People regularly ask me, "Does he still know you?" And I've always been able to say, "Oh, yes, certainly he knows me." Today I would have to say, "I don't know."
My daughter with her husband and her 13 year-old daughter and I were up to see my husband this afternoon for a visit and to take him to church. We hadn't seen him for a week; my car went in for repair on Tuesday morning and was still not ready and they only come once a week. There were no signs of recognition when we walked in.
I asked if he was ready to go to church and he replied, "Yes." I asked if he wanted a chocolate before we went to church and he replied, "Yes." His home church for 33 years was doing the service and he stared at the lady who was leading the service and whom he has known since 1962 as though he thought he should know her but there was no comment.
After the service we went to the cafeteria for tea and when I asked if he wanted puffed wheat cake or rice krispie cake, he responded with "Rice krispie cake." When I told him I had completed his income tax return and how much his tax refund would be, there was no comment or change of expression on his face. He ate the rice krispie cake as I popped each little piece into his mouth and then ate the two pop tarts that our friend had brought for him. He gestured toward his cup to indicate that he wanted his tea and drank all his tea when I lifted it up for him.
After an hour, we took him back to his room and said our good-byes. Again, there was no reaction and his attention was focussed on the TV which we had turned on for him. My daughter said this was similar to their experience for the last two or three visits.
I had my hair permed on Wednesday which changed my look enough that a number of people commented that they hadn't immediately recognized me. We wondered if my husband would know me. Constantly changing staff members work with him at the nursing home. I don't know that he didn't think I was one of them.
My mother didn't recognize me at the last either. My husband would have to tell her that I was there with him. For him to realize who I am, the staff will probably have to tell him "Your wife is here to see you." I always felt he didn't really know me; now it's certain. Good-bye, my love, good-bye. Will we meet again? Who knows.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Controlling People
Another piece of the puzzle to fit in and the larger picture begins to emerge. Maybe I don't have all the pieces yet, I probably don't, but I have enough to see the picture that was always in the background. I am now reading the last book of the books I ordered from the library in order to gain a better understanding of bullying people and controlling people. Bullies have a need to control and controlling people have a need to define you in their own terms, not as you see yourself, but as they want you to be. My mother, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my husband; all themselves victims of controlling parents who perpetuated the cycle of controlling behavior that made them what they were; less than they could have been and damaging to those they were trying to control.
Control institutionalized in church, school, society, is reflected in family life that damages and destroys relationships and creates lonely, unhappy people. Acceptance of others as they are is the opposite of control and doesn't happen with controlling people. At the same time that the controlling person doesn't really see or hear others, he or she never sees themself for what they are or what they are doing. The controlling person is a good person, a nice person, and so it follows that everything they do is nice and good, no matter how truly awful. Having eyes they do not see, having ears they do not hear, and having deadened their own feelings, they feel empathy for no one.
I feel more myself than I have felt for many, many years. Those who were bent on controlling me are gone; I can relax, breathe, laugh, sing, dance and be myself without fear of repercussions for showing publicly what was always there, inside, hoping to get out someday. How sad for those whom I could have loved if they had let me be me. Love and trust go hand in hand and you can't trust the one who tries to redefine you as what you are not. Free to be - me and you. So many things make sense now as I look back. Well, not exactly sense, they weren't good sense then and still aren't, but I am coming to an understanding of the "what" even if the "why" is still incomprehensible.
Control institutionalized in church, school, society, is reflected in family life that damages and destroys relationships and creates lonely, unhappy people. Acceptance of others as they are is the opposite of control and doesn't happen with controlling people. At the same time that the controlling person doesn't really see or hear others, he or she never sees themself for what they are or what they are doing. The controlling person is a good person, a nice person, and so it follows that everything they do is nice and good, no matter how truly awful. Having eyes they do not see, having ears they do not hear, and having deadened their own feelings, they feel empathy for no one.
