Eve of Mum's anniversary

It's the eve the anniversary of mum's passing. 9 years to the day. 

11 years since we were in Paris, and enjoyed a lovely dinner on the Champs Elyses.
10 years since we canoed on Lake Louise after a beautiful stay at the hotel next to it.
9 years since I tried hard to entertain her, keep her company in those last few weeks, days, minutes of her life.

 

I miss her dearly. And like previous years, the days of the anniversary are so much harder.
It doesn't make sense, for she is long gone. Long gone are the cancer cells, long gone are the hospital wards and agonising wait for results. But that is it. Long gone are also the opportunities to speak to her, to hold her hand, to feel her warmth.

Perhaps it is the perpetual (semi-)lockdown that has made it more of a struggle to break free from this mindset, this sadness and longing. It did not help that last week, I suffered a terrible fall on my bike, due to cracks in the road and tram tracks nearby, leaving me terribly bruised and open wounds on my knee and hands. 

I'm also saddened as the situation between my brother and his wife/family appears once again to be extremely rocky. My sister-in-law reached out to me and said she would like to chat with me one-on-one. Over the weekend, she sent me a video, a harrowing one, of my nephew recounting how he was so frightened by my brother, who apparently slammed the table really hard, and swore at him. My heart sank as I watched the 5min clip... It's not something that you want to see your 9 yr old nephew recount, and to know that he has been crying and even had a nightmare because of the incident.

It just goes to the root of my worries , anxieties and fears, and shows once again, that there is much trauma and baggage that is weighing down on my family. Especially, something is weighing down on my brother, in such a way that he is not able to release whatever is bothering him besides through anger, irritation, frustration and general discontent with the world. Why else would anyone swear and slam the table at a child? His own child, for that matter. 

The rocky relationship with my brother hasn't helped that whenever we speak, it is often a one-sided attempt from me to connect, to which he responds with simple replies or grunts. It's disheartening to say the least, even more so since I make a lot of effort, and make an effort to show how much I care. The issue has also surfaced in recent therapy sessions, in which I find myself straying to the topic of my upbringing and the unhappy childhood abuses that I suffered growing up with him.

All this, and I'm sure many other elements, bring me to my current state of mind. One of being demotivated, distracted, and also just sad. How I wish I could reach out to my mum, and just speak to her, tell her how I am feeling, what has been going on... How I could seek her advice on how to deal with situation with my brother, and what to do in light of the crumbling relations in his family.