Exhaling slowly

It's been just over a month since I lost Mom. While things will never be the same again, life is beginning to return to normal.

Friends sent some really lovely cards and thoughtful email messages. Reading them helped. I am sad that my email program (Outlook Express) dumped about 3000 recent messages including all of those lovely condolence letters before I had time to print them out. My intention was to save them so I am disappointed that my computer swallowed them but I remember how they made me feel and that was what mattered. (I really hope that it did not delete any that I had not yet had time to read!)

I also received a really upsetting note from someone I would have defined as a cordial acquaintance, though not a friend, before this item arrived in the mail. Allow me to explain how this happened.

I began writing notes to thank people for flowers, gifts of food, etc. a couple weeks ago. I think it's fair to say that I was thinking on paper as I wrote. Friends who know that I cared for Mom 24/7 for 15 months understand that did not allow me to work away from home and that money was always tight. I did freelance, still do and that kept us in grocery money and paid for other necessities but it didn't pay for everything. So I used Mom's savings and mine to keep her in this house rather than move her into a nursing home. I understand that changes like that can really send someone with Alzheimer's into the abyss. And I was glad that I was able to do that but, toward the end, I was worried about how I would be able to continue when I had no more savings to dip into. When I wrote in several of my acknowledgements that I was "broke until I found a job" it was an expression of relief because now I can seek additional work. In that context, it never occurred to me that anyone who knew Mom and me would twist that statement into a request for a handout.

I am also free to work away from home now. And I'm looking for work opportunities. My household income has been reduced by the loss of Mom's pension but so have the bills for medicine, that increased exponentially when she fell into the Medicare Rx "donut" hole, and other items necessary to Mom's care. My concerns about finances were exacerbated for months by the fact that I could not leave Mom alone to go out to work. Now I can. One of my first orders of business was to let people know I am looking for work, hence my comment. And I have gotten some employment leads and client referrals as a result!

But when I first read it, I was really nonplussed. I guess I can see how someone might misinterpret my words, especially someone who is not particularly close to me and has not kept in touch during Mom's long decline. But wouldn't the most appropriate thing to do assuming she really did interpret this as a request for money be to ignore it? Instead, I got this really hurtful letter. One friend who read the "nasty gram" cautioned me to keep in mind that the interpretation only proved that, although I was the one grieving, the writer thought it was "all about her."

But the law of unintended consequences kicked in. Although I had wept often in the days leading up to Mom's death, I had been unable to cry since. Even at the memorial service I only shed a few tears -- for which I was grateful since I hate to lose my composure in public. But that spiteful note did the trick. I cried for the rest of the day and most of the night remembering all I had lost and also the grievances I had been hanging on to regarding people and things whom I felt had used Mom ill over the years. The next afternoon I realized that I was no longer numb so there was hope that I could begin to work through this loss because I could cry for Mom and for myself. And I realized something else.

Over a year ago, I was in a difficult place emotionally. My circumstances left me feeling beat down by life. And there were a few individuals who had exacerbated that feeling by kicking me when I was down. Life is like that. And most "blows" don't bother us when we are going strong but take a tremendous toll when we are not. A friend sent me an article about how hanging on to resentment robs one of energy. Realizing that I could not afford to spend the limited energy that I had on resenting people who had added to my burdens or declined to lighten them when they had the power. So I decided I had to forgive and forget and get past those injuries. I did. And I felt better. I landed a couple of freelance clients, which really helped me through that 15-month incarceration. But that letter reminded me that there were some resentments that I had only buried, particularly with regard to persons who had added to Mom's burdens because the writer was one of them. I had put that out of my mind but, the letter brought those memories of how hurt Mom was rushing back. And I knew that I could not carry that weight around with me.

I made up my mind to forgive the injury. I confess that I found it harder to forgive someone who hurt Mom but I am working my way toward it, ever mindful of the fact that doing so releases ME from the prison of my resentment and allows the positive energy to flow. I've come a long way already but still have a ways to go.