Well, spending the last days with h in the real world offers up quite a glimpse into his reality. There is so much I could write. I see moments where he is quite overwhelmed, stuck in past stories, still confused (especially finding places in the car even though he grew up here!!), sometimes like his old self and even a few touch-n-goes of the physical nature. I'll try to pick a few highlights.
We went to h's Great Grandmother's grave for the first time. She passed away in the spring and we didn't attend the funeral. She adored my h and was one of the few positive female role models in his life.
H had found out the section of the cemetery she was buried. We had a number and a section name. But it is an old New England cemetery and the numbers and even the section jumps all around. After a bit of driving, I gently suggested we ask the office for assistance. H said no. He decided to go with the boys and just start walking around to find her grave. I tried to reason with him as this is not one of those cemeteries where the graves are in neat rows. In fact, part of your "section" could be 400 feet over there under some random tree. Nope. He was going to walk and find her. There is a break in logical thinking there.
Meanwhile I decided to drive to the office and ask for help. I returned a few minutes later and could see h had already passed by where she was laid to rest.
I know this was all hard for him on some many levels, particularly the mortality issue. We gave him a hug and he often expressed his shock that she was gone.
Job, know how they take odd things? I saw h take some dirt from her burial area.
We went to a family member's house and she had laid out some sentimental photos of our kids and even one of us when we were dating. H glommed on to a photo of this place he lived in during his upper 20's. He took the photo and it was the only one he spoke fondly of, too. He reminisced about that photo only.
He wanted to drive through his old neighborhood. And he re-lived who lived where, etc. He really seems to be stuck in the past. I am not sure he's made any new memories while here.
Wonka, thanks for the heads up on watching his return to his family. At Christmas h gave him mother a gift. He watched her open it. She was quite frigid in her response and my heart broke for him. I could see he so wanted to please her.
Later in the night he tried to show her a recent injury he's had. And it really did seem like he was about a pre-teen aged boy. He wanted her to fuss over him. She did not. She went through the motions of saying the right things but there's a coldness there.
He talked about her coldness. He said his whole life all she did was cook meals and do his laundry. There was no deeper relationship. I validated and listened and my heart broke for him as a mother myself. I do think one of the key triggers for him was to see me loving my boys in a proper fashion. And on several occasions he has called me cold, too. I know it's projection because I am far from cold. No one who knows me would describe me as such.
Job he no longer clings to the edge of the bed when sleeping with me. Xmas morning I was rolling over and he lifted his arm for me to rest on it. I saw it but thought he was merely stretching so I missed the opportunity. He sighed and poked my hip (for me to turn around) and lifted his arm again. We talked like that for a bit.
It's frightening how simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable that was.
He asked me to sit next to him at my family's dinner. And he had other such small reach out moments. Probably all due to the holidays.
And here's a few hilarious tid bits. I saw h had written a song titled "Ballad for ___". And in the space were three initial I did not recognize. I assumed it was for a woman. Well, his best friend came over and long story short, the song was for his friend's 13 year old daughter!!! So, do refrain from mind reading.
I told him it was a nice song when I found out it was for the girl. He said he had sent it to me. I told him he had not. He said he had. I joked that maybe he'd sent it to another woman. He became indignant and said no, emphatically. (I checked and he never sent it to me. I like to make sure I am not losing my mind in all this.)
He's snapped at me once. Still gets very cranky out of nowhere.
He told me he had lunch with that old friend and the friend now looked very old. H said the friend aged in the year he had not seen him. I said "year you haven't seen him?!? Try THREE!" H of course was not aware he ditched this guy almost three years ago.
Sorry for the über long post.
Special thanks to all of you who have helped me on this journey. You all know who you are . . .
Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13 BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room" 8/15: H back to MBR 10/15: H back in dorm room 1/18: H files, now divorced
