Tag Archives: let go

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Keep

The older we get, the more we learn
which bridges to cross, which bridges to burn.

What shall I keep?
And shall I burn that bridge before I cross it
or after?
I did not know that was a bridge
I would burn
And I grieve as a I learn
But the sledgehammers and bombs
loosed by the family
have left a bridge
that is all but falling
Into an abyss.
It is stone and old.
It won’t burn, but it barely holds together.
One heavy rock, thrown in the middle
and it will fall
down down down.
What shall I keep?
What shall I let go?

I wonder what my parents think
and grandparents
and sister.
Do they think at all
or do they let go with death
and let joy overcome them
in reunion with the Beloved.
I hope where they are is joy.
It is ok, loves.
It did not turn out well
but people make their choices.
I can’t rebuild the bridge alone
and on the other side they prepare new IEDs to blow me up
if I attempt to rebuild
or cross.

I keep my children away
from the web of triangulation
and so they are not attached to the land
nor do they play the family games.
I am so glad.
I am still attached to the land
and my dead.
Not the living but the dead.
My sister, my mother, my father
grandparents, uncles, aunt.
All the dead.
Forgive me, but I can’t keep the bridge
going
and I will let the land go.
My children and I will be dead
to those living.
We have family and friends
who are loving and not hating
and not cruel.

I still love my dead
and even though the place reminds me of them,
they are not there.
They are in my heart.
I keep them safe
and let the bridge
and the land
go.

____________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: keep.

My sister is paddling the canoe. I took the photograph, in about 1980.

And here is music:

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Hunted

I am having an internal argument.

It’s about shacks on a lake in Ontario. My grandparents and family built the shacks and I’ve been going there since I was under a year old.

However, my sister died of cancer in 2012 and there was a horrific family battle over my niece. My mother had already died. My father died 13 months after my sister and left the same will as my mother. Unfortunately it was written when I was a minor. I cried when I read it because I was the only person named in it who was still alive. I knew what my father wanted, or remembered what he told me. A will is a will though. I took it to an attorney and followed her interpretation.

Then I was sued by family regarding the niece.

I knew what my father wanted but he had not done it. So I decided not to fight it and handed over half the estate. Because even though my father wanted me to watch over his granddaughter, he had not left me the tools. And she did not want me.

So back to the shacks. It’s the side of the family that brought in all the lawsuits. I have not felt welcomed there nor loved since my sister died.

Part of me is furious that I am being hunted out, unwelcomed, wants our grandparents to curse them.

The other part points out that I have already been hunted out, effectively. I stopped trying to take my children there because I couldn’t tell who in the family was “neutral” (basically not talking to me) or “gossiping” — the rumors re me trying to harm my niece were incredibly painful. I had to let her go.

After my father died I dream that I am issued a huge SUV, black. I am to go pick up three children. When I arrive, two are teens: my two. The third is a toddler. My niece is really the same age as my daughter, but not in the dream. In the dream, they tell me, “You can’t take the toddler. You don’t have a car seat.”

I say, “Can I go get one and come back?”

“No.” they say.

I say, “Please, can I borrow one? I didn’t know I needed it! I was issued the SUV!”

“No.” they say. “You can only take the two teens.

So I took the two teens and left, crying.

I woke up and thought: my father’s will is not my fault. I did the best I could. I followed an attorney’s advice and I tried to do what my father wished. I did not have the tools I needed.

Now my children and I may get an offer to buy our share of the land. My children are ready to be bought out.

I do not know if I am. I feel like this is the last connection with that side of my family, not only the living, but the dead. I love the land far more than the silent living and the cruel living. Why are families so cruel and why do they need enemies so badly? Gossip is a sin, truly, and hurts. Selling my share is saying goodbye to my sister, my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, my two uncles, my aunt. I don’t mind saying goodbye to the cruel living nearly as much as to my dead.

And that too makes me sad.

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The forum gathers

The forum gathers.

Red Paw puts her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Told you so. Been telling you for 11 years.”

The small child/angel is sitting in a chair that morphs from regular boardroom chair to youth chair as she morphs back and forth.

“Nice job with the chair.” says Red Paw.

The two split and now there is a Small Child and an angel, sitting in two chairs.

Red Paw morphs too, into a bright red angel with a black halo and black bat wings.

The White angel nods and a feather drops. The feathers are bright white. Her halo is made of gold glittery pipe cleaners and attached at the shoulders.

Red Paw’s halo floats and seems to pull at the room.

The Quiet Woman sits in the fourth chair, with a cup of tea. “Anyone else?” she asks.

The others shake their heads.

“We are discussing the diaspora. Is it time to let them go?”

“Has been for 11 years.” says Red Paw nastily.

The small child nods.

The White angel says, “They want to believe what they want to believe. Let them go.”

“T, B, S, C, S, D, A, F, N, C, T, L, K, R and then next generation as well?”

All three nod.

The small child says, “They can contact us at any time.”

“They won’t.” says Red Paw.

“People can change,” says the White angel.

“And do they always?” says Red Paw.

“No.” says the White angel.

“I agree,” says the Quiet Woman. “We are done.” She brings a gavel down on the table, which rings like a singing bowl. The other three blur and melt in to her.

“We are done.”

_____________________

The photograph was taken 2016 or earlier when Halloween was on a Sunday. I dressed up and so did the minister.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: forum.

