Nana never spoke about her cancer and I never asked her to. I wish I had. Maybe she would tell me what I am feeling is normal. I have done everything the doctors have told me to do, no matter how painful or humiliating and still the cancer lives inside me. I am a very modest person and I have had more strangers look at me naked in the last 3 years than I have in my entire life and I don’t even get the joy of being a mother. I knew I never would, even when I was young, but sometimes that pain feels new again. I know I am tired of the fight inside me.
Nana was a lady; very graceful and well-spoken. She taught me to be a lady, as well. I was often teased by my friends for some of my lady-like habits and called a snob for my vocabulary. Nana hated swearing. She said there were so many wonderful adverbs to choose from, why did people have to resort to such low speech? I remember, even my father’s second wife would tell me that she hated the look I got on my face when she swore, she felt judged. I don’t know what look she was talking about, but other people said the same thing. All I can say about my father’s second wife, is she is not a lady. In fact, after years in therapy and trying to make peace with not fitting in, I saw her flip off one of my relatives at a Christmas party and my thought came loud and clear: Why am I trying so hard? I don’t like these people and they don’t like me. I wouldn’t put this effort into strangers.
I can’t say I never swear, the fact still remains, I am the biological daughter of a sailor (Coast Guard) and my father was my preferred parent until he left us and between him and the kids at school, I learned a lot of ways to use words that Nana was not going to teach me, but I have to get pretty angry to use those words. But I am beyond even these words right now.
I am exhausted. The kind of tired that sleep can’t fix because when I do sleep, I have nightmares. I know it is stress. Considering radiation for my next cancer step has been difficult. It has been me, accepting that my body has failed the medication route. It is me accepting another, probably, painful treatment and more people looking at my naked body. It is me wondering if this will actually work and worrying about the side effects that the doctors can’t know about because I have fibromyalgia and she is a vindictive bear and she doesn’t like to be poked. It is me having sharp shooting pain in my face as my trigeminal neuralgia is triggered and stiff jaw joints as my TMJ joins in the party.
But is also the memories that are being unpacked that I don’t want to remember. My youngest sibling and my nephew are in town. They are helping my mother clean out her house. She is getting ready to sell her house and move out of state. My mother and I have made as much peace as we can. We know we love each other but we can’t have a relationship. We pray for each other. She emailed me and told me she would put my things in a storage unit and send the key to the gym so we could come get it. I thanked her. But my sibling started emailing me. I have had no contact with this sibling for years. The last time we communicated they told me to stop contacting their children.
All my siblings have said this to me.
Being an auntie was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me and those relationships were my most dear until I married Karen. I loved listening to the kids. I loved playing with them. I did not want to be their parent. I wanted to be their auntie. But my siblings felt like I wanted too much.
When my sibling wanted me to come to my mother’s house to unpack the garage that I had cleaned so many times over the years, where half of my things went into when we moved there because my new room was half the size of my old room, where I collected things to finally move out one day, even if I could have done it, I could not have done it with them there. I had always done everything alone. This sibling offered up my ability to see my nephew as a prize and it felt a punch in the stomach.
My nephew is a man now. He could choose to have a relationship with me if he wants to. I won’t have his parent be a go-between. I already gave all I could give to them when I helped to raise my siblings, and ALL that entails, and when I helped to take care of their babies, until they didn’t need me anymore and they told me to stay away from their children. As much as I love my nephew and cherish every moment I spent with him, I want a real relationship, not one build on manipulation. Even if that wasn’t the intent, that is what it felt like.
Manipulation is what I remember growing up. If I put up with a certain amount of abuse, I got a few new books. If I got my hair done, I owed a certain amount of chores, more than usual, even though I was on call 24/7 always. On the day my father and his second wife told us they got married (yes they didn’t even tell us they were getting married or invite us, even though they had lived together for a few years) his wife told us that their marriage would be more important than any of us kids. At least that statement was true. I always felt like I was being crushed. If I ever felt happy, there was always someone that knew how to take it away from me, so I learned to swallow myself.
My nieces and nephews were the only people in my family that I let see the real me. I let them see my joy, curiosity, love, mercy, compassion…anything good that was in me. I know that maybe that was hard for my siblings to see because that was not the Summer they ever got. They were raised by an angry, abused, absent Summer. They got the worst of me most of the time. I think my youngest sibling may have seen some of my goodness, but when they told me to stay away from their children, it had been probably years since they had seen anything good from me unless it was directed at their children.
Years later, I had always thought I had taken all the abuse, which is what I wanted, but after so much therapy, it became truth to me that that was probably not true, even though it looked like they had it easier, that doesn’t mean they were in a healthy environment. My siblings have their own traumas, even if they don’t remember them or have PTSD like I do. They might not mean to hurt me but they do. I had to choose myself at some point. And that point came when I was diagnosed with cancer.
I wish Nana and Grandpa were here. They always knew what to say. I was watching an interview of Pete Buttigieg on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and it was so refreshing. Although Grandpa was a republican, Buttigieg being a democrat, doesn’t change the way he speaks from reminding me of Grandpa. He always pauses after a question to consider his words carefully and he uses beautiful words that mean tremendous things and when he has the opportunity to say something negative, he always takes the high road, while having a dry sense of humor. I know that many people, that are no longer in my life, might not agree with me, but I try to live my life in a way that emulates my favorite parts of Nana and Grandpa. People that do not bring out the best in me, or I don’t bring out the best in them, can’t be given much of my time because it is not healthy for either of us. This doesn’t mean I don’t have love for them, it actually means I am giving them the most love I have for them, by not abusing them or myself.
I know I can’t have a relationship with my parents. My father chose his second wife and I won’t have her in my life. I don’t think I can have my siblings in my life because I don’t think I can forgive them for removing their children from my life. I know they didn’t understand my relationship with their kids; they probably thought I wanted more than I actually did but I just wanted to love them and to be part of their life, to watch them grow and listen to what the kids had to say. I know my siblings didn’t like it when I told them what their kids actually wanted, but we come from a family where kids tend to be seen as extensions of the parents and not actually individuals and I didn’t want my siblings to make the same mistakes our parents made. My parents didn’t know me at all, if they did, they sure didn’t communicate it well to me, or they didn’t care. Neither did my siblings. In fact, I don’t know my siblings either.
I am curious about my nieces and nephews. They are all adults now. I assume they are busy with their own lives. Maybe some day they will Google me and reach out. I would love that.
Today, while I wrote this, I defrosted the freezer and cleaned out the microwave. As I washed the plate for the microwave, I thought of Nana because I wash dishes like she does. She often didn’t use a brush or wash cloth to wash just one dish, she just used her hands, scraping at hard spots with her finger nail. The other night I had a dream that Grandpa had set up a new game for one of my siblings and I to play. This particular sibling and I have no relationship. But while we played we were having a great time.I wondered why I would have a dream like that. After praying about it, I know that part of the reason we don’t get a long is that we are too alike, but also we didn’t get an opportunity to be playmates. Dad left too early and I had to become a grown up. Grandpa was letting us play in my dream and we were having fun. I am glad that Nana and Grandpa are still coaching.
If you want to watch that interview with Pete Buttigieg on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
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My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven. For anyone reading this that isn’t a Christian, unapologetically, I am a Jesus Follower, but I believe there is room for lots of beliefs and religions in the world. It is not my intent to offend people with different beliefs than I have and I would be open to open-minded conversations with no goals of changing anyone’s mind, but sharing information. If you are interested in becoming a Jesus Follower…Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.
If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this: Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world. I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me. I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.
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