Erasure

do I even care?

Photo by The Good Funeral Guide on Unsplash

My ex-husband’s step-mom died last month. She was a cunt. No, seriously, she was not a particularly nice person — she was an old school mean mom, prickly and opinionated, but not always well-informed on the things she got feisty about, so it was doubly irritating. She had a mean streak, too and had been known to swat or smack a kid here and there (or a fork in the back of the teenaged boy’s hand when he reached across the dinner table).

But I liked her — or liked her well enough, I guess. My ex had a ton of baggage around her because she was the next door neighbor and he grew up getting into trouble with her four boys. When he was in high school his parents got divorced and not long after the single mom neighbor lady went in for the kill.

She did a lot of eyebrow-raising things over the years, but my favorite story is this one:

She had an antique store (perfectly named Finders Keepers) that she’d moved from a shop in town to their detached garage. We liked to poke around when we visited to see if there was anything worth spending money on (no family discount here!). One time there was a large, framed painting of my ex as a boy, painted by his mom, with an inscription on the back — “to my sweet baby ____, happy birthday”. Holy crap! His ballsy step-mom was actually selling a painting that was clearly a gift to my ex from his mother! I said we should just take it and put it in the car, but he was so worn down by this kind of thing that he just shrugged and said “forget it”.

But she had a few good traits. She had a beautifully curated home with antiques and folk art everywhere. She set a lovely tablescape. And she was a good teacher: matter-of-fact and unflappable when showing my girls how to make biscuits and patient when explaining to me (yet again) how to play cribbage as we sat with a G&T or a glass of wine after dinner.

***

So I wanted to send a card at least, to one of her kids, expressing condolences and well wishes. I didn’t have an address for any of them, so I looked up the obituary assuming I could send one to the funeral home.

And there it was.

The erasure:

“…survived by son (wife), son (wife), son (wife), son (wife), and step-children: my former sister-in-law (husband), and My Ex-Husband (whore)…”

I say ‘whore’ because she’s the woman he cheated with and it turns my stomach a bit that they’re still together. Honestly though, she’s not a whore, just a survivor who saw her chance and took it. More power to her.

Seeing her name following his though, parenthesized in a place of connection and honor as if 25 years of bullshit-management and the birth of two kids don’t warrant a nod of some sort, was a sting I wasn’t ready for. It makes perfect sense, of course — why would an ex-wife be listed as a surviving family member? Would I expect him to be in my step-mom’s obit? Actually, I’m the kind of inclusive that I’d likely float the idea and see what my kids and siblings thought. I don’t think I would include a boyfriend, though — something about that just doesn’t sit right to me.

And I know that it’s not really the erasure, it’s the replacement — her name, not mine. I was not just omitted, I was replaced.

Again, my head gets it! My heart unfortunately still bears the scars of infidelity, and it feels the squeeze of that betrayal from time to time. My head can parse it all out and make it make perfect sense, but my tender little heart still sometimes whispers the answerless why?

***

So I do what I do — I come back here to write for the first time in months. I sit and face the screen and the words tumble out and I wonder if they make sense and I also don’t care because I’ve finally found words that come easily instead of fighting every freakin’ syllable like I have been lately.

There’s no satisfactory ending here, no clear resolution, because there never is when families split. I’m still close with my ex’s mom and step-dad (I was just at their house last week weeding and planting blueberry bushes), and his sister and her family still text and email and visit when they’re in the States. But, I no longer hold that special space — the parentheses — and even though I no longer want that space, wouldn’t ever give up that much of myself again in order to have that space, it still stings to know it’s been taken by another.