On Friday evening I received an email from my godmother. I’ll call her F. She reached out to me to say she had heard about my mother’s death and felt compelled to write to me.
She had searched for my name on the internet and then came across a podcast interview I was featured in. She listened to it and couldn’t believe what I disclosed. She said in her email “it confirmed what we saw and heard”. Then she went on to share stories about me as a baby and young child and how my mother was a good person etc. I emailed her back with a long email asking for clarification about what she meant by saying “it confirms what we saw and heard”. I told her about the abuse and its impact on my life and my sisters. I remained calm and considered and didn’t write in a tone of blame. Just matter of fact. I let her know;
“On Thursday morning, I woke to a message from Shirley (mum’s friend and the executor of her will). Shirley shared that dad had left 45 per cent to brother 1 and brother 2 and 5 per cent to my sister and me. A pointed statement from the grave that signals – ‘you are worth nothing in my eyes’. By standing up to him and saying ‘no’ to the abuse, he has punished us. It is deeply misogynistic and cruel. I appreciate you have good thoughts of my mother, and I don’t wish to negate these, but I cannot celebrate her subservience or her complicitness to the abuse. I forgive her and as I said, I have moved on, but it is not a life I respect or admire sadly. In fact, I feel sorry for her. I mean no offence to your feelings about J. They are completely valid also.”
She rang me and we spoke today. F confirmed that my father was not a nice man. He was very dominating and rude and mean and people didn’t like to be around him. She said my mum was very subservient to him and loyal because of her faith. She felt my mother had accepted her lot. She said my mum spoke in single statements. She rarely expanded on things she spoke about or ideas. Apparently my mum did yoga and F said it was an extreme form of yoga. She told me to google Margaret Segesman and that there’s 2 types of yoga:
Tantric
Kriya.
I always found it strange that my Catholic mother did yoga. Imagine if she did tantric??!!
We could only speak for half hour so I hope to be able to meet her again to discuss more of what she saw and heard. I found it somewhat validating but still fuzzy and unclear.
F said she thought mum was being abused but no one had language for it at that time in society.
Today I reached out to a lawyer to find out how I go about contesting the will. When I spoke to my sister she told me she reached out to my brother to check in on him. She asked about the funeral and he said it’s next July 4. We were both miffed / like when was he going to let us know? I thought that was so rude.
I’ll book my flight tomorrow. What a drama. I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
My life as a dissociative 