love, family, death

I was talking to my mom's sister about how none of them (the sisters) came to see my mom at the hospital when she was dieing, and how she was the only one in the whole family who came to the funeral, and how insane that seemed to me now. I mean, they were her sisters!

she had a lot of excuses, like how they didn't think she was going to die (denial), and that my mom had said she didn't want them to come (pride). and I told her I still thought it was crazy, and she said "well, it doesn't mean we didn't LOVE her."

I wish I'd had the courage to say, "actually, yes. It does mean you didn't love her." maybe if that had been the only thing they hadn't done, but it was a lifetime of no support, no commitment, no active care, only care when it was convenient.

love is not an undefinable thing. It has real meaning and I think it is important that we define it. I like how bell hooks does - even though sometimes her definitions makes me feel terrible, unloved. but clearer. I like her definition ... "we utilize all the dimensions of love -- "care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect and knowledge", in the chapter Values: Living by a Love Ethic, in her All About Love book.

journal

Carefree AZ.
It is so sad to me the way people grow old in america, so many people. this loneliness and isolation. My grandma saying it's not fair, still being alive after her husband died. My grandpa. A few weeks ago. No funeral. There is such close feelings, deep sadness and new love. That can't eat feeling and can't focus and hard time sleeping. I am pretending to have new love, but it is makebelieve, faking to cover up something else I don't want to feel.

How do you mourn someone who you never really loved? but maybe grew to love a little bit in this last year. someone who did nothing while the daughtors were beat and abused. Wash your hands of it. Wash your hands of bad memories and eachother.

I never understood my family, the way they didn't look out for eachother. The sickness inside all of them. I wanted a different kind of family, still do, bigger than me and my sister and her partner. I want the family promise of punk and feminism, the promise that I can't seem to ever quite get a grasp on, and is it me, am I washing my hands when other people are holding close? or is it just the incideousness of capitalism and individualism and isolation that is so fucking hard to break out of.

The sadness is the sadness for a whole generation of my family, and for me, and for my dead mom. The sadness is for being so scared I won't create something better after all.