SandEaster

I have a hard time going to spending time with parts of my family. There are just too many things to mourn about.

To me, the hilight of Easter is having a great dinner with a big gathering of family. But my family cancelled Easter dinner this year because no one could host it. That was so strange. I didn't find out until a few days before, and by that time I had already made plans to go up. Since we wouldn't be going to our own dinner, Dave and I figured we would join Karen's family. Even though she is becoming our ex-stepmom, she's always told us that we will be more than welcome with her family and they would love to have us for holidays. But then Karen de-invited us today. She said it would make Dad too sad if we came, since he refused to come and we would be leaving him behind to go with her. We would seem disloyal to him. So we stayed behind and took a little road trip to find cream slush and I was just so, so sad all day. I wonder if they could see it on my face. Probably. I couldn't help it.

The whole chronicle of Dad and Karen's relationship makes me sad too. Last Christmas she told me it probably wouldn't work out. I sobbed all the way home. Last Feb he called me to tell me she had left. I was hysterical. But it wasn't really true. Back in Nov he emailed me to tell me that while he was on holidays she had packed up all her stuff and moved out. I was so depressed. But although it was true that she had taken her things (and the empty spaces in the house are saddening), she is still there. She met him with a kiss at the airport when he got home, she chats with him all the time, and she says she still wants to be married. But I heard they split up the money, and she is planning find somewhere else to live. She seems to want to have her cake and eat it too, and I think she's being unrealistic and unfair to him. He has a picture of her in his truck, and it's a new truck so he's put it there recently. Even that makes me sad because I know he is deeply hurt, so I don't think things are going to be okay. It hurts me too much to hope. Eventually I'm going to get another phone call that says she really moved out this time. And I just can't care anymore.

At first the thought of losing her was so painful. But now I don't see any other way - and that almost seems easier. I'm obligated to be loyal to Dad. If we couldn't join Karen's family today for Easter, there will never be a time when it can happen. I used to be excited that they were a family I could be a part of and she was someone who expressed so much love to me. It all seems tarnished now. So I mourn.

I celebrated on Good Friday and mourned on Easter Sunday. The backwardness of that seems somehow telling of my life.

Christ is Risen.... Does that have any meaning here?