She lay there
Dying.
“What’s on your mind mum? Are you frightened?”
“No love, not frightened, just very sad, about how my life turned out”.
She’s had it bad.
As the wrinkles deepen on her reflective face, staring out of the nursing home window, she remembers.
Rape.
Abuse.
Beatings.
Betrayal.
Oh. The betrayals.
Then alcohol took the place: of the pain.
Front and centre. Booze and temazepam.
Medicated. From a life lost to demons.
Inside. Outside.
That was when it all went wrong. Really. The consuming of spirits that became the costume she wore.
Daily.
It then went from wrong. To very, very wrong.
I was five years old when I first became aware that something wasn’t right.
I was thirty four when she passed over: to another plane.
Before this: bridges were built.
A peaceful, drifting, blessed death came for her.
That night.
That night when I did ‘the blessing’.
Not knowing she would pass before midnight.
Well. Not knowing and knowing: you understand.
Almost twenty years pass by: on a slow heartbeat.
From the loss of her.
To more trauma.
A friend of mine, sadly, trauma is.
I didn’t have a name for it, you know?
Not until this year.
Weird that isn’t it?
Trauma is easy to identify in others.
But when I stopped, took a breath (and a psychology course),
I stopped to realise:
‘Matt – this is your life too. How did you live through that?’
Thinking it was normal: that’s how I lived through that.
So when I realised that, actually: that wasn’t normal.
I took a moment.
I took a long moment.
And a deep breath.
Breathing is important: you know.
That special breath.
That ‘wait a moment dear one, just wait, breathe, be: in the truth. A while longer Matt, yes, and a little longer than that: breathe, breathe: be’.
Then I saw it.
The truth.
I saw that it wasn’t my fault, actually.
I saw that it was really that bad.
I saw that, most haven’t actually helped me much.
I saw that: only I can truly help me.
I saw that: it wasn’t my fault. Oh, I mentioned that.
But now.
Now.
Oh: the now.
Realising that,
Yes, I have been alone.
Truly alone.
Do you know? I forgot to mention (to myself), weeks before she died, Mum said:
‘Do you forgive me?’ out of the blue, driving back to the nursing home one day after a trip to see the horses.
Those, to my surprise, were not words I needed to hear.
But then she said it.
It.
The big it.
The words I, also to my surprise, did need to hear:
‘You’ve achieved so much. And you’ve done it with no support’.
The tears spilled from her decaying eyes.
Then I learned true forgiveness.
When you truly forgive:
There is nothing to forgive.
I brushed her hand with mine,
I winked,
I drove us home.
In Love,
IAmMattVC
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