The Good, the bad and the ugly: Part 2
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| Sadness often overwhelms me |
The biggest blow to our family unit was the arrest of my oldest son for murder. That was the crack that set the foundation of our family crumbling. The next rift was that of religion...my oldest two had turned to Christ in the last couple of years and began the push to covert my youngest and I. But we would not budge in our own beliefs.
When I returned from Wisconsin, the final nudge that has made this family fall even further--and maybe even irreparably--apart...is me. Not because I won't give in and become reborn again as a Christian, but because my oldest two kids have some notion that I need to do what they "think" I should do.
"Forgive and forget, and move on," is what one said to me. "Mom, you need to give up your dream of writing and leave the computer alone and get your life back together," the other said.
Yet who are they to judge and choose what I "should" do? These two have also made their fair share of mistakes...some of which were very much like my own...a series of bad choices that determined where we all are now. He sits in prison for a crime that he may not have committed...and she married an inmate whose religious zeal is disturbing and even corrupt.
Even my youngest is not exempt from having made some bad choices, but the difference here is that he has not once, told me what I should or should not do. He supports me in whatever decisions that I make...out of his love and respect for me...his mom.
But I don't get that respect and trust from my oldest two. And I don't know why. They criticize and judge me...but Heaven forbid if I even attempt to do the same to them.
I don't understand. I made these kids my life, even destroyed a marriage to protect them from misuse. Yet they would rather remember all the bad choices I've made and won't remember all that I have done for them that was good. It's not me that needs to forgive, forget and move on.
This also plays through my head at night, when everyone else is sleeping here, and when I should be trying to sleep too. I think about my grown children and my grandchildren, aching for my family to be close-knit again...aching because my oldest two kids don't accept me for who I am...and not who they think I should be.
It's breaking my heart...
It truly is heartbreaking! And it's shameful of those two older ones who claim to be "born again" to be among the worst examples of Christianity I've heard!
ReplyDeleteI would suggest that it is the computer that has probably helped you more than hindered you. A great life lesson was learned, a really hard lesson but one that needed to be learned. You've made good friends on line, supportive friends who seem to encourage you at every step of the way, one thing your kids might try to emulate. I often wonder what happens to families, whey is it that they turn on each other when in the end it is your family that matters most? I understand we all do things that hurt each other but why punish when, as one of them so succinctly pointed out, you can forgive, forget and move on? My parents were not even my "blood" parents, I was adopted, and we all (my brother included) would never dream of saying give up your dream to one another. We might struggle not to make a face and say, what? but in the end, we all support each other's decisions. Keep on keeping on, Deb, my heart aches right along with you.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more, Laura.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn...I do not have any intention of walking away from my computer or my writing...and I am praying that right now, my kids are learning some valuable lessons that I can't teach them any other way. It breaks my heart that my daughter doesn't call me...even just to say "Hi"...but I know that eventually, she will need me again...as will my oldest son...and they will come back.
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