Eternal perspectives

I have two things to talk about: My Mom, and men.

Mom

The way I miss her isn't the way I thought I'd miss her.  I went to visit her grave tonight for the first time since her memorial............. has it only been three weeks?  Damn.  It feels... longer.  Much longer.  And that's the thing.  It's like I've entered a new life since her death.  Rather than living a singular life in which there is now this gaping, unfilled hole left left behind in the mortal absence of my mother, another lifetime began in which she simply isn't physically present.

It's a little like moving away from home.  The memories of home are still with you when you move away, you still love it, it's still the root of everything you do and everything you are and ever will be; but you are in another place now, and in effect, another time.  You have another purpose, and while you will always and forever love your home, this new space you're in is the right space to be.  There's a feeling of being homesick, of thinking back on the life that was, but being present in the life that is.

I think that's why I haven't been feeling as devastated as I had anticipated.  As a family, we released Mom, because it was the right thing to do and the right time for her to go.  We told her it was okay.  There's no sense of unfinished business: nothing left unsaid, nothing left undone, no injustice in her passing.  She completed her purpose on this Earth, and it was okay.

Granted, I am loudly sobbing and crying my eyes out as I'm typing this, but I'm also laughing at myself a little because I am typing while I'm wailing loud enough to make me glad my nearest neighbors are a few hundred yards away.  It's just release.  I'm super practical when it comes to letting it out, and even though I likely sound to the world like I'm an emotional mess, it's mostly physical.  Inside, I'm pretty peaceful.  And now I'm done crying.  It just needed to get out.

(Tangent: Mom's buried next to a guy that was in my class in high school who died in a car accident between our Junior and Senior years.  Always wear your seat belts.  Just saying.)

Men


A large part of my reason for being a feminist is a strong belief and hope for equality.  When I find this running up against the strong cultural dogma of male superiority in Mormonism  (however benevolent its stewardship may supposed to be) it puts me in some dismay about the eternal order of things as we're presented with them.

I have a really big, freaking problem thinking that two equally worthy, covenant-making-and-keeping people, bound together for eternity would be bound to being anything but equivalent to each other for eternity.  If it's not so, I have to look forward to eternity as Second in Command, instead of Co-Captain.  Eternity.  Forever.  Without end.  Never, ever, ever ending second citizenship.


How is that just?  How is that good?  How can that be acceptable and justifiable based upon the relative femininity or masculinity of an individual if all are alike unto God and God is no respecter of persons?  How can being (a beloved and cherished) Second for the rest of all out-of-time be okay?  It cannot.  It cannot be okay.  A man wouldn't stand for that being his lot, yet it's an implied expectation from the women.  Such a concept deeply, deeply disturbs me, to think that I could bust my butt through this super critical mortal probation we're all in, perhaps even out-righteous my Hypothetical Husband, and still end up as the Silent Partner, the Heavenly Mother that never talks to Her children and whom Her children are discouraged from addressing.  I find that idea incredibly unappealing, and it puts me in a position to wonder whether the effort is worthwhile if I have no guarantee of autonomy and personal worth outside the man I'm married to, forever.  This a big scary question for a woman who has been pretty dang invested in aiming for goddesshood her entire life.  So I have to think that we really just don't have the whole picture yet, that there's more, that the equality of the sexes will be seen as a central point of eternal doctrine at some time in the future, may Heaven make it soon.

But what if... what if I'm wrong.  What if God moves in (to me) truly mind-boggling and seemingly hypocritical, unjust, mysterious ways and eternity is sexist?  What if being more feminine than masculine lands you a spot just behind the shoulder of your more masculine eternal companion, to be protected and shielded and effectively silenced because you're somehow more sacred than anything else?  It's an idea that sickens me to my stomach, and the only way I can conceive of it being a tolerable system is if I could find a man who would not treat me as anything but an equal.  Where any "head"ship would be in token only, and irrelevant in practice.  If he must have the title, he can have the title, but that's all I could tolerate.  If I had to. If that's really the eternal order of things.

I don't think it is, though.  It just doesn't make sense.

Waxing poetic.

Just a couple apples falling from the brain tree this evening...

Chivalry is dead--so let it lie.

And let male feminists arise.

~ ~ ~

Goddess give me the strength not to socialize my daughters to be "nice".  Strong, kind, fair-minded, responsible, compassionate, and just, yes; but never "nice".  Nice makes you a doormat, even when you're being wronged.  Nice doesn't make a fuss when a fuss needs to be made.  Nice makes you doubt your better judgment and squash your intuition because others might be inconvenienced by your truth.  Nice does not a heroine make.

Mother's Day

sigh

Well, I did say I wanted to get it all done with at once.  Everything.  Death, memorial, Mother's Day...  That should make next year easier.  It also makes this year really, really hard.  Finally, it's beginning to sink in that she's beyond the veil, that life is different, that it's just Dad and I at home and that while she might be around in spirit.... she's not there in body.  At least it's really starting to hurt.  Today is really going to suck.

So I have two Mothers beyond the veil whose presence I can know no more of than to feel, if I'm lucky.  I might have three, if my birth mother hasn't survived this long, but I don't know much of anything about her, so I can't really feel attached, there.  How do I honor these women this day?

Well, for one, today I am only saying my prayers to Heavenly Mother.  Father can listen in, but I'm talking to my Mom.  I will take any opportunity to speak about Her.  I would be wearing goddess earrings and my tree and/or labyrinth pendants if I had them with me, but Dad and I are with my sister's family out of town.  I will cuddle my niece and hug my sister.  I will listen to and hum or sing women's songs.  I will treat my father kindly and sit beside him and scratch his back the way Mom used to do.  I will honor my sisters who are mothers and console, commiserate, or celebrate with my sisters who are not.  I will hold space with those also missing their mothers today, and mothers missing their babies.

And I will mourn honestly and openly and in whatever way I damn well please, be it weeping or donuts or seclusion or walking out of Sacrament meeting if I hear the phrase "We/You are all mothers" and it upsets me because I'm sick of that platitude and it's insulting and patronizing.  I will be grumpy if I feel like it because I miss my Mom.  And I'll be happy if I feel like it because I had my Mom.  I'll be and do whatever gets me through this day.

Peaceful Mother's Day to you all.

I'm coming back, I promise

It's been a rough few weeks, all told.  I'm floating in this very surreal soup of "life is normal" and "life will never be the same again" and "I feel okay" and "My Mom's gone...... what?"  It takes a lot of mental energy and even though I want to record every event and the chronology of everything from her last mortal week up to now before it fades, I just can't seem to find the time or energy to write it.  Maybe I'll voice record it instead so it's at least somewhere.

Anyway.  I expect I'll soon be back to blogging about Feminism and Mormonism and MoFemism and Morganism and Eve and whatever else crosses my mind.  Until then, peace.