3 posts tagged “future”
Don't let the door hit ya...
Numbness, then summer's light. My brother is growing up. A family's warm embrace. Finding a spiritual community, building authentic relationships, knowing abiding love. Present.
- More about the Mayfly project.
- Previous year's Mayflys: 2007, 2006.
Where do you want to be in ten years?
Submitted by baby3194.
Inspired by AmyH, I'm not looking forward so much as backward:
- 1998 -- In the early part of this year, I was completing sophomore year of of college as a journalism major in Pennsylvania; in the fall, I got on a plane with my boyfriend of two years and headed for England, where we both had a year of study abroad and I was giving myself a shot at studying art history. My mother was married to her fourth husband, and I hadn't spoken to my father in years.
- 1988 -- My parents by this point had divorced. I lived with my mum in a large house on a few acres of land and a lake. My family raised and bred hunting dogs, and we also had a horse and a turtle. My father lived in a suburb of Chicago and had to learn to drive to come out and pick me up for our every-other-weekend visit.
- 1978 -- In a March chill, I was born on the South Side of Chicago to two people too young to know better and held together by religion and parental authority.
When you look at things this way, it's easier to see how futile looking into the future can be.
I don't know how to describe my religious beliefs at this juncture, but I know in my bones that expression is dead-on. In 1978, did my parents know their union was destined to end? In 1988, could I have ever imagined that in the next decade I would see Germany, Austria, Ireland, England, Wales, and France? How different would my choices have been in 1998 and forward if I had known my mother wouldn't live through the decade?
Of course, I look to the future and have hopes and dreams, but looking backwards reminds me to be adaptable and, most importantly, live in the moment I have now.
Note: The year links above go to images from a recent project I completed, which happens to be a reflection on the various addresses of my life and seemed appropriate.
I've talked to Mum's doctors, and they cannot fix her cancer and it is spreading. The doctors and the hospital have done everything they can to help her, but it just hasn't worked. Today she's going to leave the hospital, and we will move her to a place closer to home where there are nurses all day and all night. Any of us can visit her whenever we want to.
This is all very hard to hear, but I need you to know two things:
- Z and I are here for you and will take care of you. That's the most important thing for you to know right now.
- Your mom loves you very very very much and never wanted this to happen.
Saturday night, my husband and I agreed we needed to talk to my brother,
who is 11, about my mother's condition. Sunday morning, we got up and
had breakfast, then initiated the talk. Despite the simplicity of the
words and how much my husband and I labored over them, I know I will
never have to communicate something so hurtful again in my life. My brother took it all in, asked some questions, including, "Is she going to die?" I said yes, and he looked thoughtful for all of a second.
"I'm okay with that. You're here and are going to take good care of me."
His words were comforting and scary, a reminder that Mum's sickness isn't something we'll get through--it's going to impact our days, in very mundane and unarguable ways, for the rest of his life. The idea of not only raising him, but doing some justice to her legacy, so he will remember her with love and admiration, it's a heavy, heavy thing. I am only happy that I am not carrying this alone.
