Oh how I love this, on so many levels.
Niko! I remember when you first mentioned him saying this:
Set clear ethical boundaries
And who or what did he have in mind; what #lifelesson might have triggered this insight?
Your grandchildren (none on the way yet, right?) will not get to know their Uncle Niko.
And my sister's grandchildren won't get to know her. Just one, now age 4, had time with her. Struck down by cancer at age 62. All the light and laughter and ebullience of Kelly, scattered as so many molecules and atoms - the flash of light on rippling water in the sun? That's it? Sorry, I hate that popular poem going around....
But I love your poem, Stacey! "Give thanks to the ramblings of an old woman" - old in years, maybe, and in wisdom, but young at heart and so very much ALIVE and here with us, and for that I am so grateful. Every day, I list the good things still in this world of war and loss. Stacey is still here. MarianneWest and MyJob are still here. We lost our beloved Bruno, but we still have much to celebrate.
Thanks for this Stacey!
Set boundaries - that is a message I'm seeing as my middle child, the mother of our grandchildren, has declared me "insanely toxic" (for reasons that even my husband says sound fabricated and fictional) and we have been "removed" from her life. I'll miss the kids. The daughter, I just pity.... "the daughter" .... flesh of my flesh, breastfed on demand for two years, nurtured with love, but Middle Child ....
Oops, my quote block went fubar. Should I edit or just leave it.
Also, in sharing via Twitter, your image didn't come through. -_-
Yeah my images are unreliable. I think it's my computer. Ifarmgirl tweeted it, and the image seems to have worked. But thanks for tweeting twittering me! I never go to twitter anymore. I have enough online to do.
Oddly, today, the image does come through at Twitter. Oh the gremlins and glitches of tech and social media platforms.
So frustrating! I tend to ignore the glitches because many of them do just work themselves out without my tearing my hair out for an hour trying to understand what is wrong.
the Facebook share worked (image comes through)
What?! You've been removed?! What is that?! On top of all else that has been going on? You are not the toxic entity in this fantasy of your son in law's and your daughter's. I am so sorry!!! That's ridiculous, I am very angry at them. What do you mean even Tim says their reasons are fictional?
Niko was quite wonky by this time, but insistent on our setting ethical boundaries, even asking me the next day "Did you do it?" When I asked "Do what?" he said "Set ethical boundaries." I believe he wanted to be sure the end of his life was the way he wanted it to be, without medical intervention, and at home. He died in my arms in his own bed, with no medical interference.
The children will get to know your sisters, all of them. They carry all of you with them, whether they, or you, know it or not.
You know I love you, right?
#Removed. Excised, like a tumor. Carol has been cut out of her daughter's life.
I'm mad at her too. Niko's words on #boundaries carried a special weight when you posted this. Very timely, very relevant. #GottaLoveNiko, and always #loveyouStacey!
This 29-yr-old needs "time off" from her mother. The things she accuses me (and her sister) of are so bizarre, I figure it's her addictions talking (weed every day for a decade, the nicotine/vaping in the past year, then her anti-anxiety meds, her six trips to ER in one summer for the crippling anxiety). Yes, I'm getting personal here. Who's gonna read this? My daughter? Her husband?
Yes, I feel the love and support from you, and you know I love you, Stacey!!
That one word, even. "Even Tim." Funny how a single word can slip in and train-wreck a statement. Tim who lives with me and knows me better than anyone - Tim says our daughter and her husband manufacture grievances against me, and he sees no basis in reality for their claims of me being 'insanely toxic,' etc, and it would all be laughable in a 30-minute sitcom where all the misunderstandings and delusions are exposed at the end of the show. But no. It festers. I have been "removed" from their lives, and oops, that means they lose Tim too. And our other daughter and son.
Their motherless cousins have said how lucky she is to still have her mother.
I've contemplated faking my own death and living under an alias. So many of my 5-minute freewrites have circled the wagons around that idea but only occasionally do I write of some housewife taking off in an old van and leaving it all behind. I don't really want to leave everything and everyone behind. I just want people to tolerate my eccentricities and love me in spite of my failings.
LOL, me carrying my sisters with me - well, that could explain a lot! They were noisy and attention-seeking and rambunctious. And I loved them no less for it. :)
I grew up around "crazy" people (most of us do). We learned to accept one another and BE THERE for each other no matter what. We didn't remove the tumors (the "toxic" spinster aunt, e.g.) -
Eh. Time to go write a book review.
Thank you Stacey!!!!
I forgot she was having those anxiety problems. She's depleted, and her evil husband is taking advantage of her condition by turning her against the last people outside the family that she had quality contact with, her family of origin. It's awful. I hope she snaps out of it!!! Who is he going to go after next? Because he has to be destroying something or someone, he's an obsessive destroyer. What on earth does she see in him?
Yes, she is depleted. She tells herself she has the best husband in the world. She posts pictures of him, shirtless, saying "All mine," and sorry if his hotness melts the computer screen. She has to believe the lies she's telling the world (and herself) because the alternative is horrifying and unfathomably, profoundly painful. I dread the day she wakes up. She may never wake up. It would destroy her.