A Letter to My Mother

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お母様え

私が　死ぬ前に　一言　言いたい事が　有ります。小さい時から　優しく育ててくれた　お母さんに　私わ　大変　苦労を　掛け　申し訳ないと　思っています。

私は　一時、お母さんを　尊敬し　何でも　学び、同じ家で

生活を　いつまでも　したいと　思っていました。

でも、お母さんは　文句や　口答えを　しない　”男”の

弟ばかりを　庇って　大切に　育てる　姿を　見て　家に

居るのが　大変　辛く　なりました。　私は　家を　出て

家族以外の　愛を　求めようと　決心を　しました。　でも、

それも　大変だった。”愛”は、簡単に　来ない。辛い　思い出

ばかりでした。

私は　お母さんに　大変　心配、苦労を　掛けた　事が

申し訳ないと　思っています。そして、何度も　口答えを　して

お母さんの　心を　傷付け　申し訳けないと　思っています。

御免なさい。　許して下さい。　今になって　遅いかも

知れないが、それが　私の　一番　後悔の　悩みです。地獄まで　持って行く　悩み事です。

本当に　本当に　御免なさい。お母さんの　心を　傷付けて

本当に　御免なさい。人の　心を　傷付けた　事が一番　辛い悩みです。

こんな私、　そして　そんな　出来事だったから　お母さんは

この家に　来ないのだろうと　思いました。とても　寂しい

毎日で　ありました。

私の　大事な　お母さん。大切な　お母さん。私が　お母さんに　思った愛は　何が　会っても　必ず　私の　心に有りました。

お母さんは　この手紙を　読んで　何を　思うかな？　こんな事をして　御免なさい。まさか　本当に　こんな事を　すると　思わなかったでしょう。でも、生きる事が　もう辛かったのです。

考える事にも　疲れ。体の　痛みにも　疲れ。もう　疲れました。

生きても　もう　面白くないです。

では、お先に　行きます。　あの世で　又　会いましょう。

今度は　もっと　良い娘になって　親孝行を　必ず　します。

 

 

My Closet

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Am I defined by what’s in my closet?

The clothes I like to wear…to have.  Like, but never worn.  Received as gifts, but do not want to hurt the person who got it for me…so it’s just there…in my closet.  Some meant something to me at one time in my life…has memories, but means nothing any more.  Can’t fit, think might one day, so you just hold on to it.  Some things are just there just because I might get “it” again…to use in the hospital.  And some things are there just because we had nowhere to put them in the house…like the toilet paper, paper towels, and such.

Actually, I love my closet the most from all the rooms in the house.  I can sit in it and be alone…to get away…to contemplate…to cry…to close my eyes for a while.

It was a place to kiss and talk to Hina, Bobo, and Sparrow.  But now, I got a little braver and brought them out to sleep with me.

The closet is still my refuge.  Maybe I will make it my last escape.

I’ve donated and thrown out many things, but still have one month to go through it again.

What remains will define me…my style…my favorites….

I wonder who will want to know?

Why Children Move Away

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Through a dream I had, I now know why children move away from home. Why that “ritual” becomes the normal order of life. It is to desensitize them when a parent dies.
Separated from home in body makes one spiritually not close to the other. In other words, the bond is broken. This is the process of becoming a “stranger”. To be close to someone or being spiritually connected, one must live or see the other everyday or often.
However, even in this situation, I don’t know if I’m loved completely. There is no respect for what I like or don’t like from the people I live with now. No support for what I fear.
So, am I loved and respected? It doesn’t seem so.

What is Nazedesho?

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“Naze” in Japanese means “Why?”
“Naze de sho” roughly translated means “Why is it?” or “Why is that?”.
“Life” is just that…….”Why?”…..
So many questions in life is……”Why?”

Life is too complicated…

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Life is too complicated.  So much is in demand of “life”.  I feel overwhelmed and exhausted.  Too much is demanded and expected at every stage of life.

When we’re young, our parents expect us to be ideal children.  We have to behave, get good grades, show reverence to elders and parents.  I think children know it…can feel it….that their parents are disappointed in them because they didn’t live up to their expectations.

This distances them….between parent and child.  I see this and hear this as a parent.  And I feel this as a child, and as a parent.

Then in adulthood, we are so busy finding “our niche”, “our way”, that everyone else, everything else gets pushed aside and neglected.  And when we realize that we still have not accomplished anything, we are reminded of that through media and people who are intent on reminding us of our failures and why we’re the 99%.

