Lessons By Moonlight Blog

I was watching a crime show the other evening about a serial killer who was finally caught and sentenced to prison. The latter part of the show contained interviews with the family who shared their opinion of the verdict and their path going forward. One family member spoke very clearly about the importance of forgiveness and the security of knowing that person doesn’t have access to them or to cause harm to anyone else. They were making a powerful statement that made me think about my own life.

I have had people in my family say horrible things about me as well as do horrible things to me. I have been accused of everything except stealing the Cross of Christ. It gets old, especially when the accusations come from those who have done horrible things and have a past a country mile wide. Most of them have carefully crafted their social facades so no one would ever guess in a million years what they are indeed guilty of and as tempting as it is, I will not speak of their misgivings in life, at least for now.

Do I forgive them? Yes. Do I want the best for them? Yes. Do I want them in my life? No. No, I do not want them in my life. Why, they are not serial killers? Why not have them in my life? Because while they did not physically kill me ( I know one has wanted to since childhood) they have murdered my name, my deeds, my character….and I am simply tired. Why should anyone continue to allow people into their life who constantly commit violations against them? Or they want to be around you just to have something else to make up and talk about. You don’t. You have the right to restrict access to your life as much as you can. Some who are just Hell bent on being nasty will find a way through church, friends, employment to somehow stay in the outer courts of your life, just enough to continue their dialogue of how much of a horrible person you are. If only those same people would examine themselves to conclude that they are indeed what they are saying that I am, wow – projection at its finest. Smh. So much like the serial killer who was forgiven but denied access to society. People, who constantly hurt you in any sense, need to be denied access to your life and it is okay.

My mother came from a large family, she was the youngest of many siblings. Through the years one by one, she saw and learned of the death of her brothers and sisters. When she learned that her only living sibling has passed away, it was almost too much for her. She had a niece that started calling her about going to the wake and funeral, but my mom declined. Momma finally decided that she would go to the funeral chapel to view her sister and sit a while. The niece insisted that she would take her, but mom told her that she would have one of the kids take her which ended up being me. I took my mom to the funeral chapel where she walked slowly up to the casket. She raised her shoulders slightly took in a deep breath and gazed at her sister in the casket. In that moment, Momma wasn’t just looking at Aunt Betty, she was looking at her own parents, her brothers and sisters, she was looking at the memories of Locust Street where she grew up, she was looking at the history of a family that she would never see again on this side of Heaven. Momma stood there for the longest time. then she stepped forward, gave her a kiss and then she sat down in front of the casket on the front row of seats. Again, she just sat and stared and then she said that she was ready to go. We went home. Aunt Betty’s funeral was the next day. I attended the funeral along with some sisters and brothers. After the funeral I went straight home to be with momma. Some other siblings went to the dinner afterwards and I guess one of the conversation topics was that momma did not go to the funeral. The niece that kept calling her and telling her that she needed to go to funeral said at the dinner that my momma should have gone to the funeral and that she would have to live with the fact that she did not go to her own sister’s funeral. After that the niece and siblings did reach out to momma at all. Years went by with no calls, no happy birthdays, nothing. My mom would call that niece, but her calls went unreturned.

In 2014, Daddy fell and was hospitalized for over month. Momma was hospitalized during the same time. Their dual hospitalization was the most trying time of my life. I was working from 7-7, I would go to my parent’s house take a shower and then go straight to the hospital to watch my parents overnight. There were people who I guess were calling the house and leaving messages, but I never had time to check the messages. So the niece started telling others that I was ignoring her calls and that she had a right to know what was going on. A cousin died during this time and after her funeral, there were about 15 people that came in and sat in mom’s hospital room. I wasn’t happy about that at all. These are people who had abandoned Momma for years and now they want to show up and watch her be sick, when they were not part of helping her live. After they all left Momma became sick to her stomach. She said that it was good to see everyone but that it was just too much for her and that she would rather see everyone once she is better. With that. I told my sibling that we needed to restrict Momma’s visitors until she was better. This right here, was the tool that would be used against me for many years to come, even now. I immediately was accused of keeping nieces and nephews away from Momma. First, a hospital is a place to get well, it is not a place for family reunions. I had the right to restrict visitors for Momma until she was well, that was nothing for anyone to be mad about. After all they hadn’t been there and even after Momma was better and at home, they still did not come around. The dialogue continued though, that I would not allow people to come and see Momma and this simply was not true. It didn’t help that I had sibling who were also helping to carry on this misperception.

For years, I would run into cousins at the store and they would ask how Aunt Josie and Uncle Jimmie were doing and would tell them that they were fine but that they needed to call them sometime. none of them ever did – non e of them. Did I keep them from picking up the phone and calling them, no. Did I keep them from sending a birthday card or a Christmas card, no. Did I keep them from visiting, no. Did I keep them away from Momma all those years that they were mad at her for not going to Aunt Betty’s funeral, no. Time and time again I have been used as an excuse for what people did not want to do themselves. I am sick of it. You did not call Aunt Josie because you did not want to. You did not visit Aunt Josie because you did not want to. You did bother with Aunt Josie, because you did …not…want…to. Period. Leave me out of it. Instead these people have a taken one moment in time when I was trying to concentrate on getting Momma well and used that as way to soothe their conscience for the way the treated her. At one point in time, a niece who was named after Momma came to the house and I explained to her some of the concerns I had about what I knew was being said. She seemed to understand what I was saying and we even hugged before she left. I told her that she was welcomed to call or come by anytime, that was being said was not true. She never came by again. What more can I say or do, what more?

