UNLOVED (journal entry)

"Forever Pieces of My Broken Heart"

NOW:



The other day, I accidentally spoke to my great-nephew. I say "accidentally" because if I'd had time to think about it I probably would have just smiled at him. I don't like to stress him out. But I rounded a corner and there he was, and it was the most natural thing in the world to say hello, even with a lot of joy in my voice. I had not seen him ages and I love him with all my broken heart! He gave me wary looks and hurried away. It made him uncomfortable because, I can tell, he is not supposed to talk to me. He has probably been discouraged and possibly even forbidden from having a relationship with me. His parents, my niece and her husband, have likely coached him to avoid me. They are part of the "people I love that do not love me," crowd, and unfortunately, it is a bit of a crowd. To date there are fifteen people that I love that will not or cannot even speak to me on any dependable basis. They usually ignore my calls, texts, letters, emails. One often walks right by me in a public place and will not even say hello in response to my greeting. That is, on the days when I am feeling strong enough to even speak. Sometimes, I don't have the strength. Sometimes, to my shame, I walk right by her just like she does me. It has surprised me to learn how much strength it takes to face the near certain rejection of someone you hold very dear. It hurts more than you may imagine to be denied even such a small courtesy as a "hello". I remain amazed that much of my family treats me less courteously than they would a stranger that passed them on the street, a stranger that does not know them and certainly does not love them. This baffles me! I was raised female, and in the south, and back in the day. Being impolite was never an option for people that weren't spitting on me or pelting me in the face. I was taught to be polite and to respond to other's inquiries. A letter asking how you were was deserving of a reply and a like question. Not sending a letter back was unheard of! Thank you notes were not a forgotten thing. Likewise, a greeting on the streets was not to be ignored. If I were to pass Hitler in a grocery store I'd probably show even him the courtesy of a "hello". (If I did not pass out, feet up in the melons, because he was supposed to have died before I was even born.) To do otherwise would be to deny his humanity. Denying his humanity would be denying humanity at large, which would be a huge mistake on my part. Perhaps even my downfall. Pema Chödrön says, “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” And I agree with that idea. But by the grace of God goes Skitch, in my opinion.


Largely, my very humanity is ignored by these family members. Multiple attempts at communication through multiple methods over long periods of time will go without the first response, sometimes this lasts for years. One of them will answer sporadic attempts at communication, and she tries to say she is just too busy to send me a short reply to a monthly "How are you?" A couple of them will cuss me blue if I dare to contact them and, quite honestly, of all the mistreatments I prefer that. At least they are admitting that I am alive, that I am a human being, that I have the ability to understand their insults, that I am not invisible, non existent, irrelevant. I've had enemies I hated enough to cuss blue. I've never had an enemy I hated so much that I would not even acknowledge their existence. I cannot even imagine treating Hitler, or a serial killer, or a child rapist with such contempt and hatred! (And child molesters are the people I have the most trouble understanding and loving.) So, you can imagine that their mistreatment of me, their rejection, the way they ignore my very humanity, bewilders and pains me to the nth degree.


Fifteen people cannot or will not return my love! Isn't that alarming? Isn't that something to be concerned about? All of them are supposed to be members of my family. I say "supposed to be" because they have made it painfully evident that they can choose to not be part of my family, or perhaps, more accurately, to not allow me to be part of theirs. Twelve of these people I would (to this very day, no matter how much they have hurt me) literally take a bullet for. Three of them I love because they are so adored and needed by people that I have loved for years. Isn't it funny (read "wonderful") how you can love by proxy? Two of them, I believe, would talk to me if they were not discouraged or disallowed. (See upper photo.) Two of them, I know, love and miss me and ache over this uncomfortable and unnatural estrangement, perhaps even more than I do. (See lower photo.) I feel for them the most, even more than I do for myself on these melancholy days, when I look squarely at the bare and hateful facts. They are sweet, innocent, beautiful children. They don't really understand what is going on and why they are suddenly not supposed to talk to someone they love. But then again, I don't understand it either. I wonder if anyone truly does?

What did I do to these people? I loved them. I tried as hard as I could to be good to them, to be part of their family. I tried to be there for them when they needed me, to provide any support I could. I did not physically, or mentally, or emotionally, or sexually, or verbally abuse any of them. I simply held ideas that they found vile, and I refused to decry those beliefs, no matter how unpopular they were. I did not realize then that it would cost me their love. But even if I had known that, I would not have lied to them. One of my closely held beliefs is that a love based on falsehoods is no love at all. You cannot love me if you don't even know me. These ideas were not the kind you might assume. They were not things like "All black people are evil/inferior," or "Jack the Ripper was a hero," or "I think all kids should be beaten every day whether they misbehave or not." No, it was more like, "We are all human, we all make mistakes," or "I think sometimes you have to make hard choices but hopefully good will come of it in the long run," or "We should practice forgiveness." My sins are ideas that most would regard as beliefs of unity and peace.

