It makes me smile being told that my foster mom, who lives alone in the house I grew up in, refused to have anyone go through the small driveway gate since the pandemic started. She would stand on her balcony and yell at people to drop whatever they wanted to drop and to leave. This cracks me up because I can see and hear her.
I guess it’s Easter and we’re on her couch with my cousins. ‘better not squirm on that thing.
I also know that if I was doing a surprise visit to her right now, she would barely ask about vaccination and let me in.
With some of her kids, grandkids, grand grandkids around, she has become a little bit of a tyrant, so I’m told. I understand. She raised us all and she’s now older and can’t drive. She needs help and she demands it.
I also understand everyone being fed up. I’m 10,000 miles away, she can’t reach me on the phone. When the US president farts though, she immediately asks my cousin who lives half a mile away from her if she had a hold on me recently, how am I doing etc.
My cousin is telling me that nothing has changed. My baby blue skateboard is still probably in the garage, at the same spot that it’s been for 35+ years. It is both a frightening and lovely fact.
When I tell my parents what’s going on in the foster family, they’re always looking kind of hurt. They know I love them to death and they wonder if they compare. Love is thankfully limitlessly expandable. Most people know the rhetoric, I am immerged in the praxis.
It’s complicated as hell though. A maze of relationships and history where I’m the only one having access to all of them.