As my mother continues to decline, I find myself using her as an object lesson (and I'm aware of how awful this makes me sound). A few years ago, I thought that she might be more fortunate than her father, who became paranoid and violent toward the end of his life, that she might find herself "merely" silly, eccentric, and harmless as the disease progressed. This was not to be, however, though she is not the imposing figure her father was and so not as frightening physically, her verbal barbs nevertheless come sharp at her two children, now her enemies.
And so I recognize her----and our----continual tendency to set up opposing forces in our minds----someone, anyone or anything, to blame for our suffering, as if naming blame can somehow allow us more control over our lives, can allow us to fix, to correct, to alleviate our suffering. Yet taking this one step further, we can see that assigning blame changes nothing for the better, it only demonizes the blamed one, projecting onto the Other what we ourselves need to look at, to sit with, to heal from.
My brother and I both felt we were disappointments to our parents, that no matter what we did, it was never good enough. Of course, they felt the same toward their parents, and we----as parents----likely caused our own children to feel this way at some point. I can't tell you how many times my mother has told me that my brother "never" visits her (he lives within a half-mile of her), even after my brother tells me that he was just there. Mother simply can't get enough of him, it seems, and so she focuses on the lack, not what has been given, especially in her Alzheimer's state, when she simply can't remember what just happened. (And Mother tells my brother stories of how I disappoint her when she speaks to him.)
How often do we walk about focusing on what's wrong rather than living the life that we have at this moment, sipping the warm tea, watching the clouds clear away, noticing how green everything looks after the rain? Being aware of these tendencies allows us to wake up, at least for a moment, and see that our thoughts are simply that, and that reality doesn't have to be a constant churning in the stormy darkness of what isn't but can be those infinite clear blue skies, too.
And so I recognize her----and our----continual tendency to set up opposing forces in our minds----someone, anyone or anything, to blame for our suffering, as if naming blame can somehow allow us more control over our lives, can allow us to fix, to correct, to alleviate our suffering. Yet taking this one step further, we can see that assigning blame changes nothing for the better, it only demonizes the blamed one, projecting onto the Other what we ourselves need to look at, to sit with, to heal from.
My brother and I both felt we were disappointments to our parents, that no matter what we did, it was never good enough. Of course, they felt the same toward their parents, and we----as parents----likely caused our own children to feel this way at some point. I can't tell you how many times my mother has told me that my brother "never" visits her (he lives within a half-mile of her), even after my brother tells me that he was just there. Mother simply can't get enough of him, it seems, and so she focuses on the lack, not what has been given, especially in her Alzheimer's state, when she simply can't remember what just happened. (And Mother tells my brother stories of how I disappoint her when she speaks to him.)
How often do we walk about focusing on what's wrong rather than living the life that we have at this moment, sipping the warm tea, watching the clouds clear away, noticing how green everything looks after the rain? Being aware of these tendencies allows us to wake up, at least for a moment, and see that our thoughts are simply that, and that reality doesn't have to be a constant churning in the stormy darkness of what isn't but can be those infinite clear blue skies, too.
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| Mont St. Michel's top spire |
