REDEMPTION

redemption |riˈdemp sh ən|
noun
1 the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil • figurative a thing that saves someone from error or evil
2 the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.
• the action of buying one's freedom.

I just found out four days ago when my mother was actually buried - yes, you did read that right! -Since I was fifteen years old, for my entire adult life, I've never known when she was interred and have only generally known the whereabouts of my mothers ashes.

When my mother passed away in 1981, there was the usual family drama, that inevitably escalated to the point that I, as a fifteen year old, on the way home from my mother's open casket visitation, had to seek legal advise. After the visitation and the casket was closed I simply asked "now what - are we heading to the cemetery?"

Apparently that was the wrong assumption, the wrong thing to say as it started WW3. It was an innocent assumption by an innocent child. I was told that, because it was January we would have to wait till the ground thawed in order to bury her ashes and it was going to be up to "the adults" as to the location. I sought legal advise because my father was divorced and had no ties and no way to represent his children in what would become an attempted hijacking of my mother's remains by my grandmother. I wanted my mothers ashes buried in Montreal where her children, and all her family and friends were - where my mother lived her whole life. My grandmother's intention at the time of my mothers death was to have her buried where my mother passed away - in Ontario.

That's the way it remained, I was intimidated and felt it was too much of a struggle to fight her and wanted to just drop the whole thing till spring when we were to revisit the task at hand of burying my mom's remains. Spring came and went and another year went buy, and another. For the sake of the children my father made contact, smoothed over the relationship and we were invited to visit with grandma. She kept my mothers remains in a bedroom, upstairs, on top of a dresser as a type of shrine.

As a child I was never allowed to go upstairs at grandma's house - not even allowed to sit at the bottom of the steps. Suddenly, at the age of sixteen/seventeen, I was almost literally being shoved up the steps by my grandmother to "visit with your mom". It creeped me out, I visited only because it was expected of me and I gradually wrangled my way out of having to go. I hated it. I resented that I was not able to visit at graveside, like most normal people, in private. I never went back.

My relationship with my grandmother was not what you'd consider normal. She was of the type of mind set that children are seen and not heard. My brother and I were made to go outside to play while the adults visited. She was never affectionate, never doted on us, never treated us like we were her grandchildren.We never did anything alone together. I've recently been told that she'd had a very difficult upbringing, abandoned by her parents and sent to live with her grandparents - who never showed any loving affection. She was sent off to work and live on her own at the age of fourteen.

The next time I saw my grandmother was just after my grandfathers funeral in 1985. My father took us to visit her in the hospital, in the psych ward. She'd gone mad, had a nervous breakdown and was found walking in her pajamas down a three lane expressway. It was the last time I saw her, in the psych ward, she was in such a state that she was unable to recognize me. She went to live with my uncle in Guelph Ontario till she passed away in the mid to late 1990's.

Little did I know that I'd had such a powerful impression on her at the time of my mothers funeral and the legal mesh we got into at the time. When I got legal advise during my mothers funeral my lawyer contacted her, she then had to seek legal advise. They must have talked her into having her will written, as it is was completed and dated within three weeks of my mother's funeral. They must have advised her at that time that the moment I turn eighteen I am legally considered next of kin and can sophena her to hand over my mothers ashes.

I just found out four days ago, some thirty years after the fact, that my mother was buried in 1983 within 9 days of my eighteenth birthday. No one was ever told, therefore no respectful ceremony was ever held. She'd kept my mothers ashes in that bedroom till the eleventh hour. I can understand that she could not let go of her daughter, I've had compassion for that- I'd come to terms with it and accepted it for what I was, but for some reason I've never been able to forget it. And now, as a result of the new findings, I find myself bitter, angry and resentful at how calculated and spiteful she was. As a result of her actions, I have no closure, I was robbed of that at a young age.



I've decided to make it happen, to seek my own closure. To give that long ugly cruel "Jerry Springer-esque story" a happy ending by having my mothers remains dis-interred.  Time to show my mother the respect she's always deserved and the closure I was robbed of. Time for well deserved redemption. No more anger or resentment, time to re-write a happy ending to the story.