complicated; we do not need our parents to make it more so. Both of my parents made my life hell: My father died when I was sixteen and my mother did try to atone for her behavior. You seem to be more generous with your feelings. I do understand.
As you always have, you have written yet another deeply personal note adding your very personal kind of humour. Loved it!
My mother was charming for many, but could be cruel and toxic at home. She probably still is. Not having her in my adult life or ever as part of my kids' lives is a relief. But more often now, as my kids leave childhood - I read this from the car after our last elementary school Halloween parade - it makes me feel good to do the things she did well.
I hear you. The fall is hard. My dad's birthday was November 20 and his mother's the 21st. She died 3 days after hosting her last Thanksgiving in 1993; he died on October 6, 2020. And my other grandmother died the week before my dad's memorial in 2021, almost a year to the day he died.
Dad was funny and inappropriate, warm and misogynistic. He wasn't there for me much as a kid, but I was his caregiver and proxy for his last 5 years as he fought Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
We try to be honest about who he was with my son, up to a point. It's hard to convey the 1000 tiny stabs when kids are younger.
But we've also decided to celebrate the Day of the Dead and make a day each early November when we can share stories about our ancestors with our son, so that he knows the good and the bad of each of them. And it lets me try to let go during the rest of the year.
I love this - and I think it’s you’re smart to share both the good and bad with your son. My hunch is that when teach kids that almost nobody is all good or all bad, we’re teaching them about both empathy and boundaries.
Because Dad was a storyteller, I really needed stories about him to help with my own trauma from the caregiving. He'd turned into a paranoid, violent person, which wasn't who he was when he was lucid. I needed to remember who he was before all of that -- yes, the bad, but also the laughs and stories of those good times.
As a working librarian now, I made a display last November (again, fall -- fun) on Alzheimer's and used it as a deadline to put together stories about him and photos of him that I'd gathered from friends and family. I used it as a way to encourage other caregivers to make memory books with or for their loved ones to help them remember the past. Since his was created after he died, it's a fairly honest portrayal of how he grew up, his struggles with alcohol and his awful marriage with my mother, and my own stories of what it was like to be a caregiver for him. You can see the photobook on the 3rd shelf in the photograph: https://www.jrblibrarian.com/2022/11/a-library-display-on-alzheimers-disease/
It's another way that helped me process the grief and anger I went through during those last 5 years. I tried to be honest about who he was, and I kept the more inappropriate stories about drunken behavior for when my son is a little older. But it helped a lot to create the book and, again, to let go a bit, knowing that it's there for my son to read and understand more as he gets older.
I read you loud and clear Jane. Life is so f...
complicated; we do not need our parents to make it more so. Both of my parents made my life hell: My father died when I was sixteen and my mother did try to atone for her behavior. You seem to be more generous with your feelings. I do understand.
As you always have, you have written yet another deeply personal note adding your very personal kind of humour. Loved it!
I’m so sorry you experienced that. (And thanks!)
Thank YOU Jane. You are very inspirational.
Please say hello to Alistair for me. We have met several
times at presentations in Massachusetts. The first time in Hopkinton,
when you were still pregnant with the twins.
You could be describing my aunt and my mother. The brilliance and humor and the abuse.
It’s amazing, the multitudes people contain.
Oh this made me tear up.
My mother was charming for many, but could be cruel and toxic at home. She probably still is. Not having her in my adult life or ever as part of my kids' lives is a relief. But more often now, as my kids leave childhood - I read this from the car after our last elementary school Halloween parade - it makes me feel good to do the things she did well.
That’s great that you’ve gotten to a place where you can appreciate the gifts he brought to you without too much bitterness on the flip side.
I hear you. The fall is hard. My dad's birthday was November 20 and his mother's the 21st. She died 3 days after hosting her last Thanksgiving in 1993; he died on October 6, 2020. And my other grandmother died the week before my dad's memorial in 2021, almost a year to the day he died.
Dad was funny and inappropriate, warm and misogynistic. He wasn't there for me much as a kid, but I was his caregiver and proxy for his last 5 years as he fought Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
We try to be honest about who he was with my son, up to a point. It's hard to convey the 1000 tiny stabs when kids are younger.
But we've also decided to celebrate the Day of the Dead and make a day each early November when we can share stories about our ancestors with our son, so that he knows the good and the bad of each of them. And it lets me try to let go during the rest of the year.
But the fall is still hard.
I love this - and I think it’s you’re smart to share both the good and bad with your son. My hunch is that when teach kids that almost nobody is all good or all bad, we’re teaching them about both empathy and boundaries.
I wrote about this at the time as I was in a library science class that encouraged writing to build community. One post was right after I'd signed the hospice paperwork (https://www.jrblibrarian.com/2020/09/learning-as-a-librarian-storytelling-and-community-and-loss/) ; the other was a couple of weeks after he died (https://www.jrblibrarian.com/2020/10/info-287-reflection-4-2-grief-during-a-pandemic/).
Because Dad was a storyteller, I really needed stories about him to help with my own trauma from the caregiving. He'd turned into a paranoid, violent person, which wasn't who he was when he was lucid. I needed to remember who he was before all of that -- yes, the bad, but also the laughs and stories of those good times.
As a working librarian now, I made a display last November (again, fall -- fun) on Alzheimer's and used it as a deadline to put together stories about him and photos of him that I'd gathered from friends and family. I used it as a way to encourage other caregivers to make memory books with or for their loved ones to help them remember the past. Since his was created after he died, it's a fairly honest portrayal of how he grew up, his struggles with alcohol and his awful marriage with my mother, and my own stories of what it was like to be a caregiver for him. You can see the photobook on the 3rd shelf in the photograph: https://www.jrblibrarian.com/2022/11/a-library-display-on-alzheimers-disease/
It's another way that helped me process the grief and anger I went through during those last 5 years. I tried to be honest about who he was, and I kept the more inappropriate stories about drunken behavior for when my son is a little older. But it helped a lot to create the book and, again, to let go a bit, knowing that it's there for my son to read and understand more as he gets older.