I feel more myself than I have felt for many, many years. Those who were bent on controlling me are gone; I can relax, breathe, laugh, sing, dance and be myself without fear of repercussions for showing publicly what was always there, inside, hoping to get out someday. How sad for those whom I could have loved if they had let me be me. Love and trust go hand in hand and you can't trust the one who tries to redefine you as what you are not. Free to be - me and you. So many things make sense now as I look back. Well, not exactly sense, they weren't good sense then and still aren't, but I am coming to an understanding of the "what" even if the "why" is still incomprehensible.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Marriage - Second Stage
My husband missed his oldest sister and his mother in spite of the way they had treated him. He blamed their actions on his other sister's husband, somewhat far fetched since this brother-in-law had no reason to trouble himself to do anything for his mother-in-law, whom he despised, or his wife, whom he abused. The brother-in-law did nothing to stop his wife and mother-in-law but certainly did nothing to instigate their behavior. He was not a good man or an honest man, but also not a stupid man who would not have taken a course of action that would result in harming himself. The mother's actions cost her many thousands of dollars, money she really didn't have.
My husband was not willing to take the first step to reestablish contact with his sister or his mother and it was obvious that they would not make the first move so I wrote to both of them, offering friendship and hospitality. Friends invited us for a fowl supper in my husband's home town, knowing that my husband's mother would attend. At the supper, as we walked by my mother-in-law's table, she turned and invited us to come to her house for tea together with her daughter and her daughter's new husband. We introduced her to her grandchildren, by now about 8 and 3 and went to her house for tea. From then on, we visited with her and her daughter regularly but the events of the five years previous were never mentioned, there was never an apology, and I was never spoken to or answered directly if I said something.
My husband enjoyed his job as farm manager, a house came with the job, and we were able to establish ourselves financially during the nine years on the University farm. When the management changed and my husband began to have accidents, I knew it was time to move on. Before our marriage, my husband had accidents of varying severity whenever he was severely stressed, as when the three long-term romantic relationships he had been involved in ended. Unable to stand up for his own rights, he took out his frustration on himself and hurt himself, accidentally. There had been no accidents for the first twenty years of our marriage so it was time to move even though it created some financial insecurity.
We bought a house in town, a house that became our home for the next 27 years. A few months after leaving the farm, my husband had a new job working on the farm for Agriculture Canada, where he stayed until he was 67 quite happily. After my retirement, we began spending a month every year visiting my husband's older brother, who had been with the Armed Forces in Germany while some of the rest of the family were sticking it to my husband, and who lived on Vancouver Island. For twenty years, my husband and his brother got together at least once a year and sometimes twice a year.
The year after we bought our house in town, my husband's oldest sister and her husband bought a house four blocks from our house. They had no children and our family became their family. When my sister-in-law's second husband died, she never regained her enjoyment of life. Life for her had revolved around her husband and the things they did together. Two years after her husband's death, she moved to a care home with the assistance of our family and by the end of that year, she was gone. Four days after her death, my husband had a stroke that kept him in hospital for 7 weeks and that resulted in him becoming a permanent resident of a nursing home. He never came home again.
Two years and 70 days have passed since that night when my husband fell and couldn't get up again. He had been slowly deteriorating since the April, now eleven years ago, that he picked up a parasite on the way home from BC, passed out after becoming very dehydrated, fell and suffered a concussion. He spent 5 days in hospital but was never the same again.
Three strikes and you're out, they say. It's been two strikes. Now there's one to go. When I visited him this afternoon, the promise of chocolate brought a smile to his lips momentarily and then he closed himself off again. So this is good-by? I kept waiting for things to get better, and then they got worse. It could have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse. We did the best we could with the resources and the knowledge we had. There were lots of times of tears but there were more times of laughter. Thanks for the ride. It's been good. Good-night, my love.
My husband was not willing to take the first step to reestablish contact with his sister or his mother and it was obvious that they would not make the first move so I wrote to both of them, offering friendship and hospitality. Friends invited us for a fowl supper in my husband's home town, knowing that my husband's mother would attend. At the supper, as we walked by my mother-in-law's table, she turned and invited us to come to her house for tea together with her daughter and her daughter's new husband. We introduced her to her grandchildren, by now about 8 and 3 and went to her house for tea. From then on, we visited with her and her daughter regularly but the events of the five years previous were never mentioned, there was never an apology, and I was never spoken to or answered directly if I said something.
