Had lunch with my mom and Emery and my sister a bit ago. She's 90 and still lives on her own. She no longer drives...but maintains a beautiful garden.
But, she's getting....fuzzy around the edges. Almost like she is testing "the other side." As we met for lunch, she was super sharp....and this time I saw this just kind of slowing as we ate.
Then it came time for desert...and my sister ordered mom a "death by lemon." I just watched as she shifted to a little girl. I watched her just get super excited and say things like, "is this for me?' "Oh my gosh, this is all for me?" "Can I have a taste of it now?"
It was sweet....and it was a glimpse into who she may have been before she suffered some of the things she suffered. I came to terms a long time ago and have chosen to believe she did the best she could as a parent given what she went through. We are LONG past the time of feeling like any kind of conversation or 'closure" could ever happen. But even so, I still hold certain boundaries and always will. Not that I haven't moved on or forgiven or whatever....I just hold that piece of myself that I could have been "before things happened to me" away and safe.
I am guessing someone will read this and think me selfish or cruel. For the sake of both of the little girls in my mother and myself who were not given much chance to be little or safe...I guess they are held separate.
It was lovely to see in her, really. Perhaps the gift of that lunch was seeing that she is getting to be that safe and protected spirit now, that it somehow survived. And if it survived in her, maybe there is a little left for all of us who had it ripped away too young.
