tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post8180075983371871999..comments2023-06-28T22:58:28.247+10:00Comments on Sixth In Line: Can't you see the connection?Elisabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-13387733067357924552011-12-30T19:10:58.505+11:002011-12-30T19:10:58.505+11:00I think you may be right here, Syd. My mother'...I think you may be right here, Syd. My mother's life during the raising of her many children could not have been easy. The clash between my father and her religion compounded things, I suspect. <br /><br />My mother often tells me she does not want to remember bad things, only good. I can understand this, however much I do not go along with it for me. <br /><br />Thanks, Syd.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-68898158077265653462011-12-28T16:19:59.856+11:002011-12-28T16:19:59.856+11:00Denial is a hard thing to overcome, especially wit...Denial is a hard thing to overcome, especially with the guilt of not protecting a young child from harm. Your mother probably carries a lot of guilt and the honest truth is too hard to talk about. Somethings simply hurt too much.Sydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05642843245634635843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-84330537793103595962011-11-25T20:41:20.012+11:002011-11-25T20:41:20.012+11:00Isabel, you put it so beautifully: that wall betwe...Isabel, you put it so beautifully: that wall between mothers and their daughters, cleaving the centre. <br /><br />And I use that lovely verb 'to cleave' deliberately, to encapsulate both the sense of cleavage as in separation, a split, a rupture, alongside the sense of cleavage as adhering, cohering and clinging together<br /><br /> Strangely I think both opposing meanings apply.<br /><br />Thanks, Isabel.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-34887715949456982632011-11-25T20:01:09.516+11:002011-11-25T20:01:09.516+11:00Reading this account of your visit with your mothe...Reading this account of your visit with your mother made me think about the oblique or non-conversations I have with my own. Sometimes it feels as if there is a thick glass wall between us: we can signal to each other the basics of hand signs but we are each locked out of the other's world. It frustrates and saddens me enormously. Sometimes I think 'accept, nothing will change now' and other times I try again, vainly to smash the glass, but oh! too gently.<br /><br />And then there is the hinted reverse relationship with one's daughter(s) - how I work to make sure the glass wall isn't passed down, but even now I can see the foundations are there.<br /><br />Best wishes IsabelIsabel Doylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974989548030799086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-32333833162192961352011-11-25T19:19:43.012+11:002011-11-25T19:19:43.012+11:00I agree, Jenny, the fact that my mother speaks as ...I agree, Jenny, the fact that my mother speaks as she does suggests that it is there somewhere in her jumbled mind, only it's hard for her to join the dots.<br />This applies not just now, though. I'm afraid it's always been like this. Then again, all of us tend to have our blind spots, so who am I to judge. <br /><br />Thanks, Jenny.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-74596995860314076232011-11-25T19:17:35.798+11:002011-11-25T19:17:35.798+11:00Linda Sue, thanks for your kind comments. It'...Linda Sue, thanks for your kind comments. It's hard responding to such compliments other than to blush and acknowledge my thanks.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-5001279862596394292011-11-24T21:17:52.934+11:002011-11-24T21:17:52.934+11:00I think the fact that she mentions it at all must ...I think the fact that she mentions it at all must mean that it is in her mind . Very difficult to deal with, in all possible ways.Jenny Woolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16881781466502273314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-62166831107612390392011-11-24T15:32:14.492+11:002011-11-24T15:32:14.492+11:00Oh Elisabeth I am always in awe of your writing- r...Oh Elisabeth I am always in awe of your writing- rarely do i comment - what can I possibly say...your writing is spell binding, heart breaking but not in a sappy predictable- see- it -coming sort of break, but a surprising electrifying jolt- a shock- your life is amazing- WOW! I kiss the hem of thine garment! I just want to read you every waking moment! Your Mum...incredible the relationship and hardship. LOVE!<br />lsLinda Suehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03070050388987072100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-68400788022076625222011-11-23T18:29:43.559+11:002011-11-23T18:29:43.559+11:00The spectre of the dead baby is everywhere, Karen,...The spectre of the dead baby is everywhere, Karen, based I think on experiences of old but also on the actual threat of infant ( and maternal) mortality. <br /><br /> I can remember one of my GPs saying to me shortly after the birth of my third daughter that the most dangerous day of our lives is the day on which we are born. Thereafter the risks begin to fall away, until of course we grow old or, if we are boys when our chances of risk taking behaviour increase, and we are once again imperiled or so said GP argued.