| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- welcome, ghosts The most emotional point of the trip happened in the parking lot of the Market Fresh near the hotel where we were staying. "J told me that your mother tried to get in touch with you once but your aunt refused." My entire life I believed that she never once tried to reach out to me, to meet me, to reconnect. I always believed the narrative that her philosophy was, simply, that "I'll be here when she wants to meet me." And who knows if it's the truth? J's version of the truth, as told to him by P., has details so much different than mine. And yet. My aunt--my dad's sister--is the only real link I have left to him but I don't trust her. I love her but I don't trust her. At all. She's revealed herself to me, on more than one occasion, as someone who isn't above petty gossip and devious actions. So, perhaps, I tell myself, this is true. True or not C's words caused me to break out into immediate tears. Huge, choking sobs, actually. Sometimes I surprise myself with just how deep the reservoir of untapped emotions is when it comes to my late biological mother. I'll never really know the truth for sure but I'd like to think maybe she did try, at least once. While out there I did meet my dad's cousin. He hasn't talked to my dad in 14 years. He ran away from home when he was 14 and lived with my dad at my great grandmother's house while my dad attended college at MSU. He knew P. "She was a beauty. You knew when she walked into a room," he said, but I could sense it wasn't just about that. That he admired her mind as well. After we got coffee he wanted to drive me around a little to show me the house where P. once lived, the apartment she and my dad shared when I was a baby, the home he lived in, across from where his grandparents lived, the house my grandfather built for my great grandmother. Some of the homes were still lovely, stately and shrouded with leafy trees. Others are crumbling, in various states of decay, ghostlike and disappearing. I'm planning to return next year, alone, to drive around the town to see these ghosts again, to listen to the ones in my head, to visit the ones who linger. 8:54 pm - 04.06.18
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this is fortysomething - 21.06.18 - 2:56 pm at the sound of a voice - 18.06.18 - 5:00 pm mostly just relief - 13.06.18 - 3:54 pm to smooth down the rat's nest - 09.06.18 - 4:47 pm i don't like discos - 06.06.18 - 2:56 pm |
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