The Mother of all Sundays.

Tuesday. The last few days have been… “Interesting”. Last Friday my father sent me a photo of my Grandfather on my mothers side that my Aunt sent him. I’d never seen him before. I’ve never even known his full name until now. My Dad was talking to my Aunt and she told him the story behind his absence and said he should tell me the truth, in full. So he simply forwarded the messages to me. It wasn’t pleasant reading.

As I mentioned in my last post, my mother had issues with alcohol and in her early years, drugs too. Now I know why. To some extent it explains the lack of proper connection I had with her. Self medicating to escape trauma, upheaval and the feeling of being abandoned. I am my mothers son in that regard, that much is true. It’s almost spooky, the parallels between us. How I had the strength to not start taking hard drugs again when My Lady died, I’ll never know. I was tempted countless times. I consider myself fortunate that I didn’t move in those circles any more. If I wanted it, I would’ve had to actively seek it out. If it was under my nose, it would have gone straight up my nose, pun intended. Kind of. Even now, when I think of the buzz of speed or ecstasy, there is still part of my mind that wants it. Truth be told, it would be just what I need. For a few hours. Then the inevitable cravings would kick in along with those long since vanquished demons. I haven’t come this far to slip back into those old shoes. That was two lifetimes ago.

My mother died a month after my birthday in 2019, two months after my mother in law. She had reached out on that birthday and seemed to want to reconnect and it would have been wonderful to be able to discuss everything that had happened between us but she was dead a month later, along with any hope of knowing why she was unable to be the mother she could have been. Or so I thought at the time. It was the same with my half sister. We talked so much about this when she died. Both of us were brought up by our fathers when she left us.

So I received the forwarded messages from my Aunt on Sunday morning. It took a bit of processing and I then sent them to my brother. He had precious few answers to a lot of things too. I then spent the morning discussing it with my Aunt. By the end of it, my attitude to my mother had changed. It all made sense now.

Finally…