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 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!
You could be describing my aunt and my mother. The brilliance and humor and the abuse.
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.
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.