger, which has caught me by surprise. She never let me address anything. We never had a real conversation. We never bridged the gaps. I loved her in a way. She could be very generous. When she wanted to get along, she was fun to be around. She always had the latest family gossip. She’s my kids’ grandmother. She was always available for my husband. But in a lot of ways, it will be easier to visit my husband’s family. No more weird tension and resentment. No more thinly veiled “jokes”. No more boundary-pushing. But no closure either. 

   A family friend of my husband, a woman around my age who grew up with my husband and is practically family, has been posting a lot on facebook about her sorrow over losing my mother-in-law. Beautiful posts about who she was and how loving she was and how much of a mentor and spiritual advisor she could be to this girl. And I can’t help but feel angry.

    I’m angry about this girl’s version of my MIL. I’m angry that she never was that person with me. I’m angry that she never tried to mentor or guide or love me or my sister-in-law in a way that felt genuine. I’m mad that she guarded herself against me when I never wanted to be her enemy. I’m angry that she blamed me for problems that were either her’s, my husband’s, or some combo of all of us. I’m angry that she left behind good memories with people who barely knew her or people used to know her, and left resentment and unaddressed problems with people who were close with her. I’m mad that so many of us have started looking at ourselves as the problem when she wouldn’t let any of us in, not really. I’m mad that I can’t be completely sad. I don’t want to be angry with a dead person. But nothing was ever resolved. She held people who should have been close at arms length. And treated people who were further removed like close friends. 

   I’m mad that she was so secretive, close friends didn’t even know she was sick. No one deserves to lose someone the way we’ve all lost my mother-in-law. 

    I’m mad that my husband never did anything. He never stood up to her for herself or for me. He listened to her when she listed her laundry list of complaints about me. He leaned into her enabling of his selfish behavior. He copped out until he didn’t have to deal with it anymore. I’m mad that he blames himself because even if he HAD said the hard things, she probably wouldn’t have changed. And it makes me so mad that I thought I’d have more time. Why didn’t I just say what needed saying when it needed to be said? Why did I hide or gossip behind her back or smile and overshare until I lost it over stupid shit because I was never really genuine with her… why didn’t I lean into the freedom of being labeled a black sheep in her mind and just be myself and stop trying to conform to her impossible standards? 

    I wish my kids were sad she’s gone. But after we moved to California, she never really engaged with them. And towards the end of her life, for about two years, she barely came around at all and I avoided going to see her. And since we moved to Germany, she never called to talk to them, never video chatted. She would chat with my husband trying to force an emotional connection, secretive phone calls that would end if she knew I was in the room… and she never asked about the kids. So when I told them she was gone… they took it in stride. My oldest only got emotional when she talked with her grandfather and knew he was sad. 

   How do you let someone go… how do you grieve… when you were never allowed to get close? 

I'm not who I want to be today

 I feel at odds with who I want to be and how I want to act. I feel like I have no chill, no patience, no kindness. Any kindness I do give is fake and forced. I want to be alone, disassociated all the time. I stay up way too late and then I'm resentful and grumpy in the morning. I force myself to do too much and then act put upon when someone asks more of me. I don't ask for what I need, because I'm not even sure I know what that is. Ducky is always asking me if she's done something wrong. She apologizes for nothing. And its my fault. I know it is. I snap too quickly. I overreact before I can get a handle on what's actually happening. My unpredictability causes anxiety and clinginess in my kids, which turns around and overwhelms me, so I ping-pong back and forth between too sweet and overly obliging, and a harshness that comes out of nowhere over basically nothing-annoyances. I want too much from my poor husband, who's struggling to understand, but wants so desperately to help. I only feel normal for a few hours out of the day. I have horrible bedtime revenge because I just want to belong to myself again. Disengaged doesn't begin to explain my inability to pay attention to my kids and their self-esteem. I feel like I'm ruining them and my relationship with them because I can't keep it together. I also feel so grossed out its all on me. My husband is here, trying. But ultimately, its all on me. I am their safe-place, their... I don't even know the words to explain everything I'm SUPPOSED to be because I feel so faraway from being that person. And yet they follow me around. I can't ever be alone. even if I'm in the same room with them, its never close enough. I have at least two of them ON MY BODY at all times and I feel so DONE. I don't want to hate this. I know I'm going to miss these years when they're over. But this phase is hard. Not having a home, not having a support system, not feeling comfortable outside of the base. I have no options because I can't drive, I don't have a car, I couldn't feel confident going anywhere alone or with all of the kids. So I'm just stuck here feeling like a failure.