<br /><br />It must have been ghastly to have gone through a so-called 'infertile period', Karen, and to be surrounded by all those folks falling pregnant as if effortlessly. <br /><br />Pregnancy and/or the absence of pregnancy at certain times in our lives can become such a preoccupation, or so it was for me. <br /><br />I'm glad it was only a period of infertility for you and not a life sentence. <br /><br />Thanks, KarenElisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-49542985546259806462011-11-23T18:20:18.502+11:002011-11-23T18:20:18.502+11:00Thanks for your kind words, Tracy. I agree that i...Thanks for your kind words, Tracy. I agree that it is possible to convert memories into something more distant that can still assert emotional truth in ways we could not were we simply to stay too close to those memories as facts of experience. <br /><br />I'm pleased my words resonated with you.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-68563233452500030612011-11-23T18:15:44.905+11:002011-11-23T18:15:44.905+11:00Mary, I was not familiar with Elizabeth Bishop'...Mary, I was not familiar with Elizabeth Bishop's poem First Death in Nova Scotia but I am now. What a beautiful reflection. <br /><br />There are so many dead babies in our backgrounds both real and/or in our imaginations . To some extent we're all survivors but some of us more so.<br /><br />Thanks, Mary.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-12293040140936065162011-11-23T16:51:35.145+11:002011-11-23T16:51:35.145+11:00Having thought more about your post I realise just...Having thought more about your post I realise just how many babies were lost in the course of my childhood. Cotdeaths, illness and miscarriages. <br />The one that sits most emotionally in the back of my mind was our next door neighbour whose 2nd son died from "hole in the heart". I remember my mother crying when she read the newspaper headlines not that long after, reporting the first successful surgery had been performed, months too late for this little one.<br />I am still friends with the parents and had never had need to speak to them about it until one day when I mentioned it when reminiscing with the mother. I mentioned the child by name and she beamed - almost with happiness. She didn't think I would have remembered him as I was only about 7yo at the time. I was able to tell her that I remembered him not just as a baby but a child with a name which seemed to bring him back to life for her over 40 years later.<br />She had a third, healthy son a few years later and says he was the most healing thing she could have done.<br />On other matters, I also remember feeling alienated during our infertile years, feeling that everyone around me knew a secret they weren't allowed to share with me about how to fall pregnant. I look back and realise they were all really very understanding, but just at a loss as to how and when to announce their good news.<br />Karen CAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-80069351991530031522011-11-23T11:47:22.912+11:002011-11-23T11:47:22.912+11:00This post, particularly the last couple sentences,...This post, particularly the last couple sentences, hit me like a punch in the gut. I know that it's true, and your experience, but the way you tell it transcends the mundane and elevates this event into pure poetry and story-telling. <br /><br />It's funny how memories work. Long after we have taken ourselves out of our own memories, they still remain, and we end up looking at them like we are looking at photographs of someone else. <br /><br />Beautifully told, Elisabeth. You have such a gift for unwinding the thread of a thought and revealing an absolutely devastating bomb of truth.<br /><br />(and that's a compliment.)Phoenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477498671080132176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-55962573339803854902011-11-23T01:11:36.025+11:002011-11-23T01:11:36.025+11:00This post and the photograph made me think of Eliz...This post and the photograph made me think of Elizabeth Bishop's poem about being taken as a child to view little Arthur, her dead cousin laid out in the dining room, a chilling and beautiful poem. I'm sure you know it. The survivor guilt that children feel when they live and possible siblings do not.<br /><br />Once when my mother was drinking, she said she had aborted a foetus when she fell pregnant before me. I'm not sure if that was true -- at the time she would have been unmarried and that must have been hard for her. I wonder if she felt I was her replacement baby?Mary LAhttp://louisey.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-39699618829192950762011-11-22T20:55:57.166+11:002011-11-22T20:55:57.166+11:00Years ago Ruth, I could not have imagined myself b...Years ago Ruth, I could not have imagined myself being able to rub sorbolene cream into my mother's toes but the experience seems to have evolved as these things do.<br /><br />I agree with you that parental wounds cut the deepest. After all most of us meet our parents at a time in our lives when we are most needy and vulnerable. Our connections begin then in infancy and as a consequence we can expect far too much of our parents as they did of theirs. It tends to be a never ending cycle.<br />Thanks Ruth.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-8220760314899702692011-11-22T20:31:39.588+11:002011-11-22T20:31:39.588+11:00I'm sorry that this post is a bot cryptic, Zuz...I'm sorry that this post is a bot cryptic, Zuzana. I feared as much, though sometimes it's difficult to spell things out directly and I had wanted to convey something of my own confusion.<br /><br />I'm sorry to hear that you too once suffered a miscarriage. It's not surprising you think often about that young life snatched from you too soon. He or she is still alive in your imagination and I reckon it's a good thing to cherish that memory. <br /><br />Thanks, Zuzana.