Just Lynn

One woman. One name. One hell of an attitude!

again and again

Written By: witchypo - Aug• 18•11

When I wrote the other day about my mother having called… again… I referred, of course, to the number of phone calls, but I also meant much more.

I was also referring to the fact that this wasn’t the first time that she’d caused me to miss a chance to put a father to rest.

The first such incident occurred when I was around 14. My natural father had been sick about as many years so we’d had plenty of oportunity to speak of his inevitable death and I was well aware of the fact that he wanted to have an ‘Irish wake’, be cremated, and then his ashes scattered over Niagara Falls… or ‘some nice patch of woods somewhere…’

When he died that winter, though, my mother had him waked at a funeral home, embalmed, and stuffed into cold storage until spring when the ground thawed and he was interred.

I only discovered that fact because I overherd a phone call but, by then, it was too late. From that moment to this, I’ve suffered ghoulish nightmares of the walking dead and know that they are likely directly atributable to my mother’s actions. Because she ignored his wishes and robbed me of the chance to see him burried, my young mind was unable to accept that he was truly at peace and gone.

Three months later, my mother met and married Deckle. She spent the next bunch of years spending his money and driving wedges between him and anyone close to him. Then, forced him into retirement, and did nothing but complain about him – ad nauseum – for years. When he got ‘sick’, she did not (to the best of my knowledge) search for therapy, and stuffed him into a home.

Considering the struggle it took me to get a name and address out of her, I wasn’t surprised to hear that my stepbrother went so far as to have a policeman visit her to check on Deckle. I was, however, shocked to learn that she would deny anyone information about his whereabouts when you’d think she’d tell anyone so they could visit him (!)

Now, I understand she’s old, going blind, and has just lost both parents in the last 5 years or so, but she can’t tell me that she was ‘only protecting me’ this time because I was married and had kids when she stuck Deckle into the home and screwed me out of the chance to see him… or… say ‘goodbye’ this time. Also, we only have her ‘word’ on what he wanted and didn’t want, but you’d think she’d have at least made his family aware of his passing so they could visit the grave should they ever want to.

When I got off the phone the other night, I finally let myself touch the surface of the grief and guilt this has caused me and was mortified to realize Deckle probably died alone in the home… with no one but staff and the teddy bear that was his only company for years to witness the event. A lifetime of watching my mother play ‘the raven’ and use impending death to manipulate me has made it difficult enough to want to visit her, but this is gonna’ make it hard to want to talk to her at all!

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