I can do this here, can’t I. It is a personal and self-indulgent blog so I can write whatever I want, whatever I feel. And I feel a need to set things straight out loud.
I’d imagined, perhaps just hoped, that my mother was gently and happily living her life having moved on from the past, from her children and was contented with her lot. Perhaps she was. But now that my sister is in touch with someone from her recent years life it is really quite horrible to learn that she said such dreadful things about us – my siblings, me and our father.
I almost want to remove the RIP post, but won’t, because I do hope she just rests now, though perhaps if she could she would haunt us and keep hurting where she could. That is a dreadful thing to think or say, I know, but turns out the woman just kept on lying. She must have been exhausted from it all – no wonder she had to leave us all.
For the record – she never played at Wimbledon. She did play at Westfield Rec with a friend of hers – a hard court near Midsomer Norton – though this has given us a laugh at her audacity and that she never stopped with the lies.
And I can say with all my heart that my father never laid a finger on her – none of her children witnessed that at all. If anything she was the bully and it would be easier to believe that she hit him, but she was not brave enough for that. She really was a bad mother, she caused so much pain by manipulating and dividing people where she could. Doing so much for the attention – one particular episode that has never left me is that she had some old photograph copied, of the grandchildren with her dad – she bestowed these on as many cousins as she could, but not to her own children. I’d have quite liked a copy, being a nostalgic sort. I love old photos. But she did it not to give but to get attention.
Anyway – perhaps I should not write this “out loud”, but sod it – this is my blog and I can write what I want of my personal experience. Some people don’t like the public side of the Internet but I believe the truths above should be out there for whoever needs to see it.
And for the people who were in her life for the past 20 years – check your finances to be sure nothing’s been squirrelled away somewhere – she did that before so…
Her death has opened up wounds we all pretty much thought were healed. I wobbled for a few days but realised that she had already gone from my life and I really had grieved for her years ago (I would wonder now and then whether I wanted to consider anything different, but always knew that nothing would have changed so…). So I’m fine and would gladly just get on with life now. But some of the people I love are hurting and that distresses me. They are my monkeys.
Things she said about my father are hurting him now. He’s a very old-fashioned kind of chap, family and doing the right thing are important to him. Now of course this may not always be right or the best way of living, but it is his way and he’s fought hard to overcome many things through his life to stand by what he believes. That woman caused so much pain between him and my brother – a rift that is impossible to mend (unless I did ever lock them in a room together so they could see that they do love each other, at heart, and that is really all that matters).
And she wanted her ashes scattered with her father and mother, which is not what other family members want. But we cannot do anything about that – that is beyond our control so we have to let it go and move on. Otherwise she is just hurting us more, again, which probably is what she wanted, I’m almost ashamed to say or think.
But enough now. Now we can live the rest of our wonderful lives without the thought, tucked somewhere in our heads, that there might be a knock on the door – from her or the producers of Jeremy Kyle! Really – the woman just loved to star in her own drama.
But of course I cannot take away the pain others are feeling. But I can write and perhaps it might help someone else to also think “enough”. She’s had whatever she could get from us, but no more.