Last week we celebrated the finalization of my parents' divorce.
Wow. That is such a strange sentence to write out. Almost as strange as the fact that we were celebrating what would have been crushing mere years prior. I guess it should be a reminder that life will always surprise us.
My former mother decided to celebrate by sending my dad a picture of herself smiling, with the caption, "Look at me I'm Happy!!!!" Dad, having not physically seen her for quite some time, was surprised, and forwarded the picture to my sister. My sister called to warn me, then forwarded it to me. The warning wasn't enough.
She had obviously undergone a few plastic surgeries, and her face barely looked as I remembered.
I called my sister immediately. Previously, we had talked about how she had changed into a different person in all aspects but her appearance. The commonly heard phrase was "this person walking around in mom's body." But now we talked about how she had completed the transformation. That woman really IS someone else now. Inside and out. My mother is gone. I've already mourned her loss, but this was still hard to see.
I wonder how many other people are out there, tightly coiled just beneath the surface, ready to spiral out of control at turn into a different person over the course of a few mere years. So sad, these unbalanced people. More sad, those around them who can't see it because they are blinded by love and kinship.
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2 comments:
As someone who has had to live with close relatives with mental illness, I can say it sure sounds like she may suffer from some variety. I've known people who've change like that. It's very difficult. A lot more so when they are that close. Sorry you had to go through that.
Also sorry to hear you had to experience this. My brother and I celebrated our parents' divorce by taking our Mom to Yosemite and convincing her to hike to the top of Half Dome with us. It really was a joyous way to mark the start of her new (and better) life without him in our lives.
Some twenty years later, Dad's just informed us he's diagnosed with dementia and probably Alzheimer's, and all I can think is how happy I am Mom divorced him when she did.
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