Talk is cheap…

…or so I’ve learned.  My last post on here was obviously one coming from a place of despair.  The despair continues, only now the issues are more clear.  I hinted at people or persons who say one thing to your face and another behind your back.  Sadly, it is sometimes those very people that are closest to you, or you at least thought were close to you.  Last spring, there were many things going on with me and Joe with regards to his family.  Some things were said that were hurtful to everyone involved.  I was no saint in it as I reacted badly to what was said to Joe and being as protective of Joe as I was, I lashed out.  That was wrong of me.  For months there was very little, if any, conversation between Durham and Greenville.  It was very unfortunate, but both me and Joe took some solace in that we did not start or create the issue initially and although neither of us took it well, we clung to each other, our friends and other family members for support.  When Joe died, things were no better between me and his family.  We had not reconciled and that is something that I will have to carry with me forever.  Joe had come to terms with both his mother and sister in that things were what they were.  Apologies were said, but neither of us, and we did discuss this at length, never really felt they were offered to us sincerely.

After Joe died one of the first things I did was to say to both his mother and sister that what happened in the spring of 2012 was behind us and that I wanted us to move past it and move forward.  I thought that we had done just that.  Call me foolish, call me gullible, call me naïve, but though not forgotten, I moved forward feeling regret that we had not done this before his death but that I could do it now, if for no other reason, in an effort to honor his memory and the love I know he had for his family.  Joe’s mother and I since then had developed a new relationship.  A very caring and nurturing one.  Or so I thought.  Apparently I was delusional.

When Joe’s brother visited from Las Vegas at Halloween, we had a very long talk over dinner that evening.  I could tell during dinner that something was bothering Bill.  During the course of dinner, he finally spoke up because he had to know if the information he had was accurate.  Sometime since Joe’s death, he had had a phone conversation where he had asked his mother if she believed Joe was in heaven.  She of course said yes.  He then wanted to know how she believed he was in heaven when she also believed that being gay was such a vile sin that no gay person could be in heaven.  She went on to explain that the relationship between me and Joe was one of deep friendship, but that there was not a physical, sexual relationship between us and therefore, Joe was not gay.  I am paraphrasing as I do not know the exact language used during the conversation.  I am relaying basic context and am not implying or stating what words were used.  Just that she said there our relationship was not a marriage in the way that others are married.   Some might question where she would get this idea.  I did.  She told Bill that I had written as much in a letter to her.  I assure you, I have never written anything even remotely resembling that type of message to her.  In fact, the only letters that I have ever written to her (actual letters, not notes in a card) have been quite the opposite.  Those letters were written in the spring of 2012 and were quite hostile in tone.  She at that time had questioned our faith (mine and Joe’s), and I returned the favor by pointed out very clearly some areas where she was mistaken about scripture, and how she herself was not following scripture.  I have copies of every one of those letters saved on my iPad.

So where does she come up with this stuff?  I have no concrete answer for that except that she has dealt with half-truths, innuendo and hypocrisy for so long that I actually believe that she tells herself stuff and in so doing, convinces herself that the information or thoughts are true.  Also, she only half listens to what others say and continuously will relay a story filled with errors and omissions.  In the conversation I had with her this week, (I only called her because she had the night before called my sister to pump her for information as to why I had not called her or returned her calls for 2 weeks), she started off the call wanting to know if I had gotten my broken down car from the church.  Such is the way she only half listens and doesn’t fully understand what someone says to her.  The fact was that I had dropped the Beetle off at a repair shop for maintenance that is near the church and 2 friends from church had brought me home and then taken me back to pick it up.  No car was broken down, and it was never at the church.  But that is how things told to her get changed and manipulated in her mind to fit her need (she said she thought maybe the reason I hadn’t called was because I was somehow stuck at the church with a broken down car….for 2 weeks???).  She needed to reconcile and justify her belief that Joe is in Heaven with the belief that gay people can’t go to heaven.  Ergo, the only way Joe can be in Heaven is if we were not actually a gay couple, but rather close friends.   However, the fact that I wrote to her in a letter telling her that, is not something she could misinterpret.  It is a blatant lie.  One that I am finding very difficult to overlook.  I am not mad at her, I am hurt and disappointed.  Both in her and in me for allowing myself to actually believe that she had changed from the person of the spring of 2012.  That maybe the loss of her son had somehow magically transformed her into someone who could accept our marriage, our relationship, our love for one another.  It boggles my mind that as a parent, she is so entrenched in her fanatical, bigoted, homophobic beliefs that she would allow months when her son was battling a terminal illness to be lost because she could not accept who he was.  That she would so dishonor his memory as to call into question the relationship we shared, again.  So like I said above, I called her.  I asked her why she had said these things, and she denied ever saying anything.  She said that she did remember the conversation with Bill where he asked her if she thought Joe was in Heaven and that she had said Yes, but that was all she said and that was all they both said on the subject.  I questioned her as to whether she was saying Bill had lied to me, and she of course said she would never say her son had lied, but that she didn’t know why he had told me those things.  I knew she was scrambling for an explanation and she went on to make a couple of ludicrous attempts at reasoning for his telling me something that was not true.  I stopped her as it was an obvious pathetic attempt to cover up.  The conversation was not hostile, no raised voices, no hurtful words on either part.  I left the conversation by telling her that I loved her and that I would talk to Bill to clear up any miscommunication that we may have had.  There isn’t any need to pursue it with her as she will never own up to making up a story.  I’m sure she probably has told herself this enough that she truly believes it to be true.  As my doctor once told me, when discussing the issues with Joe's mother, she is of an age and culture where her narcissistic tendencies control all aspects of how she sees the world.  When Joe was diagnosed with cancer, the issue wasn’t that Joe had cancer, it was that HER son had cancer.  All conversations inevitably come around to how things affect her.  What affect they have on others is always secondary.

I talked to Bill and of course he was not surprised that she denied everything.  He is caught in a terrible place.  He loves his mother but at the same time cannot reconcile how she could say and do the things that she did last year and continues to do now.  He loved his big brother Joe so very much.  It was and still is, very painful to know the things she said and did in the last year of Joe’s life.  How the stress of what was going on affected him both emotionally and physically when he was already dealing with so much.

But here we are today.  One week from Thanksgiving.  Another first in a long line of firsts soon to be followed by yet another first, Christmas without Joe.  I will be going on my Thanksgiving vacation starting on Saturday (sun & surf).  Not much of a change there from our normal Thanksgiving activity except I will be going by myself.  However, this year, Christmas will be completely different.  Instead of waiting until after the 7:00pm service at church is over on Christmas Eve, I will be able to go down to see my family in Hope Mills early in the day, or the day before??, and be able to spend my Christmas there for the first time in a long time.  No splitting of time between Hope Mills and Greenville as we always did.  For that first, I will have my family around me, helping me through what was Joe’s “all-time favorite” time of year.  

Ahhh, the joy of the holidays and the dysfunction of families.  What could be better?