What I learned about love

Love ain't got nothin' to do with money. Is that why you give me money? To insure that I'll stay engaged? To buy my compliance with your bad behavior? To make sure I'll call? Is it payment for my services as a therapist as you trash the rest of the family? (Then it ain't enough. I'll send you an invoice). Is it a stipend for enduring your cruelty, viciousness, passive-aggressiveness, your terrible insistence that I don't love you, that nobody does? Are you paying me to be your punching bag? (If so, I need a raise).

Poor, poor bastard.

I am blessed with help from many people and their help comes with no strings. Just sayin'.

It took me a while to realize it but I love you. It doesn't matter what you do or say, money or no, cruelty or not, silly, silly bullshit or no, I love you. I can see through all of that crusty old crap. I understand that you hate yourself, that you can't feel the love that flows toward you from many friends and your children. I'm afraid and pretty certain that you will be this way until you die which will be relatively soon and I am and will be very, very sad about that but I won't be guilty. Because I am and will always be the loving daughter I know I should be. And there really isn't any "should" about it. I love you. I admire your achievements, I adore your sense of humor (which I see less and less of, but no matter) and I hate your behavior. And I love and understand the caring impulse underneath all of that fear and horror that sends the check every month that helps me stay as independent as possible despite ill health. You love me, too.

And thanks to several brilliant therapists, family and a loving, wonderful family of friends, I will not be anything like you. Thank the Goddess that none of this stuff is inherited and can be unlearned.

Lawd, growing up is hard and I wish you could do it, even at this late date. Wishin' won't make it so, but isn't it ironic how hard work, and determination, brings me back to that moment that you held me in one hand a few days after you adopted me? What an enormous act of love.

And I'll always remember that that man who held a baby in his hand who wasn't his by blood, who pledged to take care of that baby out of sheer love, is still there, in there, somewhere, and he hasn't forgotten, either.