My brother and sister-in-law came to visit today. When Brad told me that they were on their way over I wanted to talk to my sister-in-law, I'll call her Alice, about what was going on with my Grandpa and him getting endowed. I just love talking to Alice, I could talk to her for hours and not run out of things to talk about. We have so much in common! We are the shortest 2 members of the family (I', only 5' and she is shorter then me!), we both only have 2 kids, and mostly, we have similar pasts (parents are divorced and dad has left the church). We can almost always relate to each other. She is one of two members of the family I know I can talk to about stuff like this and she will understand (we have another sister-in-law with similar past to ours!). Needless to say I was excited that she was coming over.
We had all been talking for a while and our husband had just gone outside and my kids were busy playing in their room and I knew it was the right time to bring it up. The conversation went just as I had thought, she was understanding, could relate, and had GREAT advice! In fact she mentioned me talking to my bishop and getting counsel from him to prepare for this. I told her that I just happened to be in counseling! I haven't talked to Joy about this yet. I don't even have an appointment with Joy, so I'm not sure when I'm going to see her next.
After the initial shock about finding out Dad would be getting endowed, and then falling about it, by the next day my feelings were that I was okay with it. It's going to happened whither I want it to or not. There is nothing I can do to stop it. Plus, in the end, it is his agency and his own eternal consequences for his actions. I have really been fine with it all... and then Alice brought up the C word...
The word I have been avoiding. If I pretend it doesn't exist then I don't have to face it or deal with it, right? Alice asked how I was going to handle "The Circle", I once again fell apart. HOW on earth can I do it?!?!? If you are LDS and endowed then you know what I am referring to. If you have no clue when I am talking about, there is this description (here).
Now I don't HAVE to participate, but my family will expect me to. I thought about talking to Grandma about it. The only problem is, I never know which mom I'm going to get. You see, she has 2 extremes- she admits he is abusive, is sympathetic to me for what he has done, and we can talk openly and honestly about anything that has to do with him. I havn't seen that side of her since before he was baptized. The side I have seen for the past 2 years is her defending him, her justifying his actions and so on. I know if I approach her about it, she will defend him and probably tell me to "get over it!" She told me that just the other day about some dumb thing that happened 13 years ago and I really don't even care about anymore, shoot I'm pretty sure I didn't care about it 12 hours later. Yeah, talking to her isn't an option.
In writing all this down I have shed a lot of tears. I have thought a lot about it all and how things might play out. I paced up and down the hall while everyone else in my family is sound asleep wondering how on earth I was going to handle this and deal with it.
As I was sitting on the couch stewing over this, a peace came to me. A reassuring thought came that my family can not force me to be a part of this. I will be there in the temple with them and that is good enough. I also know that I can not be a part of the circle feeling the way I do about Grandpa. Yes, I have forgiven him. But, that doesn't change the fact that I still think he is a jerk. He still verbally abuses his wife, he still is as controlling as ever, and for those reason I don't like him. If he truly changes his way, I could find it in my heart to think he was a good man.
Honestly, do I think he will 100% change before, or after, he gets endowed, no. I'm not saying it to be mean. I have seen him and have known him my whole life. He always said he wanted to get baptized on his deathbed because then he wouldn't have to actually follow any of the commandments. Now in his 80's he is going through the motions. He got baptized, for whatever reason he had, but he didn't change his ways. Maybe the temple will change him. I doubt it will though. Maybe after making that big of a commitment he will be completely committed. Maybe. If he did I would be happy for him. At the same time, I doubt anything will change the habits he's had for the past 80 years. I'm okay with that.
It has take me a long time to get to this place. 12 years ago I hated him. I hated him for what he did to me. How he cut me down, abused me and belittled me to the point that I was this broken shell of a person, I hardly even functioned. 12 years, it has taken me 12 years to get to this point. The road to this healing started when I opened up to Sister Parker, who encouraged me to talk to my bishop, who recommended counseling and I met Joy. There has been a LOT of ups and downs. Both good and bad and great experiences with counseling. Times when I thought, I could never forgive him, and then I did. Times that I thought, I can't deal with that, and I did. Now I know that no matter what happens in the next few months, I'll be able to handle that too.
No comments:
Post a Comment