This story doesn't start or end on that Christmas. Only just this past Christmas did I piece together what happened the Christmas before. Jeanette held the missing piece and didn't even know it but God bless her for being the Only One who listened to My story so we could figure out what went wrong.
Where does this sad story start?
I suppose it begins with a death bed promise. My mom was dying. This would be her last fully aware night on earth. She had been stressed about dying and leaving me alone in the world. All of my "family" had totally abandoned me and she showed me a plan in my brother's hand writing to have me put away forever.
Mom believed that her heir would get a 2 million dollar settlement owed to her over leaking breast implants (that ultimately killed her) and she thought Mike's plans were about the money until I told her an old story.
When we were in our twenties my brother developed a bad meth addiction. It was so bad that he was disappearing for days at a time while we formed search parties to hunt him down. His wife came to see me alone, crying, asking what would I do?? I told her that I would take the children and leave, give him an ultimatum to clean up if he wanted them back.
Mike was beyond furious when he confronted me on this. "YOU TOLD MY WIFE TO LEAVE ME?!!"
I tried to explain that was what I said that I WOULD DO, and that it came from what little I knew of Addiction Tough Love. He said that he would Never forgive me.
When Mom heard that she panicked. She said that Mike really would NEVER forgive me and believed I would always be in danger near him. We looked over my life with Mike. How he spoke of me to my own children. Jami was 12 the first time Mike told her I was insane. How his wife and I were beat friends before she was brain damaged in an accident and had to relearn everything. Since then she has treated me like a lower form of life.
Then Mom met Jeremy and fell in love with him for me. As she lay dying she grabbed our hands and put them together and said, "Promise. Stay with him. You choose bad, I get to choose this one!!" She did it over and over and I swore I would honor her choice.
Ok now, I've had some thoughts since then like her oxygen level was in the 80's. Who can think clearly with stats like that?? Then again, the death bed scene wasn't her first time demanding this. She was saying it for weeks before she went in the hospital...
Jeremy became and is still part of my life. I have often had to defend this decision even to myself. We are Not an Ideal Couple. We made sense to a lot of people at first. We needed each other. What one was missing the other had. He is uneducated and has some mental deficiencies. I am physically disabled but started out with a fairly sharp mind. I am also 20 years older. That puts a lot of people off!! But that hasn't been the main issue within The Family.
I'll start with me. I am a proud matriarch after realizing I did Not have to live in a patriarchal world after Steve and I divorced. Sorry, Jeremy. I am set in my new ways and not sorry about it. Historically the world has been a better place during matriarchal times.
Why can't I save and continue ...