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Reconcile

I have been thinking about family a lot this week. My mother’s family has been gossiping about me now for a decade and not one of them has ever talked to me directly about my father’s will. They have a story. They never checked it. It stars me as a villain. They seem to think I controlled attorneys, which is laughable.

I forgive them.

However, I think a decade is enough. I forgive them but I no longer want to reconcile. For ten years I hoped that they would talk to me. I have asked them to, more than one person, more than once. They say that they want to believe what they want to believe. I offered to send copies of bank statements to back up what I said. No. And a cousin silenced me by saying, “Don’t make me hate my sister.” The message is that I can be part of the family for some of them, as long as I remain silent as a tomb on this topic.

No. I won’t. And it’s just like all the silencing that goes on over the world. People say they would not stand by while someone is hurt, but my family sure seems to enjoy having me be the silenced gossiped about villain. I am sick of it. They can go to where ever it is that karma will take them: gossip, after all, is a sin.

And so I am reconciled. I am reconciled after a decade to adding these people to my list of dead. Our friendship is dead, my family feeling towards them is dead, I am not asking or waiting or hoping any more.

Forgiveness is a solo job. We forgive others.

Forgiveness is NOT reconciliation. You should not take an abuser back. You should not let someone treat you badly and refuse to listen to you and refuse to apologize. I know one person whose apologies run something like “I am sorry that you took offense to what I said/did.” Um. That is not an apology. That is putting it on me, it’s my fault for taking offense. The person has no intention of changing and does not actually care how I feel. I am not okay with that. The person is forgiven but there has not been a reconciliation.

With my maternal family, I am letting it go. I would like there to be more peace in the world but as long as people cling to having villains, to believing gossip, to perpetuating gossip and hatred and meanness, I do not think we will have peace in the world.

But in letting this go, I have peace in my heart.

Peace you and please peace me.

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gently

I try to be so gentle with you
trauma drama boy

I know just what it’s like
though mine is not the same as yours

you run away, though
again and again

saying that you would never try
to hurt me ever

that is a shut down
really

since you disavow all intention of hurting
you do whatever you want

your attitude is that if I am hurt or sad
it’s my own fault

you take no responsibility for failures
as a friend

trauma drama boy, you run away
once more

and this time
I’ve had enough

This time
I let you go

Beloved bless you and keep you
for the days you have left

sending love
goodbye

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happy

Ok, this is a weird little poem to my sister Chris, who died a decade ago. My father died thirteen months later. My mother was already dead. Mother and sister of cancer and father of emphysema, damn the Camels. There was no family slaughter, unless it was by cancer. There was a family meltdown on my mother’s side. Sometimes you have to let people go.

Sister sister mister miss her
look, Chris, I’m happy

Cancer cancer crabby dancer
look, Chris, I’m singing

Daughter daughter family slaughter
look, Chris, I’m healing

Healer healer wheeler dealer
look, Chris, no drama

Wombing wombing quiet blooming
look, Chris, I’m growing

The photograph is of a family cabin in Ontario. It is called “The New Cabin”, “Helen’s Cabin” (after my mother) or “Chris’s Cabin” after my sister. As you can see, it is suffering through neglect worsened by Covid-19. I put those screens up a decade ago, but they are not surviving the winters and the porch roof has a hole. It was a lovely porch to sleep on. I was last there in 2018, and up on that roof trying to tar holes as a temporary fix. We did not dare go on the porch roof, too late for that. Things change and fall away and sometimes we have to let them go. Especially if they are beyond repair. The photograph is taken earlier this year by the people who care for the cabins when we are not there.

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let go

I don’t let go of friends easily, partly because I had a difficult and scary childhood, where I was passed from person to person in my first year. Three times, a nearly complete change of adults. By the third time I wanted to be independent at nine months. A nine month old cannot really be independent.

We went to live with my maternal grandparents when I was three. I don’t remember much from that year. My mother said I would lock the child gate at the top of the stairs and stand there and cry. My imaginary friend, Dazo Freenie, was the one who shut the gate, so I couldn’t open it again when that happened. This was an old house with 14 foot ceilings and a fireplace in every room. My mother was recovering from tuberculosis and the second child, and she says she hated climbing those stairs to unlock the gate. I do not remember this, though I do remember Dazo Freenie.

What I remember was a moment in the garden. My maternal grandmother, Katherine White Burling, was out with me. There was a bush with berries. She told me they were currents and that I could pick and eat them. I was not to pick anything else and eat it: only from that one bush.

I was beyond thrilled to have a bush that I could go to when I needed food. I did not understand that it would not produce year round. I think I figured that out later. I was three. I had to let go of the idea that I had that food source. Sometimes we think we have something very very special and it turns out that we don’t. Then we have to let go.

Blessings.

The photograph is one of my son and daughter-in-laws pet rats. They rarely live beyond three years. Then they have to let them go.

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Falling II

poem: Falling II

I can’t fall
until I let go

my cousin says that people learn
to stay away from angry people

I am hurt and then let that go
and think, yes, she is right
my cousins say over and over
that I am too angry when I’m not angry
until it makes me angry

my cousin gives good advice
I let go and stay away
it’s not my anger

I thought allopathic medicine
was where we listened to the patient
I let go of that too, disillusioned

a family member wants to be free
I let go

I let go of you slowly
I let go of coffee
I let go of sitting next to you
I let go of seeing you daily
I let go of asking
I let go of driving by

I let go of hope

I have not let go of longing

I think that I can fall
without letting go of longing

it is only a thread
like a spider’s web
thrown into the universe

I don’t think it will stop me
from falling