| | Out of the blue
5 July - there will be a significance somewhere
I had an unsettling experience this weekend. A small interaction, though not really. Its ramifications are resounding when rippling back through personal history. My former brother-in-law, my daughters' uncle, a man I have spoken nary a word to in almost 13 years, found my Facebook profile and dropped me an email.
His first email: "How are you? We have unresolved issues... glad I found you on Facebook... can we chat..." followed by another a few moments later: "miss you would like to chat."
My initial reaction was, "WTF?" Why, after 13 years and out of the big, bold blue does this man make connection now? [And this is the blessing and the bane of Facebook, folks.] I sat on the request to chat (he also requested to be a friend on FB) for a day or so, as I considered our mutual history going back through the decades. He was the only sane one of the bunch (he married my ex's sister) and we got along well over the years. He was always kind, and sensible.
Given my contemplations of late, I figure there was extraneous forces working on my behalf - and he was right, there was unfinished business. We didn't get an opportunity to say 'goodbye', as it were. So, I allowed the friend request and responded to his email. From there, we initiated a chat in MSN. Caught up on how the kids were doing (he has three boys) and what was new in his life (he is battling a rare form of MD and just got a new scooter, which he says has given him a whole new lease on life) and how things were going in mine. He has, for most of his adult life, battled a debilitating and incurable disease that has been eating away at his muscles. His extremities were the first to be hit and he fought every step of the way to stay mobile and self-sufficient. He can only walk a few feet now. He relies on the scooter. His heart - as a muscle - will also be affected and he likely will not live to be an old man. In essence, in his mid-50s now, he is at the twilight of his life.
He apologised for the way the family treated me when my marriage broke down, particularly for the poor behaviour of my MIL. I told him I understood her need to demonize me - it allowed her to avoid dealing with her (non)relationship with her son. We chatted about that. His tone and content of discussion was overly optimistic - a magnification of his actual optimist self - and I sense in the undercurrents a man who is... aware, resonant of closure and is looking to tie up his loose ends. He permeated this. He wanted absolution from me, he wanted to know I held no ill will. He wanted me to know he has regretted how things happened, how he didn't reach out, how they let me down. He wanted a bond of forgiveness.
And then things took a turn I decidedly am not comfortable with. He told me that his marriage is dry and lifeless - we riffed on the dysfunctional family characteristics we married into, and had to endure. He talked about how hard he has tried over the years to open his wife up, that she is so closed. And then, out of the blue, he told me that he had been having spicey dreams about me.
*sigh*
I shut down that dialogue quickly, told him dreams were symbolic of characteristics of self and that I was sure it had to do with his longing for freedom from his crippling physical condition. He took the cue quickly and the conversation was pulled back from the brink.
We said our farewells, and he noted he wanted to talk further, more, that he valued my friendship. And the next day he emailed me, asking me if I was going to be on MSN... I haven't responded. I don't intend to. There is a sense of desperation in him that repels me.
And now I am left with a sense of sadness, a burden. History surfacing, being sullied (innocently or otherwise, I don't know) in its opening and closure inside one solitary conversation - and the landscape of those years altered by one sentence.
I am not sure what to do with this experience, how to process it. I know that while it was mundane on the surface - folks have chats with people from the past all the time - I recognize that this one is a doozy on a different plane and I don't know how to navigate it with the sensitive approach and care it needs.
The universe can be a strange taskmaster sometimes. I hope to find wisdom in word to bring a proper, and healing, closure to this relationship from my past. It is the past, it is where it is staying, there is no further investment or pursuit. If he is - as I think he is - bringing closure to his life person by person, then I wish to honour him as I knew him.
All weekend I have been pondering this. And I am still drawing a blank...
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| | Posted 7/5/2009 10:12 PM - 11 Views - 6 eProps - 4 comments
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