In the Courtroom?

In my mind I see my father in the courtroom.

He gave vague information to me about his whereabouts for the last few days, he was vague and they were for a long but indeterminate period.

Usually we are here most of the day most of the time and we do our best to be civil to one another. Lately he has been busy and distant in his mind from me. Also vefry excited about some work he is doing on economics which he has been pursuing for some time.

He has done things in the past when he is angry like lock up my cat in the basement that I don’t know how to reach from evening until he (my father) rolled out of bed in the morning. Travis was yowling all night long but it was soft, I just couldnt figure out where he was. In the morning after a while my father got him out but next thing I know he was missing again. I think I found him in the attic. It was all because I had knocked on the neighbors door, I I can’t remember whether I had the small gift I bought then or whether I went out and bought it later. I just wanted to say hello. We had never been formally introduced. I saw her in there but she did not come to the door.

When they moved in, my mother died here in hospice in the dining room we rarely used, in hospice. It was a very sensitive situation. I was still in helpless, vulnerable daughter mode and had to just stuff it. The neighbors were very rude to me, it was an unfortunate situation. And so did they, this was their dream all their lives. Their mother lives right around the corner and she always wanted that house. (My parents split an old farmhouse complex various ways and sold the lot with the more modern house to them.

They took the older, smaller two houses and did beautiful work to restore them and develop them with elegant touches and my mother–this is one thing that nobody could ever fault her for–is/was an extremely lovely gardener. Unfortunately this has all gone by in the 2 1/2 years she she has been gone. My father can’t keep up with her lavish and beautiful gardens. It’s enough that he keeps the extensive property mowed on his tractor that he loves. My father is 90. My mother was 81 when she passed. Uh Hmm. If she did. I have raised that question because I keep hearing from her in my mind. Maybe it’s a ghost. There is similar suspicion in my mind about my brother’s reported suicide in 2018. So, the loving couple with kids who moved in had a dire situation from day 1 and I don’t know if they even want to live there any more. Or to move ME out because they want the whole complex and with me in it my father wouldn’t sell. Maybe.

But, I have belabored these topics.

I am still learning this computer so please bear with me. It’s completely changing my writing style and clearing up my thinking which that old tablet was rapidly eroding. It was very frightening to see that happen to me again what happened to me 35 years ago.

The other specific cut that was most memorable was whe n he pulled me aside by the door near the neighbors and looked into my face and said “You’re a public nuisance.”

This was because I had driven my car into too much snow in the parking lot at the pharmacy and was stuck and called him. This also involved the neighbors. He had arranged a dinner with them for me to get to know them better. But he just didn’t understand. The snow was a reprieve. I called my insurance company and got white glove treatment getting out of there; after about an hour. It only took 5 minutes shoveling and I was out.

In the meantime I had missed the lasagna with the neighbors. It just didn’t feel right. My father ALWAYS treats me like an idiot in social situations assuming that they are embarrassed by me when he is. He is supposed to clear the pathway for everybody’s understanding. Obviously i am a person with a problem. You don’t chastise someone for that. You probably do in lower class Hull. Here, it’s stupid.

This post will be published privately for obvious sensitive reasons.

The mother, P. wants this place. My mother lorded it over her (Br. expression for being imperial towards someone makes a little less money or whatever) for 30 years and P. wanted to take the house from her. Looking back I can see the trouble she was in (my mother.) She didn’t even realize she was doing that. The English don’t.

Anyway, the kids, especially the little kids, harass me all day long, it’s shocking. If I go out into the glass porch. 7 and 8 year-olds gaslighting.

It has to be that they want to chase me out and then my father and then buy the whole property property when they get the chance.

For their mother.

Post privately published.

So, I have to forgive my father for how he was treating me because he was probably afraid.

What support does he have? Judith was the only one who really knew him and she blocked his relationships, especially with his children. A little Englishman from the working class North where you didn’t even know what a bathrobe was, he attended university on scholarship with middle class kids. He always had deeply serious ego problems regarding classist issues, similar to racist issues in America, a Black man once explained to me.

He has been driven nearly to extinction in his personal resources over my mother’s death trying to satisfy the various people who used to get paid off, that was my mother’s way. If it is not true, then something like it. HE HAS NO HELP. He doesn’t know the language. Not when it comes to emotions and love, whether gestures or words or affirmations, he does complains about acts of service and I am thinking to myself , this man is 90 years old. We are finally reaching a plateau in MY understanding. I was acting like I was his little girl. As he said the other night. I also have to help HIM.

SOMETIMES we get along now and once in a while we even have fun.

It’s been tough for the last month or more but I do constantly remind myself to HONOR MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER