I have another story I want to tell today, and since I am clearly not getting my report done, I may as well tell my tale. Yesterday I finished reading a novel, yawned, and said I am a wastrel. Then I realized that I didn't know what word meant. So I got out my sacred ten pound unabridged English dictionary, the bible of word nerds. A wastrel is one who is idle, wasting time, (exactly) also one who is wasteful, (perhaps) and, surprisingly, one who is an abandoned child, hum...

In the last two years I have encountered, and loved, a series of women who have lost their mothers, and grieve deeply. Some have been temporarily disabled by the grief, none will ever be the same. It seems the wound diminishes our ability for intimacy, to be connected at a deep level and hang in there. After meeting yet another grieving daughter this week, a bell went off in my thick head, there's a message here about mothers and daughters, death and grieving. I have not been getting it, but I am trying now.

Oh mother. My mother has been a torment as far back as I can remember, a yelling, hitting, mean-spirited nightmare who tried very hard to be a good mother and still does. And she has also been dying for nearly that long too. For over 40 years my sister and I have watched with trepidation and, shamefully, a growing callousness. The series of deadly illnesses and subsequent recoveries is both miraculous and bizarre.

In the 60's when we we're very little she had a vague "heart problem." She would gasp and clutch her chest. She would tell my poor older sister that she wouldn't live to see us raised. That one turned out to be an arrhythmia, an uncomfortable but benign condition. Of course, we did not know that, perhaps, she didn't either. Next, in the 70's, was a period of disability from degenerative arthritis of the spine. She told us it would leave her in a wheel chair soon and kill her slowly. My sister and I were left to manage a large house and care for our much younger brother. That illness was miraculously cured by Pat Robertson via television. I will not comment on that, both because I will not risk blaspheme of the holy spirit and because I have a thing for TV preachers too. This brings us up into the early 80's and a case of lupus, terminal in usually just a few years. I don't know what happened to the lupus. Moving along now, there was uterine hemorrhage, mercy, then diverticulitis, then a liver cancer and another miraculous cure, again I will let that be. I did a laying on a hands myself with that one. Now we are up to the current period and the culmination, congestive heart failure, the result of decades of obseity. She had a prognosis of four moths to live, but that was 20 months ago. But she is a tough old bird, she's packing for her third international cruise since then, this time for a month long journey.

It is difficult to prepare for death for so long, over and over. It's worn us out, my sister and me. I feel like the villagers of the boy who cried wolf. But eventually the wolf did come, as he will for all of us. I don't know how mother has done this, to be so ill and then call down grace like that over and over. It tells me there is a lot I don't' understand about "mean spirited" people and about grace.

In the meantime, our relationship has been difficult for me in other ways, especially since I came out. My grievances rise up, her words to me - being destined for homelessness, amoral, equated to a murderer, so many harsh words. Once I remember her talking about homophobia. She said "I hate that word. I don't fear them. I just hate 'em."

But she never stopped calling, she never stopped giving gifts, and she never stopped loving me.

Finally, I decided I needed to forgive her, for me, for healing myself. It is not about what she says or doesn't say, what she thinks or doesn't think. When she passes, and it will be soon, I don't want the loss deepened my shame and regret. I have wasted to much time being a big baby, suffering 'cause I don't get my way. I just need to practice forgiveness. To even begin I had to pray to be led there. I couldn't even pray the words at first. But I prayed to be led there, for the holy spirit to led me into forgiveness. I started practicing forgiveness first on little stuff like a bad meal and a slow waitress, that kind of thing, or rude drivers (well, I'm still working on that one). I've been working up to the mom thing. It's a big pile; I'm old with a long memory. But I just know that underneath the pile is important stuff, like intimacy.

See I realized a while back I had been avoiding intimacy with partners, choosing people who couldn't do it, alcoholics, distancers, long distancers, or just sweet souls who are not home. The lights are on, but when I come to call, no one's home. There must be something I like about that. I keep going for it. So I guess I'm not home either (where did I go?).

After praying and praying I see that one of the barriers to intimacy is unforgiveness. I can't do the deep stuff with anybody if I can't do a "hang in there when it gets tough" love. And I can't do the hang in there love (also known as "commitment" - ouch) if I can't get over stuff. You see how I am with my lists of grievances, (see above). Anyway this week I was praying and got the word, Go See Her. She lives in Florida and I've never been to her house down there. I have gone the house up here for short visits, like an hour, because I can leave and drive home easily, but I never go with my sister because then I wouldn't have my own car, parked out on the street, not blocked in on the drive way, and running, well, not really running, but you get the idea.

Well, it just so happens that my sister and my niece are planning to go tomorrow, so I am going too. I called, my dad booked the flight and I am going. No car, no back door, and a Disney World ticket too. I think feel the diarrhea starting already. But it will be okay. Now I just have to keep away from bargaining, emotional bartering, manipulations - "I came all the way down here on your territory and the least you can do is apologize for...." For what? For being sick and frightened her whole life? For having parents that yell and hit? For never betraying our religion as she is taught it? What? I don't know any more. I'm just hoping to go and be present. Pray for me.