My husband enjoyed his job as farm manager, a house came with the job, and we were able to establish ourselves financially during the nine years on the University farm. When the management changed and my husband began to have accidents, I knew it was time to move on. Before our marriage, my husband had accidents of varying severity whenever he was severely stressed, as when the three long-term romantic relationships he had been involved in ended. Unable to stand up for his own rights, he took out his frustration on himself and hurt himself, accidentally. There had been no accidents for the first twenty years of our marriage so it was time to move even though it created some financial insecurity.
We bought a house in town, a house that became our home for the next 27 years. A few months after leaving the farm, my husband had a new job working on the farm for Agriculture Canada, where he stayed until he was 67 quite happily. After my retirement, we began spending a month every year visiting my husband's older brother, who had been with the Armed Forces in Germany while some of the rest of the family were sticking it to my husband, and who lived on Vancouver Island. For twenty years, my husband and his brother got together at least once a year and sometimes twice a year.
The year after we bought our house in town, my husband's oldest sister and her husband bought a house four blocks from our house. They had no children and our family became their family. When my sister-in-law's second husband died, she never regained her enjoyment of life. Life for her had revolved around her husband and the things they did together. Two years after her husband's death, she moved to a care home with the assistance of our family and by the end of that year, she was gone. Four days after her death, my husband had a stroke that kept him in hospital for 7 weeks and that resulted in him becoming a permanent resident of a nursing home. He never came home again.
Two years and 70 days have passed since that night when my husband fell and couldn't get up again. He had been slowly deteriorating since the April, now eleven years ago, that he picked up a parasite on the way home from BC, passed out after becoming very dehydrated, fell and suffered a concussion. He spent 5 days in hospital but was never the same again.
Three strikes and you're out, they say. It's been two strikes. Now there's one to go. When I visited him this afternoon, the promise of chocolate brought a smile to his lips momentarily and then he closed himself off again. So this is good-by? I kept waiting for things to get better, and then they got worse. It could have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse. We did the best we could with the resources and the knowledge we had. There were lots of times of tears but there were more times of laughter. Thanks for the ride. It's been good. Good-night, my love.
Marriage
Time seems to stand still and everything seems a bit unreal. My head knows the end is near but my heart doesn't want to believe it. 45 years +.
We were married on a Monday, on Tuesday we had our wedding pictures taken and left for a three day honeymoon to Waskesui Park north of Prince Albert. It was cold and we had practically the whole park to ourselves. It was lovely. Friday we returned to attend my 10 year high school reunion and that evening we got back to our married home to find the whole house in a mess and not a clean sheet in the whole place to sleep on. I opened some wedding presents to find clean sheets for the night and we spent the next two weeks cleaning, painting and repairing to make the place fit to bring a child into.
His mother came back on my brother's birthday which we had gone to my parents' home to celebrate. It was the last time I saw him alive. She was furious that we hadn't been there to take her the two blocks from the bus depot to her home, she was furious that we had cleaned and painted and got replacement furniture while she was away, and she was furious that my three year old daughter had been sleeping in her bed while she was away because there was no other place for her to sleep. She refused to speak to me and didn't speak to me for the rest of her life, another 24 years. After 10 days, we moved to a house we had purchased in the neighbouring town and began a happier stage in our life.
Unfortunately, the cleaning and stress had brought on another attack of rheumatic fever and I was unable to do much work in our new home. I kept my child fed and made supper every day and the rest of the time, I rested.
One year after our marriage, we planned a vacation trip to northern Alberta to visit my husband's brother and his family who had not been able to attend our wedding because they weren't done seeding. We planned to tent until my husband's mother asked to come with us. We didn't want to subject a 70 year old lady to tenting so we motelled it. I had expected to spend at most 2 days at my brother-in-law's but he assumed my husband was there to help him with farm work and so we spent the next 10 days working on the farm and visiting for a short time after supper each day.
On the way home, my mother-in-law wasn't speaking to either of us but provided no explanation for her ire. About a week after we arrived home, my husband's brother phoned him and berated him for mistreating his mother. Although my husband explained that the accusations his mother had made against him were false, there was no apology from his brother nor did he seem to care about the discrepancy. At Christmas we sent gifts to the children as my husband's older sister had been doing for years and received a letter in return asking us to send no more gifts. That was our last correspondence from my husband's brother until he was on his death bed 37 years later.
