nothing more, nothing less

For all of my life, was part of a family that really & truly gave every appearance - in word & deed - that the rest did NOT consider me in any, shape or form actually part of their family.  It is a reality that makes others bristle & yield to protests of, "Surely, that wasn't so!  Your mother adored you. Look at all the things Mim did with you.  How can you say anything so...  unexpected?"

What is way harder than going through what I experienced with my parents & sibs was considerably easier than what comes at me from well-meaning but just-don't-get-it friends.  

One of my very closest friends wrote to me that she thought, "Maybe Mim is moving Peter from beyond to connect with Deev." And that thought gave her chills up her spine, which she took as a sign of spirit, perhaps Mim.

Sigh....  Of course Peter is connecting with me - there's no one left.  It's not Mim moving from the Great Beyond - Peter is in regular touch with us because John & I opened that possibility in December 2014.   There was an earlier, failed attempt at connection.  From spring 2011 through fall 2012, I did my best to get us on the same page - every other month, I sent Peter & Mim books I thought would pique their interest, each inscribed, "One book, one family" with the month & date.  Eighteen months, eight books, no word from either of them.  Finally, after sending the last book - #9 - got a card with "Thanks for the book" from Mim - we built our post office relationship, which suited us both, from that beginning.  Never did hear from Peter.  

The other day, I mentioned the term,  “The game isn’t worth the candle” & the happy reality of having gotten to the point where the outcome of having a point of contact, however shallow, with Peter is totally worth the energies needed to make it so.  And I can muster up the emotional fortitude to do that because of never pulling the wool over my own eyes.  

Do I, for a moment, believe that Peter, in his heart of hearts, considers me family in the way he did Mim?  Not for a second.  

And it’s not personal.  It just isn’t.

As clearly as I am visible right now, tomorrow could be a whole new reality.  I can work with that, put please – don’t make it what it’s not. 

I can have a relationship with Peter by accepting it is what it is.  Nothing more, nothing less.  But when people - from the most heartfelt of motives - make what that is into something more... It makes me feel hollowed out.