Heartache

 Give up everything. 

Say goodbye to everything. 

God is better at planning than you,

So be ready to give it all up. 

Plan for everything. 

Schedule and hope and wish and build

But be ready for change. 

Be ready for change that rips your heart out. 

Say goodbye to everyone. 

Hold nothing higher than His plan. 

Because when your plans change, 

and your heart breaks…

Don’t blame God. 

Embrace that this was always the plan. 

And something better and more beautiful

Will come from this. 

I’m sorry Frank. I didn’t do right by you. I failed you. And I loves you so much. Lord, please have a better plan for my furry little family member. This hurts, so bad. 

Adventures

 My poppa died yesterday. There is a photo in his home with him, his brother and sister, and their spouses. No one is left in that photo. They’ve all passed on. Poppa’s brother died earlier this year. He was ten years older than him. Its hard not to feel like Poppa had ten more years if he wasn’t surrounded by such hateful negativity and enraged bitterness. His second wife was not a happy person. He was so sick, so put upon by his wife, so ready to go be with Nanny. I’m sad that he’s gone, but I also can’t help but feel peaceful and relieved that he’s not suffering anymore. There have been so many miracles around him and his life and this year is no different. But the end of this story is the happiest ever told because he gets to go be with Jesus and Manzi and Nanny. I’m a little bit jealous. But my heart is also aching from the gigantic gapping hole his death leaves in our lives.  

We leave for the airport tomorrow at 3:30am and I’m so scared. Am I doing the right thing? How are we going to get through this transition? Germany is such a new and intimidating experience. I don’t know how to rise to the challenge. I just have to put one foot in front of another and live the adventures Poppa always told me about. 

The things he got to experience, the life he lived, they were magical. Traveling and living in other countries, expanding his whole world, there wasn’t a place he couldn’t make home. I want to be open like that. I want to find home for my little family. I hope its right back here. But maybe that’s close-minded of me. Especially with my grandparents passing away, maybe there’s no cornerstones to build upon. Maybe we can be the cornerstones and my family will follow us to some exotic destination. 

I feel silly for even thinking it. I just want one more mustachioed spikey kiss. One more, “I brought some candies for the kids.” More more afternoon sitting around playing with my babies who favored him so much. 

Peace. That’s what I need. I need to feel peaceful.

Seperation

     My parents are separating. 

    After years of hoping and praying the cycle would end and we could all have some peace, here we are, at the edge of the end. 

    Why do I feel so sad? Why do I feel so defeated? I'm 31 years old and I know that its time for her to let his narcissistic butt go and learn to regulate on her own. And yet I still feel like a 12 year old wishing that all the love stories were real, that my dad cared about other people more than himself and that he would change, not just for her and for us, but for himself. He's not a bad person. He's just so self-protective against some imaginary rejection that it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy and he pushes everyone away. And he's finally managed to push away the one person who has stuck by him through everything. Loss, death, job insecurity, borderline homelessness, and so many disappointed dreams. 

    My siblings are done with him. The only friends he has are addicts and depressed, and as he is on his journey to sobriety, I doubt they will stay in his life for long. Why do I still feel the need to justify my father? To hold his mental health as a personal priority?

     I am married with three children of my own, about to move to another country and I feel so lost because my parents aren't one unit anymore. I'm scared of all the changes coming. But I'm even more scared everything will be undone and it will go right back to how it was before. With my father relapsing, if he starts making all the right empty promises to my mom, and if she starts believing them. I want her to come with me, to get away from the possibility of reconciling. But she has a whole life here that she can't get away from. A sick father, a job that relies on her, friends and church and community responsibilites. I think its one of the things that gives her the strength to not be lonely. And to finally see my father as the anchor around her neck that has been weighing her down for years. But when she's still here, still available... I worry that he might manipulate his way back in to being taken care of again.

     But he seems just as done. She took him off his pedestal and has no interest in putting him back on it, and he wants nothing less than admiration. Not love. Not even respect. But complete admiration. Because he is, after all, the smartest one in the room at all times (in his opinion). 

    Why does this VERY RIGHT, VERY CORRECT, and LONG-TIME COMING change... make me so sad? Not just that... it makes me doubtful of my own marriage's ability to last? My marriage to a completely different man. My marriage that has never been the rose-colored glasses marriage my mother's was. My husband has a reliable job and provides us opportunities that I never could have dreamed of growing up in poverty. Things like... Owning a house. I know. A millennial who owns a house. Its unheard of. Not only that, but I'm able to be a stay-at-home mom. My husband continually sacrifices so that our kids can have everything they could need or want, to keep us all safe. And unlike my father, shows up for student-teacher conferences and plays, and birthday parties, and listens as the kids make up songs and put on fashion shows and tells them how much they are loved because of who they are and not how they make him look. 

