Something Lost, I'll Never Get Back

Once, thirty years ago, I lost something that was mine, but it never actually belonged to me. When I was sixteen years old, my Nana passed away suddenly. With her death, the first of someone I loved so much, came the sudden shifting of all our family dynamics. It was a slow and steady unraveling of the family I knew and loved. As a little girl, I spent many hours with my Nana. There are memories of songs she would sing to me, records played on the player, trips to the bank, and breakfast around the circular wooden table in the kitchen. There were also days she stayed in bed, television playing her soap operas as she battled with a sad blanket she couldn't shake. I spent time with her doing my hair in her bathroom. I secretly put on her lipstick and admired myself in the the mirror. Sometimes she would let me put her ring on my finger. It would slip as it was too big, but I would dangle it to show her and she would smile and laugh, telling me one day it would be mine. I believed her.

But when she died, her only daughter took the ring telling me when I was eighteen, and then when I was twenty-one it would be mine. I believed her. However, those milestones passed and the ring was never handed down to me. Our once close relationship dead. The damage done with broken promises, and pain inflicted on my young fragile heart. I lost my Nana. I lost her ring. I lost my Aunt. I lost my cousins. All gone forever, because although I let the hostility go, I chose to protect my heart. She will never hurt me again, because I choose not to let her. 

The only person who ever had my back completely was my Mom. My Mom chose me. She always chose me. Time and time again, she chose to acknowledge my pain, to validate it and to let me do what I needed to do. She didn't pressure me to, "forgive and forget." She left me to my own devices and simply sat with me. Perhaps because of this we were able to go forward.  There has never been hate in my heart, but there is definitley space and solitude with that woman compared to what may have been. I am okay with that.

God has been so good to me. Despite the losses, there have been abundant blessings and gains. I lost more than a ring and I'll never get any of it back again. Forgiveness was for me, not for her.