An Apology

Friday 7th October 

I should really learn to control my anger better; this ridiculous and irrational core of anger I have about my oh-so-negligent parents.  And even after Grandma (who had been my rock and surrogate parent), did eventually betray and hurt me so, as you will read in ‘Catherines Story’, it is my two absent parents I reserve my real wrath for.

But I find on reflection that I really should apologise to my mother, especially after yesterday’s letter, which of course was never going to be sent, but it did allow me to vent some of my spleen in her direction.  So I find that I must apologise to her, again in writing which she will never see.  I haven’t told her about either the book or this blog, so she won’t be reading either, and (thank goodness) she has never owned or shown any interest in computers or the internet at all. And in spite of what I wrote yesterday at least my mother never absolutely abandoned me, she was a part of my life, reluctantly maybe on my part, and though she was but a poor shadow of a mother, maybe I should offer her a hand of forgiveness; maybe she really had no choice. Grandma had so usurped my mother’s role when we were living in Cyprus that maybe my poor mother, not the strongest of characters at the best of times, never really stood a chance. And because of Grandma’s dominance over me too, maybe I cut her out of that role too; you cannot really be a mother if your child refuses to recognise you as one. I probably played Grandma’s little game a bit too well, and then when Grandma was no longer around we couldn’t even begin to recognise each other as mother and daughter. A sad state of affairs; and in my own way I have tried recently to be a better daughter, perhaps it was a bit too late in the day but I have tried.

Maybe I should even be apologising to Grandma too, was she really guilty of anything more than stepping into the void, and above and beyond everything else, she surely did love me. Strange way of showing it sometimes mind you, always too quick to criticise rather than praise, a fault I find shared by many women.

My father?  Oh yes, that is another story altogether.  Maybe I should have reserved my anger for him too, for his persistent negligence of me is hard to explain, although again this is a far too common trait amongst men who are separated from their children, they somehow manage to put  their emotions in a box and shelve them away for years.

Another time maybe; enough of this anger, it all happened a very long time ago. So, to all of you, for your real and imagined sins, I apologise.