When I was 3 , my mother lost her mother, unexpectedly . Unfortunately , my Grandmother lived in London, and my father had relocated us to deepest Devon some few years earlier when I was a baby. The memories of this time escape my mind, however, I am left with lots of emotion. I don’t remember my grandmother, as I scan the recesses of my mind, desperate for a snippet of something, a kiss, a story , a smell , something tangible that belongs to me, I cannot recollect a thing. From stories that my brothers tell , and photographs, my Grandmother was a tall , slender woman , gregarious and compassionate , with a temper and a dark past. She was an alcoholic, but that never taints the memories of her , the picture that is painted is one of warm loveliness and I mourn my inability to mourn. I resent that of all of her grandchildren , I was the youngest, the only girl and the only one to have been left with nothing to have of her. I romanticise and I imagine with much truth , that she adored me , her only granddaughter, yet, we were whisked away to the countryside and so she also didn’t get to see us much. Her upbringing was pretty tough , born in Ireland , both parents died when her and her siblings were very young, somehow ending up with an Aunt in India who also died, she ended up in an orphanage in India, run by nasty fucking nuns, who beat her. Trauma followed her , it’s no surprise that she found alcohol to cope with all that pain . She married my Grandfather who was a Major in the British army out in India, they lived the high life! I yearn to know her, to be able to just have an afternoon with her. I believe she leaves a hole in my psyche , a dark hole that swirls around in my subconscious, a hole made bigger by my Mother’s grief. As a 3 year old , I believed that I would have been deeply affected by my mother’s sorrow. My Grandmother died on Mother’s Day. A sunday. My mother had to come back down to Devon to sort her family out, and missed the passing of her mother. I cannot talk about these things with my mother. The sorrow that overtakes me , I know would trigger an even deeper sorrow in my mother and I just cannot approach that pain and intimacy . I don’t quite know what to do with these unplumbed fragments of myself. Tears easily come whenever I think about her , yet I don’t know her and I think this is what hurts the most. I think my Grandmother lives deeply in my divine feminine history , the sands of time which escape the confines of life and death. She is still there, how can I miss someone I rarely think about so much? She resides deep in my soul and I long to touch her , I ache to share myself . My brother told me stories about her , that she used to bring old waifs and strays home, that she was so big hearted. My mother says that she used to throw the best china at my Grandfather and that they would have to put her to bed, because she was so drunk.
Why did I miss out on her. How can I fill what has been washed away ? How do I break down the walls that stand between myself and my own mother, walls of weird , unquantifiable fear and pain?
I sense that she awaits me when the light comes to my end. IT will be her there to greet me , whether a shadow , or a spirit, who knows , but she will be there. That’s all I have to hold onto . .
Last night I watched Dr Brian Cox presenting on the planet Jupiter. It really made me feel small. The world suddenly became tiny and insignificant. Yet it also helped me to really start to fathom what I believe and consequently don’t believe. I spent many years as a Christian. A zealous one at points, and I would have said with great passion when watching something like that , that it just reflected the enormity and glory of God. Now I just think that the way Jesus is portrayed makes a mockery of the whole thing. That God would place such importance on a tiny speck of dust in a 1,000000 oceans of dust and expect that the entire human race would be able to centre themselves on that speck to reach salvation just makes me cringe, if I am honest. Jesus was an enlightened man. Part of the great consciousness that we all are. It’s just some of us are more enlightened than others. And the ones that have twisted that message to create the concept of Hell are despicable to me now. I didn’t come on here tonight to rant about religion. I suppose there is part of me that remains angry , that for years after my father died, I believed that he went to hell – or rather he wouldn’t be in heaven. I perhaps never really accepted hell. So , in a way , my grief got contorted , lost , and such a long time has passed that I can’t go back and do it in the way that I now feel would be cathartic. Partly the anger is at myself for never really questioning anything , blindly just accepting and conforming. But , I don’t remain angry for long. It’s what I needed at the time, it also taught me much about my own spirituality and in a way , led me to where I am now. Which is a place of freedom and fluidity.
flossyfeet 