So I have not talked about it much, I have been mostly avoiding the topic, at least out loud.
My brother is getting married this summer. Well, it is tough for me because my own marriage failed only a few weeks before he announced his engagement.
Don't get me wrong. I care about my brother and the girl he is engaged to is a wonderful person.
The invitation arrived in the mail yesterday.
There were 2 names missing.
My bear's and my babybear's.
They weren't invited.
Honestly, I kinda hoped I wouldn't be either.
You see, Bear looked forward to weddings and a chance to dress up all nice. Hang out with family/friends and have a few drinks. We didn't go to many weddings together. By the time we started dating, most of our friends were already married and his siblings were already married.
I had hoped that when my brothers got married, I would have kids the perfect age to be part of the wedding party. My daughter would have been almost 4 years old had she been born healthy & happy on her due date. Tell me that isn't the perfect age to be a flower girl?
Last year there was a wedding in my family. We were looking forward to going and canceled our annual trip home in May so that we could afford the trip and not worry about taking any extra time off work. Well, in the end we were not invited. I have never heard anything about why we weren't, and figured that the couple decided to just invite their immediate families. Not a huge deal but the couple had said to us "hope to see you at the wedding!" before. Anyway, I'm not dwelling on not being invited, that's not the point. The point is that it would have been our last chance to have a night out, we lost our chance to have a last dance together.
To be perfectly honest, some of my anxiety about this upcoming wedding is also because some of our relatives I have not seen (nor heard from in some cases) since prior to losing my daughter. When we lost our daughter, we stopped going out of our way to deal with people who didn't care enough to even send a note, or who would suddenly be unavailable when we did come to town for a visit. Working opposite shifts and our weekends not being on the same days made it very difficult to make a trip back there.
But the biggest part of my anxiety is not having my Bear with me.
How do you celebrate love when your heart is broken?
No. Shattered.
I don't know how to deal with this.
Obviously, I should be there.
But would it just make things worse for everyone?
If I didn't go, people would be mad at me.
(I know one person in particular will say "don't you care about your brother?" and make me feel guilty. Heck, when I said I can't talk about it right now that was the response I got! And said person has been trying to make me feel guilty about missing the social by telling me every chance they get about someone who came all the way from South America or something like that just for the social and I didn't drive 3 hours for it. Oh and said person thinks it takes longer for them to drive here than for me to drive there even though it's the same distance either way but that's another story for another day. And btw, said person is NOT my brother.)
If I do go, people will be mad at me too, because I'll be all crying and not in the way people usually cry at weddings. More like a wail "why meeeeeeeeee?"
and not to mention I'll probably have to sit next to someone other than my bear and my babybear.
Or I'd hide in the corner and be grumpy.
So is it really the right and more responsible thing to do? I don't know.
Hopefully, my reunion will come before then so I don't have to decide.
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4 comments:
Sigh. Thinking of you Ter.
Yes, four years old is the perfect age for a flower girl, Babybear would have been lovely.
Oh Ter..
I'm so sorry that you are faced with this.
Do you have someone maybe you could take? Who would know what you are going through..?? Someone who you could lean on during this? Maybe it would be fun to just take a girl friend so everything would be better.
Hmm, this is a difficult one.
If you go it might be one of the toughest things you'll ever have done, that's for sure. Ok, here my opinion, (ultimately two questions...) I think you are the one person tough enough to do such a thing, so if you decide to go, I'd say, go Ter!! It's a monument of a task. Huge but also a way of saying I care about you (your brother) so much. And bear would probably want you to go (though I don't know him and this might be a tad assuming too much!)
But here is the real question, in another world, in the perfect world, would you want to go? Do you want to go? Difficult to say, never mind consider it, a world with no baby bear, no bear, would you want to go?
Because if the answer to that is, yes, then, I think you should go. Because you want to. For whatever reason, your brother, yourself, to prove yourself you can I'm sure there is other reasons...
Which ever way you decide, make sure they are the right reasons. If you decide to not go, make sure you have a good reason, too. Maybe it's too much for you, yes. Pace yourself. And make sure if you do go, that you have the strength to face all the people there. And if you don't go, make sure you can face all those people you meet afterwards, including your brother who missed you there.
My mum didn't come to my wedding, my dad didn't come to my wedding, two out of three of my brothers didn't come to my wedding... I found it very difficult to forgive them, that they couldn't leave their lives to travel to where I live just for one day, for me.
Ultimately the day is about your brother (was about me at the time), they all had really good reason to not come, and hell, if there is one person who has a reason, not to, it's you! If this was my wedding, I wish you would come. For me. It would be the greatest gift. And I would admire you for it, for the rest of my life.
Ok and here the second big question, only you can answer, does he deserve this gift?
I'm glad you mod these comments before you post them, because I wanted to say these things to you! Directly before anybody else reads them. Maybe you won't post this... I'd understand...
Either way, I wish you peace, peace, peace and STRENGTH
and I hope you are ok with what I said here. Please delete this post, if it pisses you off.
Much love
xx Ines
Gosh, I wish that I had some advice to give you. I would think (hope?) that if you do go and are upset/crying, that everyone would understand, and just admire you being there. But, if you feel like you just really and truly can't do it, I think you should give yourself that out too, and maybe explain it to your brother?
I hope that you find peace with whatever you decide. Wish your little baby bear was a chin-dimpled flower girl at the wedding...
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