By Peter Fitzgerald on Wikimedia
If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out Nadine Marie’s post on forgiveness yesterday. Next up will be Barbara at Me, My Magnificent Self on Aug. 11. Still open: Aug. 9, 10, 12, 13.
For day seven yesterday I moved on to another person. Although I chanted for my late Aunt Mary Jane last summer, I felt that I should put her in to this process. Reflecting on Nadine’s post, Mary Jane is the main person for me regarding whom the anger and pain seems to keep coming back. I love Nadine’s take that you’ll always remember the pain and/or anger and what they did; it’s what you do with it that matters.
No matter how many times I’ve forgiven Mary Jane, the anger has popped up again. I like the idea that the inner aspects of me who lived through her nastiness still remember it and always will. I can remember and feel it and choose to stay soft and compassionate and move on. I actually saw the wounded soul within while she was still alive. I also didn’t think that her wounds were an acceptable excuse for her extreme vitriol and cruelty.
I’m an only child and M.J. never had children, so we were oddly entwined for an aunt and niece. I knew she had an abortion a couple of years before I was born. Since I started following this path I’ve had a strong feeling that I started off to be her child and when she blocked that avenue I came in in the next closest spot. I thank the universe that I didn’t wind up as her child. I’m pretty sure I’d be blogging from a mental ward or my seventh visit to rehab…
She was an amazing woman in many ways. The first woman turf reporter in the world, she was banned from the male-only press box until she scooped them all one day and they decided she deserved a place with them. When she chose, her charm and sense of fun were infectious. With us she mostly didn’t choose. At her wake my mother and I listened to other people fondly reminiscing about funny things she said and did as if we were at the wake of a stranger. We agreed on the way home we’d have liked to know that woman.
It didn’t take long in the chanting for me to feel my heart open and to see her clearly smiling with joy that I was chanting for her. Images of her in charming mode–times when I enjoyed being with her– floated through. Although I’d set a timer to chant quite a bit longer, after that it felt complete and kind of like “make work” to keep chanting. Since the chanting itself is always so opening and balancing, I kept going anyway. Today I’m undecided as to whether I need to chant for her again or just perform the ceremony.
Not Just Sassy on the Inside 
This is a timely post Leigh! My mother passed away on my birthday, and it will be much the same as it was with your aunt. Most only know the socialite, not the true personality she was at home. It will be like being at a funeral for a stranger.
Sorry for your loss — although I’m guessing from your posts about her and this comment that your feelings are mixed? Glad this turned out to be timely.
Thank you. Not even mixed feelings. There just was no relationship so no feeling of loss. I’m happy she is no longer suffering though.