Like many people these days I’ve been feeling a little numb.
Ready for some tomorrows to be over before they even come, checking the clock much earlier than I used to, allowing my kids to do things that 8 months ago I would have never let them do.
My dearest friend messaged me asking how I was today and I answered that I simultaneously was fighting the urge to want to cut someone, hug someone,
and put up a Christmas tree.
That true kind of friend just answered, “Girl, SAME.”
As a person of great faith, with many beloved friends and family members that staunchly DO, being a person who does not support President Trump leaves you feeling a little bit these days like a person without a home,
landing me on an often lonely feeling road,
but one in which I strongly believe.
It has made me question others and how they can think what they think.
It has made me look around and think, “Is this only ME?”
But it is not, and I’ve been shown that.
I am not alone. I am grateful.
I’m not here to start any debate, before you assume what I’m about to say.
We’ve all had quite enough of that, I’m sure.
I am here to say, simply, that I will stand rooted in love for others, and here is a good example of why:
My father is the only son in a family with 4 kids.
Each one very different from the rest, and though their father was a gentle, kind, and loving man,
their mother could be cruel, mean with her words, and regularly cut the children down until there was nearly nothing left.
Their punishments were harsh, and as sad as it was, no one really stood up to my grandmother’s abuse.
What she said went without question. Don’t even speak.
She did not want to hear from you.
She strung the family along with division and lies until she’d created a total mess of twisted thought processes, and before she knew it she had separated out one child against the rest.
She convinced the one that no one cared about, or saw her.
She went on even further and had the other three believing the one singled out sister was hard-hearted and refused all love or contact.
This singled out sister grew and lived all alone in a house that she then hoarded with things.
I never was allowed to look inside her home, but was told I wouldn’t be able to even fit in the pathways.
She had burrowed herself into stacks of papers and books.
Ember reading light barely showing through what looked like boarded windows.
I remember seeing her home and thinking it strange that my aunt was in there somewhere.
The woman that I barely knew.
Years and years passed and the family spread even more apart after both of my grandparents died.
The kids divided up the house and all went their own ways, free, but
the one aunt stayed hidden away inside.
The other three kids all had families, and grandchildren, and lives of their own.
Such a pity when we make some of the choices we do!
How miserable she was! Too bad she was so filled with hate!
Imagine – This whole family she never knew!
No contact was had with this one aunt of mine for all of my adult life.
It was just assumed she’d gone off the grid and wanted nothing to do with us all.
But then, one day several long months ago, we got news through a contact that she was in very bad shape, and she’d given the name of one sister.
She had progressing cancer and was given most likely just days to live.
Did anyone want to come see her face-to-face?
One aunt went first.
The one who most often stands in the gaps, laying herself down for the greater good.
After seeing her sister for the first time in so long, she was shocked at how she looked,
and she called the other two siblings to tell them they should probably come.
She’d be gone soon.
It was not looking like it would be long.
My mom, ever carrying the desire to bring about reconciliation for anyone she can, offered to go along on the 14 hour car ride with my dad, though they had long been divorced.
That, in itself, another story about the true forms of love where some parts of it end,
while some remain, like treasures found in ash after fire.
My mom knew of this situation. She knew about all the hurt. She wanted to see if she could help, so she and my dad loaded in a pick-up truck and journeyed to my aunt’s bedside for hours.
Though I can’t recount everything that was said by those 4 as they sat in that room facing this sister and years of hurt buried in layers,
I can say that the biggest revelation they had as they all talked was that lies, hurt, and false information is what had driven them away from one another.
It had been untrue that the one sister was unloved.
The other three had been told she’d reject it.
Untrue that the other three didn’t care about her.
They’d missed her so much it had pained them;
And on that cancer bed, in a tiny nothing-much room, that is when everything happened.
Forgiveness, and clarity, and wide-open hearts.
Love came breaking through those paper tunnels.
A person was in there who had desperately longed for love, but rather than be further wounded she had just built her walls higher.
This aunt is still alive many months past when they expected because, I think, of the truth that love still existed outside her walls for her.
Love is the cure, but sometimes we have to sit face-to-face out in the open to truly receive it.
I tell this story, a highly personal one, because not only is this story about all of us,
and our own fact and fiction paper tunnels,
but also because I just want to read it over and over to myself on hard days ahead to be reminded about the time that all it took was one day on the edge of a death bed to see that
sometimes the voices we thought were truth tellers, telling us who we are and where we stand,
were actually the voices of liars.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
