I actually experienced a shiver down my spine when hearing Barack Obama's inauguration speech as I drove home last night. Then I shed tears as I watched the beautiful couple striding through DC, Michelle so proud and supportive in the way she held the bible for her husband, rather like as at a marriage. I felt sad again that we are where we are, still struggling, me earning the same as 20 years ago, only now that salary is supporting 5 people, not one. My mother is so denigratory (?is that right?) and constantly says things like 'anyone can do what you're doing, you're not using your skills' and 'its really not satisfactory, such a waste of your education. Still I daresay you couldn't cope with any more...'.
As usual difficult to get the children fed and to bed, then sat with H to proof read his project proposal. He is somewhat prone to collecting jargon and then puts it all together, so I have to keep checking his actual intention. Had a good session with Yr 3 today, learning about what a Roman soldier would have believed. They retained and analysed incredibly well considering it was all unfamiliar. The morning children were a bit more frustrating, having in most cases forgotten their strategies for reading, or unable to transfer them to writing. Its not at all true that anyone could do it, and perhaps especially, my mother could not, lacking empathy as she does. Still, I love her, and with her recent illnesses, often wonder how I will miss her...certainly her humour, when merely dry and not spiced with spite, her interest in the arts, her knowledge of what I like in material terms. I found myself thinking who will love and care for me like she does? Who will give me those thoughtful little things? Certainly not my husband.
Well, back to the grindstone. Should try and get to the parking shop...to sort out an overpayment of £364...they drive me mad.
I remember this inauguration scene so well. Never mind a lump in the throat; I cried openly. For ages, I had a picture of those green leather clad hands across the Bible. I hope that President Obama doesn't get too ground down by the fight for health care. Even though many people complain about the NHS, isn't it awful to contemplate life without it at all? Adding to the other stresses of trying to keep afloat is always the worry about being bankrupted if anyone gets sick.
ReplyDeleteYour description of your mother! So well-worded; reminds me so much of my feelings about mine.
This may seem very odd, but I have only just found your response, for which thank you very much. I started the blog and then promptly forgot about it, how to get into it etc. I have just found it by linking another blog by a family friend, which I had seen 7 years ago and which my sister has just found and sent to me. Looking back with hindsight now, how ground down Obama seems, lined and greying with the stresses of the job. SInce I wrote, my mother became very ill after a fall nearly a year ago, and died in June, aged 82. I do miss her terribly, despite her treatment of me, and in the same ways I anticipated. Sadly she had secondary cancer of the brain, which caused delusions, hallucinations, and exaggerated anxieties about her six children and the grandchildren. We all nursed her at home with the help of the hospice, but it was a gruelling and heartbreaking experience to witness, helplessly, her rapid and cruel deterioration. Strangely, or perhaps not, once the initial loss and pain began to pass, they were replaced by an insidious feeling of liberation, as if I am no longer tethered, watched, judged, and carrying the burden of being a terrible disappointment to someone else. Now at least I can only disappoint myself. Along with my mother's sad death this year there have been other changes: I changed my car after nearly 10 years, bought a house, moved to another area, sold some personal possessions, am finding a new school for my youngest child, and am helping my husband cope with his schizophrenia before returning to his African homeland, leaving me to start living the rest of my life.
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