February has always been a month of deep reflection for me, since 1993, when an event took place that changed the lives of many.

In light of all that has changed since my understanding has come full circle, the reflections and thoughts this year are bringing to focus some things I guess I still need time to think about.

My brother sent me the papers that grant his retrial. I think that's part of the reason this year's reflections have been a bit more intense.

As my brother's case goes to retrial, I'm stuck in intense guilt, because of a question my mother posed to me in late 1992. A question that my answer of "yes" impacted to the point that all these years later I can see the reprecussions. I'm still grappling with why she would have me, of all people, make this decision for her. I think I know why now, and I wrote the following to address it. I've a feeling she will be reading this, but even if she never does, I've got to get it out of my head to clear room for more growth and understanding:

it's been thirteen years
since the end of believing
lies for truth

the mental protection
no longer possible
in seconds that changed a lifetime
with words that even you could not stop
coming from out of your own mouth
"It was loving."

"Don't tell me that,"I said,
and then, after we hung up,
"She's done it again."

And within that moment
a part of me that I thought was so strong~the avoidance~
fell away like a long, silk curtain, soft and slow-motion,
vulnerable, almost no protection at all
when I thought I'd built it out of steel
indestructable and safe

I thought I'd denied the truth for you,
with you,
so carefully
to protect me, to protect you,
to protect my love for you
and,
I hoped,
your love for me

but I'm positive now
thirteen years later
that it wasn't love you had for me
but only because
you truly believe
I let you down
as a toddler, by dialing zero
as a teenager, by refusing to listen to all of your reasons and justifications

because when you tried to confide the truth
the truth I always knew
you saw that my love for you
was not unconditional
and had only been possible
because I had protected
myeself and my love for you
from the truth

"What if I told you I knew of a way,"
you asked me, only months before
February, 1993
And had I known you would use
the truth
when it's everything I'd been asking for
When it was all I'd ever wanted, yet already had
behind thin, silk sheets
to cripple me by putting such a choice in my hands,
without knowing what choice I was really making,
that the price for truth would be
taking responsibility for making that choice
and saying "yes, whatever it takes to help him."

You put it all on me, Mom, and you knew I'd hold myself accountable for it. You knew my own "yes" would break my heart years and years later, once I realized what you were offering and what I had agreed to. Just as you had used lies to hurt us all those years, the truth you could use to hurt us even more. The lies, as painful as they were, weren't even half as painful as the truth could and would be. And just as you'd somehow made each of us feel responsible for the lies, you'd also, in turn, make us each accountable for the truths, by giving us each choices in your disclosure.

What were your intentions? Was it out of love? Was it a sacrifice to you? Or was it at the expense of other people's love for you and sacrifices for you? Because you can not love, one can not lose or sacrifice a love they never had. You coast in chaos, and in doing what you did, you gave to yourself an ocean of chaos to last you a lifetime. And perhaps you thought you made it impossible for us to love you anymore.

You did push us away, which was to all of our benefit, and even to yours, and at first I thought perhaps you did that for us kids, but now I know it was for YOU, because you can remain, to yourself and those you lie to, a victim in the safety of your solitude, in the safety of nobody knowing any of your children, as your children hold your truths for you. Truths you can deny, without anyone there to speak up. When we were little, we could not. As adults, you've made it so that we also can not.

I can't be near your wake. I won't go in your ocean even with a sturdy boat and decent oars. I can't even be near your shore without my heart feeling strangled in tangled up seaweeds, my mind so angry I want to cry out "NO" through a conch shell right into your ear. But with that "yes" I said in 1992 came a closure of sorts. The end of the lies. Sorting out of the truth. But you got to sail away from it all, alone, and took with you the cargo of your lies, leaving us with the truth to handle.

In retrospect, I already knew the truth. It bothers me that I was not strong enough at that time to face it. I thought I was pretty strong, back then. All I did not have was you saying it out loud, making it concrete. You were so good at getting us to believe that it was 'natural' and that you were actually being 'nice' to us. And we wanted to believe that, because to not believe it would have destroyed our love for you and we'd all recognize how scared we were. How unsafe we were. How dangerous you were to us.

I am thankful you said it out loud, to my ears as a teenager, and then again in February, 1993. Even though I knew it would destroy everything between you and I.

And you knew that, too. So you had me make the choice in 1992. You knew somewhere inside me that I knew, so what you were really asking was "Will you save him and sacrifice your love for me for his life, who do you love more?" You hated me for my answer. You hated me for that "yes." You thought it meant I'd choose to save him at your own destruction, so you decided to try to make it my own destruction... you did not succeed.

