My father died on this date years ago, and it is refreshing to me how the memory of him has lessened as each year goes by. He was an abusive bully and a big keeper of secrets so I like to speak out about what an unpleasant person he was when I feel like it.
There seems to be this general rule that you should be reconciled with a parent before their death. I don't see what the point of that is as it doesn't change them, and just makes the child feel guilty.
It's a shame when time marches on but when parents are dead, your life is your own. You don't have to do things the way they wanted -- you can make your own rules.
I hope I am not a burden on my kids. I hope to just go off somewhere when I get too old and leave them to get on with life without guilt and regret.
6 comments:
My granddad has been a great granddad. It took me however years and years to come to terms with the fact he's been an horrible father and an even worst husband.
Still nowadays, several years after his death, I struggle with accepting he was a different person to me than he was to my mum and my grandmum. I was never asked to take side, but it still tore me apart.
I accept it now, because I understand that people can't be "monoblocks": we all have different sides, our personality is a whole made of different bits and pieces. And this is what helps me dealing with the memory of my granddad.
I do think you're doing the right thing by speaking about it. Keeping it to yourself is not the best way to deal with memories and the feelings they bring with them.
Parents and their deaths are a fact. Without parents we would not be here. Generally they die before we do. It is normal and natural.
Some parents are simply providers of sperm or eggs and are absent, or, worse, are abusive. Some are gentle and loving. Some smother instead of mothering. We, the parent, get to choose what we are and how we act. It is our sole responsibility. Our children cannot make us change. I have a friend who waited all her life for a good word from her mother, then her father. None ever came, yet she prostrated herself to try to make it happen.
It is ideal, but not essential, to say to one's parents before death all that needs to be said. They have a duty to hear the bad stuff and the pleasure of hearing the good stuff. If they do not like what they hear, so what? Mostly they caused it. If they like what they hear, good, but again, so what? They also caused that.
I was not at ease with myself to speak to my father before he died in 1982. There was much I wish I had told him. Yet I do not regret the lack of telling him, I simply wish it because he ought to have heard it, whether it made him think or not.
I was at ease to have spoken to my mother well before she died in 2007. Our relationship was not one of love. I loved neither parent. I suppose they loved me in their way. Our relationship was one of duty. We didn't like each other much. And all that was in the open, and we were each comfortable with it. She died with nothing unsaid.
Neither of these things is a matter of rejoicing nor of regret. Each was my own choice in the same manner that the way they raised me was their choice. Each died. I recall the dates. My father died the day after my birthday while I was flying home from the USA. That;s the only reason I recall it. My mother died in October. But neither is an anniversary. They are simply the end of their lives.
I;d like to have find memories. I happen not to have, but I know they are there under the surface. They are just clouded by the unhappiness. One day they will resurface, and in their own good time.
And that is a long preamble to my message to you.
Do not hope. Instead ask your children what you have done well, what you have done badly. Ask them how you and they should work in the future. Agree with them how things will happen. Apologise for the less than helpful things you have done in the past. If you do such things in the future, apologise then, too.
Make no assumptions about being a burden. They may wish to care for you in your dotage or they may wish to be shot of you. in each case you can plan today so that the drooling fool we will all become one day, should the bus not run us over, is well provided for. And be unafraid to spend what you may believe is their inheritance. LIfe is for those living today.
We are not loved or respected for who we are. We are because of how we act.
And I wish I'd proofread that comment better for typos! Ah well, that's me all over.
Thank goodness his patients were already dead when he saw them! It's actual living humans he didn't have rapport with...!
I don't know who made that kind of silly rule. It implies that you have control over the way your parents feel and behave.
I think speaking out is good for you, Elizabeth, because you didn't for so long. You take the power back in this way. He even tried to control _me_ when we were in college, which a bit scary and very strange. You are a better person than he ever was!
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