    My husband is not my father. And I am not my mother. And the traumas I went through will not be my children's. And yet the fear lingers and the sorrow follows me and I am scared of the future.

New Adventures Ahead

 We are 45 days away from the biggest scariest move of my whole life. We are about to pack up all three of our beautiful babies, a cat and a big lovably dumb dog and fly to Germany where we will live for the next 3 years. I am very excited (aufregend) and very stressed (stressig). We prayed over this change every step of the way. There were many unknowns and everything was up in the air for a while. But we got our answer and now we prepare to completely change our lives. I don't know what to think, how to feel, what to plan for. I don't know what the weather is like, how our cell phones will work, what kind of house we'll live in, how to interact casually with locals... I have heard is very different. I don't know how to enroll my oldest into a new school... when to do that or how to do anything. I'm so scared of the future but I also don't know that there is anything to be scared of.

    People keep telling me that I have to take advantage of being over there while we're in Europe and see as much as I can while there. But that thought freaks me out. I don't speak any other language besides English and even that I don't speak clearly enough to be understood. I just feel like I'm going to try to do what I can, take a few opportunities, but mostly just try to survive. Traveling with three little kids just to another state is stressful enough, let alone another country where they don't speak the same language. I do want to take my train-lover on some train rides, and I promised my oldest Duck that we would try to see Paris. But other than that, I'm going to stick pretty close to my bubble. At least that's how I feel about it right now. We'll see once I get there. 

    My husband is actually doing a new job for the USAF, with slightly different responsibilities so there's a pretty big possibility that I will be alone a lot more. At least 4 times a year, if not more. He will be deploying and going on trainings pretty regularly. I'm not looking forward to that, but I will cross each bridge as I come to it. I'm so nervous. I don't know what I don't know. I just wish I had someone to talk to who's been there and knows how to do this. I've never even been on a rotator before. And I'm worried about my dog because he didn't actually get one of the very limited pet spots on the plane, so I have to send him out later on a different flight, or possibly with my parents when they come to visit shortly after I get there. And then I have to fly back all by myself in November for one of my very best friends' wedding... So I have to be there for that, and flying alone freaks me out, especially from another country that doesn't speak my language!!!! I don't know how to do any of this stuff. Lord be with me. I'm so fearful. 

    I am learning Deutsch to try to prepare for this change. And I do know that a lot of German people speak English. It doesn't change the fear though. Not many people do something like this and no one really has any advice for me. Not in my family, anyway. I just have to do it and when I'm on the other side, be proud of myself for surviving. 

Baby Book is Complete

     How did this happen? When did my first baby become a child? I have reached the end of her baby book. There are no more pages to fill out. No more infant-firsts, no more baby experiences to be had by my oldest. 

    She is in school. I know she will have many more firsts, but the infant time, the baby time, the toddler time... are all memories. I wouldn't say the time flew by. But it passed with an aching speed that I fought and held on to, cursed and blessed, railed against and reveled in. I cannot believe her baby book is full.

     Her legs are so long now. I can still carry her. She still wants endless snuggles and asks if she can sleep with mommy and daddy. I still catch her sneaking into my bed in the early hours of the morning. She's brimming with bat facts, obsessed with "Teeniepings", and resolutely dedicated to the color purple. She's a picky eater, and a warrior for animals, insisting all things should be taken care of, even sharks. But not ants. She hates ants. There's no page in her baby book for that though. 

   How can it be full? How is there not a page for her 10th birthday? Her first day of high school? Her wedding day? How can the first day of Kindergarten mark the last day of having her be my baby? I can't wrap my head around it. I have so much babying left to do. 

   Will she let me grab her and snuggle her like this in a year? What will her first day of 1st grade look like? Will we live here? My husband Petal has already applied to move overseas. What if we're somewhere in Europe? Or in the tropics? How come there's no page in the baby book for moving? 

   Will we remember everything about these years living at home? What if she forgets because there's nothing to hold on to? I remember everything about my childhood because I lived in my childhood home until I was an adult. What if she doesn't have that? She already doesn't remember where she was born. She was only 2 when we moved here. How can we move again? 

    Are we making the right choices for her, or is this selfish? I wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew what to look out for... what was important to remember... but there are no more pages in her baby book. No more memories to fill in. No more predetermined questions for me to discover the answers to. I just have to... figure it out, I guess.