You used that hate to do what you did, because you knew, in the end, that it was not you who would be sacrificing anything. It would be, once again, your own children who would make the sacrifices for you. Who would pay the price for your own 'sins'. Who would lose love, love they so wanted to feel, to give, to calm your broken mind with. You never let us. You couldn't even give that to us; our own love for you, in spite of it all, you couldn't even allow that.


Thirteen years later, I figured out, there wasn't anything between you and I but the lies and avoidance. There was love from me to you, but not from you to me. I even better understand why that was how it was for you. And my heart breaks for you, but my anger will take many years to get over fully. But I am getting there.

In many ways, although it was not your intention, you set me free to not hate you in spite of the truth. I know you'd rather I hate you, but I can't. Not anymore. You thought the truth would give to me the hate that lingered beneath it all, and in the beginning, it did. But as time went by and I got a clearer picture, a more rational heart, that hate subsided.

I stay on land, Mom, I stay on land. Much as I wanted to save you, save you because I wanted to love you, because I wanted you to love yourself, I stay on land.

Had I known that what you were offering to me
wasn't his life, but the truth I'd been ignoring
a final confrontation of all I'd been avoiding
Had I known the penalties you were about to charge me
For not understanding you when you thought sure
I would
For not approving the actions, when you thought if anybody out there in this world could,
it would be me
the whore you thought sure would say 'anything goes'
For not agreeing with you that there was nothing wrong with it
For looking away out the car window,
towards the bridge's rails
and fishing boats out on that choppy sea,
and saying to you then "no", and saying to you then "I disagree, mom," and saying to you then "stop, I can't, please, let's talk about something else."
Would I make the same choices? Would I still say yes, when you have forced me to
confront your truth as if it were mine to take responsiblity for?

Yes, I would. I would make the same choice, because I wasn't choosing his life over yours. I wasn't choosing my love for him over my love for you. I was choosing truth. Truth I knew I still was not ready to handle, truth I knew would hurt even more. Truth I had been avoiding because it was too frightening, too overwhelming, too much for my mind and heart to take. Truth that would destroy more than the lies already had destroyed. But that which got destroyed was another part of the facade... and it wasn't our facade, it was yours. What got destroyed had to be destroyed.


I am sorry I could not give to you the understanding you needed at that time. I'm sorry I could not justify all that you did to all of us. I'm sorry I could not see then what I see now... that the truth was always there, and had I just had the courage then to help you, had I just known all I know now to get you to recognize how serious things were, how negative an impact they were having not only on those around you, but you yourself. Had I only let you tell me the whole truth back then instead of changing the subject because I couldn't mentally handle it, perhaps you'd have finally made peace with your truths and sought out how to make ammends for them.
I harbor a lot of this in my heart's lighthouse. I know it's not mine to harbor, I don't own any of it, but I can't shake the belief that somehow I'm supposed to guide you to what you should be doing with your truth instead of making me and others deal with your truth for you. I can't do anything with it, any more than I already have, which was to come to peace with it, not as mine, but as your's... because it wasn't mine to begin with. No matter how much you tried to get me to cope with it, it's not mine to cope with. It was your choices, your actions, and even, Mom, your losses, but not as a victim.
As a criminal. You'll have to do your own time now. He can't for you anymore. I can't for you anymore. None of your children can or should. Not that some of us haven't been more than willing to try.
March, 1968 - February, 1993 - February 2006

p.s. No, Mom, the Moody Blues were not telling you it was ok to do what you did back in the early 70s... and Axl Rose was not the reincarnation of your ex boyfriend telling you to do what you did in the 1990's, either. When I think back to how many times you openly talked about musicians speaking to you personally through their lyrics, I wonder why it took me so long to see how mentally ill you were all those years and why I didn't put the pieces together sooner. I am sorry I wasn't capable at that time to figure this all out, but you'd given me too much to sort out and I was struggling with the ramifications of such a confusing mind as was yours and the beahviors/actions to come of that. I also just wanted to love you, in spite of how fucked up you were. In spite of what you did to us. But now I see the only way you are going to get help is if you confront your truths for yourself.

Please alert your therapist to the fact you believe musicians were/are writing songs to you, to justify the actions you take. You mentioned the last phonecall in 2004 that you've been listening to the My Immortal song/cd a lot... that chick did not write those songs to you, either. She is not talking about you and justifying your anger at what you consider to be a 'betrayal'.

I wish I'd figured this all out sooner. Please, mom, get help.