30 Day challenge #4

Day 04 → Something you have to forgive someone for.

well, it is not something i have to do, it is actually something i have already done. this summer was a turning point for many parts of my life. i had a meltdown one evening (it was building--feel free to read back in the posts) after going through more of my parents' things and coming across so many keepsakes of my brother's. things that meant so much to my parents that they saved them for nearly half a century. each thing i came to caused me to build up some resentment; newspaper clippings, letters, cards, photos; material things that my brother sent or did that my parents kept. for the record, there were no keepsakes of mine. (i guess i didn't really 'do' anything worth saving. 

so anyway, i put all these things into a box, and i cried over the anger that i felt, for my brother who has never even asked me how i have coped since mom's death, and resentment towards my parents for not 'saving' little pieces of me. 

i thought about this, and they did not have to save little pieces of me, because they had me in their lives. i was the one who was here every step of the way. i was the one who did not abandon them. i was here, in the present, and looking at things that way, i can accept that they did not need to save the mementos of my life. and that brings me great peace. 

about my brother, who i usually refer to here and in real life as the 'non brother'. he has never made a real effort to be part of my life. after all, he was married and gone (and i was 12 at the time). he was out there living his own life, but he forgot to remember where he came from. from my perspective, (the 12 yr old me), he had the world by the tail. he was out there doing things. he was successful and smart and i was so proud of him. but i missed him. and over the years it just became a larger and larger void in my life. i remember one time, i was in grade 9, he and his wife  (no longer from what i heard) came to visit. for 4 days he was here, but you could tell he wanted to be anywhere but here. that was the one christmas i remember being a really sad one for me.   i graduated from high school and had hoped that he would come for that big event in my life, but alas, he did not, he stated that the air line was on strike and he could not fly down.  fine. a few years later i was to be married (that is another story--) and he did not come to attend that either. 

OMG what had i done to make him not want to come here? was i that awful a child? no, poet, it is not about you. it is about choices that he himself made. 

over the years the resentment grew, not only for the way he ignored me, but how he ignored mom and dad in their old age. how dare he after all they had done for him? what did THEY do to him to make him abandon us?  mom had cancer 4 times in her later years, and he only came to see her one time in those scary times. dad got very sick, and he did come to see him once in october. but i am not sure of his motives, really, we never talked about it. and when dad died 4 yrs ago, he did manage to come to the funeral. again we didn't really speak much, kinda hard when there is all this resentment and no outlet and a family funeral is just not the place for a scene. 

fast forward to mom's last 14 months. he never called. it was again as though she, and i had fallen off the face of the planet. i learned this summer that much of that stuff was not MY stuff, and i needed to let that go, which i have. as well, i have let go of the hope that he and i will grow close. i am not even sure that after 30 odd years i would even want to if he did. i have truly let that go. 

the deal breaker on that was that he never came to mom's funeral. he did not call me or offer any kind of support. i was in fact, alone with this. ok. i am playing the hand i am dealt. i am over what resentment i held, and i let it go. 

i have accepted that after the estate is settled come early 2011, and he gets what is coming to him, that will be the last i ever hear of him. and i am ok with that, too.  i have my inner circle who love and support me, and i do not need him in my life--after all, i've done pretty well up until now, right? 

make today GREAT~ poet.