My heart is breaking. I cannot bear this pain.
I have been very up front about hating these trips to NY, its a bad karma, bad vibes, bad place - and i have yet to meet anyone who really ENJOYS spending time with their family in the first place.
However. this trip is different from the others. there are so many things being Broken, so many dark changes taking place as i watch, helpless.
My grandmotehr died a year and half ago. i was close to her, notwithstanding my 7 years of disown from the family. it was i who let her know it was ok to cross over. i forgave her her role in my banishing. i always felt her to be as much a victim as i was. my grandfather has decided to marry agian, which i have no problem with. i dont like this new woman, Odette, but its not really my business. however, he has driven a wedge between his children and grandchildren by the manner with which he is dispensing of my grandmothers things. it is horrible to see my mom, aunts and uncles reduce to selfish, childish behaviors in an effort to "get stuff". the jealousies and rivalries that have been 50 years in the making are boiling over and its ugly to watch and painful to feel the effects of. it saddens me that my grandfather (who has always been a tragic "death of a salesman" type figure in my mind since 10th grade) has not hte balls or backbone to make a decision and stick to it, with a modicum of sensitivity to the relationships that they had with her and the meaning these items may have to them.
i have let him know that i will not be attending his wedding in June....you can imagine how that went down. this is a man who likes to think of himself as the titular head of hte family - mafia style. Don and all....
and here we are - all celebrating a family event, pretending to like each otehr, and be nice to each other until we break off into our little corners to snipe at and carve pieces out of everyone else in the family. to test the loyalties of the people in teh outer circles to make sure we still have their sympathies. This is what i knew i was walking into when i got here. the web has become claustrophobic and deadly - but i knew that coming in. i intended to come in and blow a hole through the web. i will NOT pretend to be nice and love everyone when i cannot condone their behaviors. and i will not stand by and watch while my grandad unravels years of patient and loving work by my grandmother, keeping it all together. THAT was today. and to be honest, i feel like i am in a better place for it. whether the family survives at all, i dont know and its not up to me to decide.
what i did not know when i came is what has me sitting here in tears, sobbing as i write and literally breaking my heart. i wish i could put a stethescope to my chest so you can hear the wailing that is surely echoing there.
My oldest neice (we can call her E) is 10 years old. of course first neices and nephews are special, because they are like a new toy that just came on the market. you never had one, and you can play with it and get to know it before your friends do. while i was decently pleased to be an aunt, i wasnt gushy or anything.
then one day i was visiting and my sister handed me the baby to hold (really, i dont think i had even held her before that day and she was a few months old). i sat on the couch with the little human and kind of slid down a little so she was resting on my stomach/chest and i was sitting/reclining. all this detail sounds stupid but its important ok? she looked at me, and then curled up and fell asleep on my chest. time stood still. the sun was frozen on its path and hte rays that had been visiting the living room stayed for what seemed like eons while she slept. trusting, fragile, little. she and i bonded in that frozen period of time. she touched me deeply then, and she "knew" me ever since although we had no conversations or dialog, even as a baby. we bonded. i wonder if there is a term "soul mother" to describe what we have - it is more than being her godmother (which i am not, we dont have them) - when she cries, my heart withers, when she is in pain, i am moving before i think. i have adopted her in my soul in a way i cannot describe and has not happened to the other nephews and neices i have.
i found out this evening that my brother in law has been abusing my neice. my sweet, fragile, golden neice who i love more than my own life. for years i have been uncomfortable with teh way he talked to her, i found him mean-spirited and harsh. when i was around i would try to soften the event when he was mean to her and salve the wounds with love. talk not to me of impotence! you do not know the feeling until you have experienced the ultimate pain of not being able to help one you love, one you have sworn an oath to the gods to protect!
I noticed today when i was hanging out with her that her eyebrows were all gone. and her eyelashes nearly so. i asked my mom about it this evening and was told that she has started chronically picking out the hairs in her eyebrows and lashes - it is from stress and aggravation. she has also started therapy (which i DO believe in - but for a 10 year old!??!? So young?!) and that in October my mom finally confronted my sister with her husband's behavior towards my niece. (note: if you are wondering why it has taken me to nearly April to find this out, its because i am still REALLY low on the totem pole when it comes to important things. i am frequently out of the loop until i figure it out myself and ask questions) she had been at their house and E spilled her drink by accident at the table. my Brother in law (is it justifiable homicide?!) HUMILIATED the girl in front of hte guests. mom said she saw her later in her room crying.
can one reach back in time to hold and hug a child? i know that part of what i am responding to is my own loneliness as a young girl, having no one to love or hold me through my abuse and dark times. i accept that. But i am afraid that her spirit will be worn down. i dont want her beautiful heart to become cynical or afraid to love. i dont want her to know pain or rejection.
knowing what is going on, and KNOWING the pain she is in - and yet still not being able to do a thing about it is BREAKING ME. literally.
I am so impotent.
so all i can do is sit here and sob and feel with each beat the breaking of my heart.