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-74131841783751884472011-11-22T20:21:34.269+11:002011-11-22T20:21:34.269+11:00Families are the repositories of secrets, Kleinste...Families are the repositories of secrets, Kleinstemotte, though not intentionally so. And I suspect we can all be surprised at times by the stories family members can tell years later, and their many different versions. <br /><br />I wish I could be as sanguine as you about whatever happens. At times I can arrive at that state of mind but often not before I've worried the life out of something.<br /><br />Thanks Kleinstemotte.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-4355777498516185492011-11-22T20:15:10.401+11:002011-11-22T20:15:10.401+11:00It can be tricky to work out when it's best to...It can be tricky to work out when it's best to share certain details of our lives with our children, David. The risk is either we tell them too soon and overwhelm them or more likely we wait till it's too late and leave a whole lot of unfinished business after we have gone. In my view, the bonds of parents and the children go on long after death.<br /><br />Thanks, David.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-51937783279632051082011-11-22T20:11:02.828+11:002011-11-22T20:11:02.828+11:00I wonder if there are any wounds more deeply painf...I wonder if there are any wounds more deeply painful than those inflicted by parents? They seem to get infused in every cell, even in the renewal of cells, the grief is there. But it is possible to really go after it, and I appreciate so much that you do. <br /><br />Your description of your mother's home took me right back to my mom's home the last 18 months of her life. And what a beautiful and intimate rite of rubbing of sorbolene even into her toes, which is more than I could have done with my mother, I'm afraid. Her hands, and legs, yes, but not her toes. This image will stay with me today.Ruthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-52343388153785294892011-11-22T20:08:30.415+11:002011-11-22T20:08:30.415+11:00I'm glad you found the food here nourishing Di...I'm glad you found the food here nourishing Dignified Expressions, and such a mixture : raw and gourmet. Thanks.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-1883099753115084362011-11-22T05:14:31.539+11:002011-11-22T05:14:31.539+11:00Dear Elisabeth, this is a very heavy piece, if I a...Dear Elisabeth, this is a very heavy piece, if I am getting it all correctly, your sister was abused. You have written about your family's dark history before, but it is still very difficult to comprehend, so forgive me if I am getting this all wrong.<br />This post for some reason brought back the sad memories I carry with me about my miscarriage. It never even was a born baby, yet I think of her or him that way and always will. Therefore I can not even imagine how it must be to bury a baby that saw the world.<br />We are all shaped by our experiences and what happens to us, and lot of it is less than happy, but I believe that the dark and the light balances and even each other out and I shun not away from the pain, as much as I embrace happiness.;)<br />Lovely read this afternoon dear friend,<br />xoxoZuzanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02137958790178864561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-71905656513608335312011-11-22T04:53:54.735+11:002011-11-22T04:53:54.735+11:00The story reminds me of the last few months caring...The story reminds me of the last few months caring for my paternal aunt who spent her life involved with my family. I was amazed at the stories I had never hears the came up in her last years. I was even more stunned when I emptied her place out after her death that she kept in touch with family that I had no idea existed. Maybe they hated my mom? I'll never know. But I'm learning that secrets seem to play a huge role in all families.<br />I have stopped worrying about who sleeps where 'cause I just want some rest. Phone is off and I likely would not hear a knock at the door. Thunder no longer wakes me. <br />Whatever happens will.Heidrun Khokhar, KleinsteMottehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16174142810114806410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-72496629170698351072011-11-22T03:14:01.996+11:002011-11-22T03:14:01.996+11:00In the beginning of your post I was taken in by th...In the beginning of your post I was taken in by the intense connection of the daughter/mother relationship, rand similar to my mother's sense of communication with her own mother. Glad to say that in our family the bonding process was strong. <br /><br />The closing of your post, and the photograph, opened a new experience for me. We may think we know our parents, and know our children, but in the long run, we know so little of their hidden natures— <br /><br />And there are matters I will need to explain to my son when he is older— question is, <i>when</i>. <br /><br />Very thought provoking post. Thanks.David-Glen Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00506025325923788597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-43096427278257585332011-11-22T02:46:28.706+11:002011-11-22T02:46:28.706+11:00raw and gourmet food for the soul..thank youraw and gourmet food for the soul..thank youdignifiedexpressions.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-60229505308230972642011-11-21T19:39:30.878+11:002011-11-21T19:39:30.878+11:00Caty, it's lovely to see you here and I'm ...Caty, it's lovely to see you here and I'm glad my post resonated for you in some way. Thanks.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.com