The month after our return from Alberta, I was diagnosed with a serious heart problem and booked for heart surgery in November. While I was in the hospital, my husband's mother and sister pressured him into signing half of his house over to his mother's name. He had given her the right to live in his house for the rest of her life, had put the offer into writing as a legal document and had told her he would look after the taxes and the maintenance since she had no income except the old age pension. She rejected the legal document and did not sign it, according to the lawyer, on the advice of her daughter, who said she wouldn't have an inheritance to leave her children unless she got the house into her own name, quite true, of course.
In February, my husband's brother-in-law died and his widow went to live with her mother. In February, my husband told me about the title transfer which could not be completed because I had homestead rights. I asked him if it was his wish to transfer the house title to his mother. His answer was "NO" and so I said, "Then I won't sign." The next month I found out I was pregnant and five months later, our first daughter was born. My husband was over the moon and couldn't wait to tell all his friends. His mother's deflating response was, "I'm glad that's over."
It had been my husband's life-long dream to own his own farm. When our daughter was eight months old, we took out a three year lease on a section of land with a view to eventually purchasing the farm. We had a 10 bushel quota in the next three years so the family allowance and cream cheques paid our groceries in the winter and we lived off the garden in the summer. There wasn't much money around so my parents brought boxes of groceries whenever they came to visit and winter clothes for the children in the fall.
My husband's family brought a court case, accusing my husband of using his mother's money to buy his house. The family had lived on rented farm land and when the father died in the 1940's, after seven years of illness, it took the teen-age boys two years to pay off the hospital bills. In time, they replaced the horses and the horse machinery with a tractor, truck and combine. The mother never worked outside the home and expected her young sons to support her. She had no money to buy more than her own clothes. Her son provided all her living expenses, including the groceries because she had nothing.
We spent some money that should have been spent on groceries on a lawyer, hoping for mediation and some common sense but the family had a one track mind. My husband would be brought to heel or else.
Four years after our marriage, with two young children to look after, I went to work to support the family. We took defensive steps, emptying the bank accout by paying off what we could on our farm loans, transferring the car license to my name and distancing ourselves from the oldest sister, now a widow, who was assisting her mother, brother and other sister in their attack on my husband.
We left the farm and moved to a town where I could find employment and my husband applied to attend Vocational Agriculture at the University. Eventually, the family succeeded in taking my husband to family court where his mother perjured herself and my husband, whose only records were in the house his mother was living in, had no defense. The judge believed the lovely old lady with the saintly face and the Scottish brogue, supported by her family members and ordered me to sign the homestead rights. It was the first time in his life that my husband had stood up for his own rights.
Standing up and losing was the best thing that could have happened because in order to make any improvements and to avoid losing the house, my mother-in-law ended up having to buy my husband out. She also had to pay her own lawyer bills which she had persuaded the judge, my husband should pay. She garnisheed his bank account and got $25. She sent the sheriff after the car, which I needed for my job, but the secretary warned me and I left town for the afternoon. A lawyer in our new town made a settlement for us and we didn't see or hear from my husband's mother for another five years. The family never tried to push my husband around again. They also never forgave me. Since they hadn't impressed me as the kind of people whose friendship I valued, this didn't particularly trouble me.
My husband finished his Diploma course, got a job at the University, we had a son and bought a house and life gradually improved. By eleven years after we were married, he had a good position with the University, we had our family of three children, a church home, and a circle of friends as well as a good relationship with cousins of my husband's with whom he established contact after his immediate family turned on him.
We were married on a Monday, on Tuesday we had our wedding pictures taken and left for a three day honeymoon to Waskesui Park north of Prince Albert. It was cold and we had practically the whole park to ourselves. It was lovely. Friday we returned to attend my 10 year high school reunion and that evening we got back to our married home to find the whole house in a mess and not a clean sheet in the whole place to sleep on. I opened some wedding presents to find clean sheets for the night and we spent the next two weeks cleaning, painting and repairing to make the place fit to bring a child into.