A 100th year birthday party was thrown for Daddy. It was the church’s idea and they took care of all the details. I was told again that there is talk of me not inviting people or that I am causing people to miss out on his party. It was advertised in the local newspaper, how is that keeping people away from Daddy? I know that this person saw the advertisement shared it with her siblings and still and yet, none of them showed up.

I have come to the conclusion that these people for whatever reason just want to have a problem with me. There is simply nothing that I can do about that. I don’t care at this point to do anything about it other than to write the truth of what happened. My momma was all about keeping the peace in her older years and out of respect for her I did for the most part keep my mouth shut about this but no more. People who spread lies and deceit, count on you to be quiet so that they are never challenged in their evil works. I am also a “call everybody in the room” kind of person too. The person who is causing the most division, and I know who those two people are, are counting on the fact that everyone is too mad at each other to ever get together to talk about what has been said. If everyone was to come into the room and talk about all this stuff, those two people would be exposed, but I also know that they would never do that. They know what that would cost them. That would cost them the carefully crafted facade that they have built.

Why is this in the Lesson By Moonlight blog? One of the most painful lessons that I learned is that family is sometimes only just a word. It means nothing when there is no love, respect or trust there and you have to be okay with that. Never in a million years did I think that I would have become such a target for people who can’t see they wrong that they have done. Maybe picking on me helps them too absolve the errors of their life, I don’t know, but God knows all of our stories, even this oneand I rest well in that.

I have blogged before that I never just “fall in love”. If I love you, that was a purposeful act of me allowing you into my heart and aspects of my life. If I love you I decided that you are someone that I want to give my best to, that I take an active role in helping you become the best version of you, and that I willingly accept your role in helping me become the best version of me. Love inspires…love encourages yet accepts…love builds… love can cause you to soar!!!

Loving someone hopefully has a lot of good times, but there will be bad, there will be misunderstandings. there will be attitudes from time to time. The true test of the love that you share in the good times is how you handle the love in the tested times. Handle it with care, whatever you do. Now is not time to punish the other person by withdrawing your communication, this is the time to communicate the most when tempers are down and each person is calm. Too many times, couples are so eager to get back to the good that they sweep the testing under the rug….only to be tripped on later. You can learn so much about how to love the one that you love even better when you have open and honest conversation about how you feel during the difficult times. The best way that this can happen is if egos are down, the pointing fingers are tucked away and both hearts are receptive to learning about themselves and about the other person. Talking and working through your testing times, graduate your love higher and higher. Again….Love inspires, love encourages yet accepts, love builds, love can cause you to soar!!!!

When you really love someone, it is difficult to be friends after the relationship is over. After the walls that you spent years building up have slowly been dismantled by this person that you have grown to love and trust, a friendship seems so mediocre at that point. When talks of the future has you believing that the rest of your life just might be spent in the arms of each other, it is hard to think only in terms of a friendship after that. When days and months go by with communication, sharing fears and jokes, laughing and sometimes crying…now we are just supposed to be friends.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t try, but I know first hand that this is one of the hardest things that I have ever tried to do. When you know that someone else now has the good morning calls that you used to have…it hurts. When you are now the “every once and a while phone call” and you know that someone gets his conversation in the evening…no more goodnight wishes for me…it hurts. When the person you loved and made plans with is now doing those plans with someone else…it hurts. When that person that pursued you and begged you to trust them, and are now only throwing you scraps of who they are….it hurts…bad.

Wanting to continue to be friends is a sweet sentiment to the relationship that was shared, but sometimes it is just not healthy. Everyone has to evaluate this for themselves, but for me I know that it caused me to suffer more.

Sometimes you have to love people the best by letting them go and part of that is you loving yourself enough to release someone from your life who no longer holds to the intentions by which they came into your world.

Sometimes you have to let that person know that you are their friend, their true and dear friend, but it will be at strong distance away.

Sometimes you have to say, I love you….but I also love me too and I can’t suffer watching you enjoy life with someone who is not me.

The newest saying these days is, “I am living my best life”, or “I am trying to live my best life”. Well, live it then- but let me tell you something….

You cannot live your best life destroying other people.

There is a way to live your best life and that is not by misusing people’s emotions or indulging in every possible sin that you can without the risk of going to jail. This is not your best, this is being a greedy, thoughtless, selfish butthole.

Living your best life is not blazing a trail of destruction where ever you go and with whoever you meet. You meet this person and you mislead them, you meet another person and you play them out, you meet this person and you string them along, and so on and so on…..a trail of destruction. I saw on a TV show the other day where this man went to great depths to capture the heart of a woman that he had eyes for. When she finally fell for him, he decided that he was ready to move on and he said to her and the world, “Listen, I am trying to live my best life and you are not a part of it”.

What people have to say about you after you are gone from this Earth says a lot about the quality of a life best lived. If all people can say is that he was a womanizer, or she was a man eater, or that person was the worst this or that…was it your best life? Our lives are about us, but we live on a planet where we impact other people and we meet people for a reason, a season, a purpose…. a goal should be to leave them better than when you found them.

Live your best life, but if you can’t do it without hurting other people…then you are best to live your best life alone.