And yet, I would still be worried about this plethora of family that hates (or acts as if they hate) me. Fifteen is no number to be swept under the rug! I would wonder if I were somehow much more unlovable than I knew. I might even wonder if I were, in fact, some horrible human, some monster in disguise, if it weren't for the people that know me better and love me more. These people save my heart and my sanity, possibly they have saved my life. My parents and my sisters have known me all my life, and they think I'm a pretty decent sort. They pray that these others will soon come to realize that I am worth loving. My best friend and adopted sister, Mary, knows me inside and out. She says I am easy to get along with and am very deserving of anyone's love. She tells me that, if there is justice in this world, then one day these people will come to see how much I love them and they will love me in return and be kind to me instead of being cruel to me. It is a hope, and I have stood on that hope for years now. My sons have known me all their lives and have been under my rule most of their days, yet they adore me and tell me they don't understand how anyone could ignore me or disown me. My husband of over a decade knows me better than anyone on Earth and he finds me very lovable. I try to keep a brave face on for him, for misery breeds misery, and he is treated the same way and even worse by most of these people. If he can bear it and be strong, and hold his head up, and keep on loving those that do not or cannot love him... then surely I can do the same. Right? I have no choice when it comes to loving them. If my love came from faucets, I would have turned their spigots off long ago. Life would be so much easier and kinder if I could simply stop loving them until they started loving me in return.
I've tried everything I could think of to get along with them, to show them that I care. Like Wile E. Coyote, I've hit my head against the same brick wall more times than good sense dictates. I've tried letters and phone calls, being patient, giving them space and time, sending gifts, being kinder than kind, reasoning, even pleading but my words fall on deaf ears. Most of the kind moves I make get put under a microscope and examined for flaws, twisted into something ugly even when I imagined there would be no way to do so. "Perhaps I bought that child a book with "witch" in the title because I am calling her a witch?" I kid you not; that is how twisted things get!

And so it goes.

I can't really win. The closest I can come to winning is loving them from afar, despite the pain. Since I cannot help but love them and that love is painful, I choose to focus on the love instead of the agony. Some days I concentrate on doing nothing but loving them and breathing... Breathing is important. Most days I can keep my eye on the people that do love me, the things that make me happy, the beauty of the world, and the beauty of my own life. Sometimes the pain is such that it eclipses all things beautiful, and I have to remind myself that not all my days are so difficult. Some days I have to remind myself to breathe. I want to keep breathing. I want to know what is on the other side of this anguish. I want to know what I will learn from these hard times. I've figured out from experience that pain has a silver lining. I'm usually good at finding it. I had an abusive teacher when I was a child and I've rejected all the abuse, all the fear, all the badness, and what I am left with is strength, ingenuity, and a feeling of accomplishment. This pattern of rejecting the bad and keeping the good usually works brilliantly for me. But this time it is not happening. Still, I remind myself, the silver lining is much more evident on the other side of the pain. This pain seems determined to linger.

I know I am not alone. I am not the first person to be rejected by those I dearly love, and I will not be the last. In my own family, my husband and my sister, Lila, struggle with this pain at least as mightily as I do. And there are other families going through the same agony, the same rejection. If you are in a similar predicament with any of your family, perhaps there is nothing you can do either except love them and breathe. Maybe you need to stop hitting your head on a brick wall, concentrate on the good things in your life, step back and pretend that time and space are your allies. Perhaps they truly are. Focus on the fact that, sure, you cannot make them love you, but neither can they make you stop loving them. And, most importantly, no one can ever take your memories from you. They are yours to love and cherish forever. If you are in the same sad boat that I have found myself in for over a decade now, if you love someone and they don't return that love, I hope you stay focused on the good in life, I hope you don't give in to the pain by turning to anger and hatred. I hope you focus on the love, and on yourself. I urge you to concentrate on things you can control, and on things of beauty. And I certainly hope how soon they come around and learn to return your love! As surely as I know, "We are all human," I also know that everyone deserves to be treated with respect; Everyone deserves to be loved.

"Forever Pieces of My Broken Heart II"