Life is so busy that I forgot how to live.  I was looking forward to getting old and taking senior citizen classes like the wonderful “ladies” that I know.  Then I’ve come across this hurdle that presents the other dark side of aging.  I’ve come to hate growing old.

I don’t look forward to anything now.  It’s like I’ve lost all my children to “Life”.  I have pains.  I have problems.  This “life” is not living.  This is not what I thought “Life” would be like.

“Life” saddens me.

There is death in the media everyday.  Not only age related death, but “life” that “someone” took away.  All this news saddens me.

We have to work and make money just to put food into our mouths.  I look at my pets while they are being fed and think that is all we do as humans too.  We have to forage for food.  That is a sad life.  Living only to eat.

We have to just go to work…find work…just to eat and survive.   That sounds really sad.  Is that what life is all about?

I guess I’m feeling all this because I use to do that.  Work.  But all that leads to is debt.  Debt for food, clothes, education, job, car, house…it’s just endless.

I look at all the things in our home now and wonder “Why did I get that?”, “That was a dumb purchase!”, “That was dumb of me!”  All I see are dollar signs on everything I own.

“But, it was to make another person’s life happy”, I say to myself.  Maybe I was trying too hard to make my life happy by thinking that would make someone else happy……my children……..grandchildren…….. spouse.

“They” probably never knew……that everything I did and got was……for them.

Funeral

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When I go to a funeral, all I see are fleeting tears from family, friends, and strangers.  But it means nothing to the departed.

If I had a funeral (which I’m not), I would like to tell everyone there, “Why come now?”  ”Why come when I no longer can talk to you, laugh with you, or cry with you?”

I would like to tell them that their presence while alive would have meant more to me and that I didn’t need them once I was dead.

Attending a funeral is just for one’s conscience.  Is it so you don’t have to feel bad or guilty?

I don’t care to know who came to my funeral.  I would care more if they were there for me when I needed their help when I was alive.

Family

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What is family? A name?  A mother, father, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, grandchildren?  Spouse?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love everyone in my so called “family” community.  I am just questioning my existence as I ponder my death.  I just can’t find a reason to live.  To continue living….

My daughters can tell me to live and voice their concern, but does it really matter to them?  I hardly ever see them, even when I ask for help, or almost begging for them to come back home.  So, when they tell me not to die, it does not seem so believable.   And as for my son, well, he just needed a free babysitter.  He never comes around after I said I couldn’t baby sit any more because of health reasons.   He “was” suppose to be my mother-in-law’s caregiver and person of “interest”, her favorite, power of attorney, or whatever.  He never offers to take her to the doctor.  He never comes to clean her room.  He should at least offer to watch her so that my husband and I can have a “date night” like we once had.  By default, the “caregiver” became my husband and I.  My sister-in-law doesn’t want anything to do with her own mother’s care.  She said, “You guys took it upon yourselves to take her in.  I would never do it.”  How heartless is that?  Coming from her own daughter!  These things disgust me so much and question me about the term “family”.  Everyone wants to put my mother-in-law in a home.  She doesn’t want to be in one.  I said that I will care for her then.  The person who she despises has to take care of her.  She must be so disgruntled about that fact.  It is no wonder that she doesn’t listen to me.  She grumbles at everything I do for her.  When I call for her that dinner is ready, she makes pretend that she didn’t hear me.  My husband calls her in a smaller voice and she hears him.  She tells me she’s not deaf and not to talk loud.  Yet, she claims that she cannot hear so don’t talk soft.  Confusing huh?  Actually, she is hard of hearing, but refuses to put on her $3,000 hearing aid.  She actually doesn’t like me, the all appointed caregiver, because of “woe is me” stories created by my disgruntled step-daughter who thought she had a wicked step-mother like Cinderella.  She ran away from home when she was young.   What else can I say?  I did my best as a mother.   She didn’t like rules.  No one to believe me, but that’s ok.  I know that I was a good step-mom and mom.  Everyone came first.  I forgot about my needs and feelings because no one acknowledged that they were important.  I am realizing now that they were.   I wouldn’t be in so much pain now.  My heart is broken and I don’t think it can be mended any more.

One can tell me that kids need to fly the nest, and that they need to make their own family.  But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t return to check on their parents, nor to abandon the family that they had before they had their own.

What is family?

For me, it defines a “group” that is all together once again at a member’s funeral, and nothing more…..

No Aging

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I’ve decided not to age.

I was looking forward to aging and joining all sorts of senior citizen classes.  Taking dancing, ceramics, drawing, crafting, sewing, or singing.  But I don’t think this will ever happen.

Caring for my mother-in-law is a task in itself.  She is anti-social. Likes to tell only “her” stories, but refuses to listen to anyone else’s.  Doesn’t like to listen to any of our requests regarding housekeeping, eating, or anything else.  She is a scrooge with regards to shopping.  Never comes home with anything for us when she goes out with her sister, daughter, or anyone else.  Messy, but she won’t admit it.  She just has to have her way with everything.

This living condition has taken a toll on my physical and mental well being.  Seeing and living with all this has me thinking.  I don’t want to age like her.  So, I’ve decided not to.

My last day on earth will be when I am 58.  I don’t have the courage or will to go on.  There is absolutely nothing great about life.  I try to think there is by listening to “The Secret” cd every day.  I try to think positive and that there will be a way out of our troubles so that we can have a happy and comfortable life. There are more worries of all kind.  I want to be worry free and be happy when I awake.  But, I dread waking up every morning just to face another day of misery.

It was great when we had children roaming in the house.  I loved being a mother and step-mom.  I thought I was doing a very good job of being a mother and wife.  Now, we have only three aged people in the house.  All we talk about is the lack of money, work needed to fix the house, lack of jobs, or pain in our bodies.  I guess anyone would get bored in our house.

I talk to my animals like an insane person.  I sometimes think I need to be in the state hospital in the back of our house.  My body aches, my mind…I don’t know where it’s at.  Am I looney?  

Sometimes I have an urge, an anger deep inside….at people? at the world? at life? I don’t know how to release it slowly.  I have an urge to take a knife….to release the anger…and the sadness.

Am I mad?  Or am I sad?  My emotions seem to be conflicting…mixed up somewhere….

I look at the magnificent mountain in the back and I just want to climb it……just to fall from it.

I look at my aged fingers on the keyboard as I type this….no more aging for me…..

 

What does it take?

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Everything is a consequence of something.

We worked hard and gave our all to send our children off to good colleges.  We hoped they would have a good education so that they could get a good start to a career here.  But in the meantime they find an interest…the human kind…and hang around in that state.  We like who they have met, but yearn for our child’s return.

We have heard of great stories of children who go back home to take care of their aging parents.  Are we selfish to yearn those ourselves?

What does it take to get someone home?  Usually it’s funerals.  That’s when most families get in touch with one another again…even if it means only a few minutes at the funeral.  So, does that mean that I will not see my child again until it is a funeral for me?

How sad is life.  Everything we do seems so sad at the end.  Good intentions are consequently sad ones.

On the verge of crazy…

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Is it only I, or do you all think so too?  Life is getting harder.  Life is getting meaningless.

What is a human life worth? I am sad to hear of all the killings, suicides, and accidents that take lives.  Young…old….it is still a life.  Is this population control? I cry and I don’t even know them.

We work hard to get no where.  Why must we choose between paying for food or the rent?The rich get richer.  The poor gets government assistance.  Well, us middle class just work harder to get ourselves into debt paying for taxes and the bare necessities.  It doesn’t seem fair that I can’t collect disability now that I need it. You need the right amount of credits at the right time?  Working hard at youth, then staying home to raise the children because you can’t afford help. Caring for a 91 year old mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s. My body and mind can’t function well for awhile now because of RA, SLE, fibromyalgia, and others. And now I can’t collect because of the time frame of my credits?  This I find is so unfair.

No one cares about the struggling, soon to commit suicide person.  It is easy to say, “Things will get better”, “Don’t worry”, “Call me”, “Let’s talk”.  Only words for the moment. You think anyone cares if I did or that I didn’t?  If I succeeded or that I didn’t?

I did not want to go in to see the doctor knowing that I had a lump in my breast.  I delayed the visit until by husband demanded that I go.  I wanted it to be cancer. .And so it was.  But it was not meant to be the end just yet.  Just made one year from a mastectomy.  You think anyone cares? I have four more years to go to be considered a “survivor”.  Do you think I care? Do you think anyone else cares?  I don’t really know the answer to that yet.

Disgruntled? No, just sad at how life is.