His mother came back on my brother's birthday which we had gone to my parents' home to celebrate. It was the last time I saw him alive. She was furious that we hadn't been there to take her the two blocks from the bus depot to her home, she was furious that we had cleaned and painted and got replacement furniture while she was away, and she was furious that my three year old daughter had been sleeping in her bed while she was away because there was no other place for her to sleep. She refused to speak to me and didn't speak to me for the rest of her life, another 24 years. After 10 days, we moved to a house we had purchased in the neighbouring town and began a happier stage in our life.
Unfortunately, the cleaning and stress had brought on another attack of rheumatic fever and I was unable to do much work in our new home. I kept my child fed and made supper every day and the rest of the time, I rested.
One year after our marriage, we planned a vacation trip to northern Alberta to visit my husband's brother and his family who had not been able to attend our wedding because they weren't done seeding. We planned to tent until my husband's mother asked to come with us. We didn't want to subject a 70 year old lady to tenting so we motelled it. I had expected to spend at most 2 days at my brother-in-law's but he assumed my husband was there to help him with farm work and so we spent the next 10 days working on the farm and visiting for a short time after supper each day.
On the way home, my mother-in-law wasn't speaking to either of us but provided no explanation for her ire. About a week after we arrived home, my husband's brother phoned him and berated him for mistreating his mother. Although my husband explained that the accusations his mother had made against him were false, there was no apology from his brother nor did he seem to care about the discrepancy. At Christmas we sent gifts to the children as my husband's older sister had been doing for years and received a letter in return asking us to send no more gifts. That was our last correspondence from my husband's brother until he was on his death bed 37 years later.
The month after our return from Alberta, I was diagnosed with a serious heart problem and booked for heart surgery in November. While I was in the hospital, my husband's mother and sister pressured him into signing half of his house over to his mother's name. He had given her the right to live in his house for the rest of her life, had put the offer into writing as a legal document and had told her he would look after the taxes and the maintenance since she had no income except the old age pension. She rejected the legal document and did not sign it, according to the lawyer, on the advice of her daughter, who said she wouldn't have an inheritance to leave her children unless she got the house into her own name, quite true, of course.
In February, my husband's brother-in-law died and his widow went to live with her mother. In February, my husband told me about the title transfer which could not be completed because I had homestead rights. I asked him if it was his wish to transfer the house title to his mother. His answer was "NO" and so I said, "Then I won't sign." The next month I found out I was pregnant and five months later, our first daughter was born. My husband was over the moon and couldn't wait to tell all his friends. His mother's deflating response was, "I'm glad that's over."
It had been my husband's life-long dream to own his own farm. When our daughter was eight months old, we took out a three year lease on a section of land with a view to eventually purchasing the farm. We had a 10 bushel quota in the next three years so the family allowance and cream cheques paid our groceries in the winter and we lived off the garden in the summer. There wasn't much money around so my parents brought boxes of groceries whenever they came to visit and winter clothes for the children in the fall.
My husband's family brought a court case, accusing my husband of using his mother's money to buy his house. The family had lived on rented farm land and when the father died in the 1940's, after seven years of illness, it took the teen-age boys two years to pay off the hospital bills. In time, they replaced the horses and the horse machinery with a tractor, truck and combine. The mother never worked outside the home and expected her young sons to support her. She had no money to buy more than her own clothes. Her son provided all her living expenses, including the groceries because she had nothing.
We spent some money that should have been spent on groceries on a lawyer, hoping for mediation and some common sense but the family had a one track mind. My husband would be brought to heel or else.
Four years after our marriage, with two young children to look after, I went to work to support the family. We took defensive steps, emptying the bank accout by paying off what we could on our farm loans, transferring the car license to my name and distancing ourselves from the oldest sister, now a widow, who was assisting her mother, brother and other sister in their attack on my husband.
We left the farm and moved to a town where I could find employment and my husband applied to attend Vocational Agriculture at the University. Eventually, the family succeeded in taking my husband to family court where his mother perjured herself and my husband, whose only records were in the house his mother was living in, had no defense. The judge believed the lovely old lady with the saintly face and the Scottish brogue, supported by her family members and ordered me to sign the homestead rights. It was the first time in his life that my husband had stood up for his own rights.
