When they had the chance to know her they realized

even before she did,

that she was not their home. They couldn’t be with a person they decided not to know.

Someone who was so easy to blame for everything.

They made their choices. Now,

it was past time for her to make her own.

She had to choose to move on,

move past and

move away from her own flesh and blood.


She was through with the grief… and panic…and anxiety and hope.

She realized that by allowing negativity in its entirety, she was legitimizing their hatred of her.

As though she deserved it.

No longer could she give up and

give away her power. After all….

They put to rest the notion of blood being thicker than water.

Blood, to them, meant nothing (as it concerned her).

Yet, it was the hope she clung to all those many lean years.

She thought, really thought, that if she were a good person…..

Then somehow the window of redemption and repair

would open as an opportunity for her sons to see how worthy of them she truly was.


Yet, wisely,

she finally realized they were not her home as she had not been theirs.

To them all she would be – should she be anything at all (other than a stench in the nostrils of the judgmental) –

was an afterthought in a drunken conversation --

… late at night, on the davenport of despair, when all else had been discussed.

She realized, with a deep sigh, that their decision to forgo the olive branch and not to forgive was a reflection on them…not on her.

…and not even God can change their collective past.


Her heart was with them – as it would always be -

but home was not in it.

Home was letting go.

Home was letting them continue to despise her and all of her

mistakes,

misjudgments

and youthful selfishness.

Home for her was no gathering of heroes.

Home knows, for her, that we are what and who we are because of and in spite of our past…


It ruins us.

It changes us.

We can move on, go forward, step lightly around it but it is what it is.

There remains no shame.

It just is. What you’ve done, how you’ve coped, all the choices…it just IS.

No chances to make amends.

No magic window opening.

No reason to explain – no one wants to hear it.

She fully realized that home is where and with whom you find it.

Hers was definitely – definably – not with them.

She had to release the memories and the longing and hope

– the sweet and the bitter -

and run toward home.