Monday, September 11, 2006

My weekend fell apart

I had all these plans for my weekend. Plans to work on the studio. Plans for creative time. The girls had sleepover company coming, so I had meal plans in place. (Thanks to Mr. Charles for picking up the slack and allowing the sleepover to continue.)

And all of that changed with a phone call. Friday afternoon at work. My mom called and said "I just talked to Michael and Daddy died." Now I had a moment where I could not put the name Michael nor the word Daddy with my Mother's voice. See - we did not know this man.

My mother came from a broken family. Her Dad left when she was 2. He was never anything more than a child support check after that point. I don't know why. I don't have the entire story. Doesn't matter to me except for how it relates to the downhill spiral of the weekend. We did not know him and that's all I know. But my Mom wanted (needed??) me to go with her to the funeral home for the visitation and funeral this weekend. So I did. And this simple act of supporting her became the beginning of the most bizarre weekend I have ever had.

Michael (1/2 brother) and his wife were wonderful to us. He is trying to heal the rift caused by all of this. I am so grateful for that. His children Kristin and Michelle were very open and friendly. I do look forward to getting to know his family. I do hope that this group will effect some semblance of a family.

Still, standing in a funeral line with 1/2 siblings, step siblings, cousins, etc who absolutely knew nothing about each other was just plain weird. Then sitting and listening to a pastor tell stories about him was even weirder. It was immediately noticed that my hands look like his. In telling the stories, we discovered similarities in our personality and in habits. That was strange to me. I guess some of those things are part of your genetic structure.

All of that was interesting, until my mother started processing all that she felt deprived of. Then, without going into detail here, the nightmare began. It ended with me desperately wanting OUT of the situation AND being very ugly to my mother, to get her attention to what she was doing. I have since apologized, but I wish I had not mishandled my end of the situation.

Very difficult weekend. Which ended in such a bad way. (and I forgot my needle, so I could not even escape into something creative. Packed the embroidery project and the floss, but without the needle - its a wasted effort.)

So MaggieGrace goodies are postponed for a day.

I hope your weekend was better than mine.

4 comments:

Artygal/Lalheg said...

Sending you hugs across the pond

Josephine said...

Sorry to hear about this, especially for your mother.

But speaking to the aspect of seeing your hands and ghosts of similarities that you never knew you had, that is an amazing discovery.

My condolences to your family.

Anonymous said...

nevermind, MG, weekends such as this are to be got through, not necessarily handled well, that could be getting ambitious.

can relate to the forgotten needle. You know you're having a bad weekend when.....

Tongue in Cheek Antiques said...

tenderness to your Mother, and my sympathy to you.
To reconize a part of yourself in his hands;