Standing up and losing was the best thing that could have happened because in order to make any improvements and to avoid losing the house, my mother-in-law ended up having to buy my husband out. She also had to pay her own lawyer bills which she had persuaded the judge, my husband should pay. She garnisheed his bank account and got $25. She sent the sheriff after the car, which I needed for my job, but the secretary warned me and I left town for the afternoon. A lawyer in our new town made a settlement for us and we didn't see or hear from my husband's mother for another five years. The family never tried to push my husband around again. They also never forgave me. Since they hadn't impressed me as the kind of people whose friendship I valued, this didn't particularly trouble me.
My husband finished his Diploma course, got a job at the University, we had a son and bought a house and life gradually improved. By eleven years after we were married, he had a good position with the University, we had our family of three children, a church home, and a circle of friends as well as a good relationship with cousins of my husband's with whom he established contact after his immediate family turned on him.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Lame Ducks and Bullies
I always had a weakness for lame ducks, whether the animal kind or the human kind. Over the years, I have made many wonderful friends who were "different", who have enriched my life in many different ways. The lonely looking girl standing uncertainly by herself reminded me of times when I walked into a room of strangers and was welcomed and how good it made me feel so I tried to pass it on. The wounded chick had my sympathy when the other chicks tried to peck it to death and I fenced it off to protect it until it was healed.
Bullies have a weakness for lame ducks as well but not in a good way. On the defensive and afraid of being ostracized by their peers, they're the first to jump on the one who seems different and defenseless. And the bullied one in turn, passes it on and joins the bullies when the opportunity arises.
The damage done by bullies is never forgotten. The bully may forget but the bullied doesn't. The ability to trust others is lost for a lifetime when the bullies are members of one's own family during childhood years, a mother, a brother, a sister. Desperately wanting to belong, one day he hears "We love you" and the next day it's "Do as I say, or else" and "or else" has no limits of decency or common sense. Power and control are everything for the bully and he or she is forever fearful that what is being done to others will in turn come around to him or her.
Bullies only attack those who care, those who long for acceptance. Those who live by a different rule, who don't respect the bully's values or attitudes don't become victims of the bully but the bullied don't know that. And where should they find the courage to believe that if they lack the support of family, community and friends? The cycle perpetuates itself, generation after generation, and spreads its disease into the community when it is not recognized and stopped.
Bullying doesn't only hurt the bullied; it hurts all of us and creates an environment that is dangerous for everyone. The person who has been hurt, hurts himself or others, or both. We dream of a better world where trust, love and kindness are the rule and not the exception. Jesus said, "The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few." He also said, "The way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many." The easy way, the bully's way, and the complicity of the bystander, is often the hard way in the end.
And the end comes for all of us.
Bullies have a weakness for lame ducks as well but not in a good way. On the defensive and afraid of being ostracized by their peers, they're the first to jump on the one who seems different and defenseless. And the bullied one in turn, passes it on and joins the bullies when the opportunity arises.
The damage done by bullies is never forgotten. The bully may forget but the bullied doesn't. The ability to trust others is lost for a lifetime when the bullies are members of one's own family during childhood years, a mother, a brother, a sister. Desperately wanting to belong, one day he hears "We love you" and the next day it's "Do as I say, or else" and "or else" has no limits of decency or common sense. Power and control are everything for the bully and he or she is forever fearful that what is being done to others will in turn come around to him or her.
Bullies only attack those who care, those who long for acceptance. Those who live by a different rule, who don't respect the bully's values or attitudes don't become victims of the bully but the bullied don't know that. And where should they find the courage to believe that if they lack the support of family, community and friends? The cycle perpetuates itself, generation after generation, and spreads its disease into the community when it is not recognized and stopped.
Bullying doesn't only hurt the bullied; it hurts all of us and creates an environment that is dangerous for everyone. The person who has been hurt, hurts himself or others, or both. We dream of a better world where trust, love and kindness are the rule and not the exception. Jesus said, "The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few." He also said, "The way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many." The easy way, the bully's way, and the complicity of the bystander, is often the hard way in the end.
And the end comes for all of us.
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