When the Shadow Ends

 

 

 

Where The Shadow Ends - Song by Banners

In the rising wind where the black waves call
To the bones of ships on the ocean floor
To your hopeless heart left on the shore
There's nothing left here anymore

There's a great unknown from you to me

 

(Somewhere, in her puberty, something changed in her.  She began to hate people, her little siblings.  She had been the adored adopted baby girl and she felt the babies took away from her.  No amount of love and guidance helped her stabilize. Our lives were fraught with drama and chaos when she cycled.)

And when your prayer's unheard and you don't believe
So put your faith in the devil and the deep blue sea
Put your trust in the light that you cannot see

There's a darkness up ahead

 

( In the Divorce, she was not allowed to be around me and the four little ones.  She was placed with her paternal grandparents.  That did not help our relationship.  It caused a greater chasm between us as people do choose sides and throw stones.  Her new stepmother did not help things as well.)

I will see you
Where the shadow ends
Cross the badlands to rise again
I will see you
Where the shadow ends

 

(Again, when she became pregnant and single, she drew to me again, as girls do with their mothers.  I saw her through her pregnancy, I was with her when she gave birth to her beautiful baby boy.  I held him first.  Then I quit work for two years to babysit the baby and support her.)

 
I will see you
Where the shadow ends

When you can't go round and you can't outrun
What lies behind, what stands in front
Through the broken gates of kingdom come
I will see you again when the night is dawn

 

(Then, for three days we did not see him, when he was two and when she came over with him, there were bruises  Long story short, I took the blame for contacting social services.  It was not me, but it was better that I took the blame.  She never forgave me, nor did her new boyfriend who became her husband and only believed her story.  She always had mistruths to deal with in her life and it drove her to hate different ones in our family.  She always had to hate.)

 

There's a darkness up ahead
I will see you
Where the shadow ends
Cross the badlands to rise again
I will see you
Where the shadow ends
Where the shadow ends
I will see you
Where the shadow ends

 

(Time and time again, she would come, develop a beautiful mother daughter relationship and then break my heart when her hate returned, as it always did. Again and again the shadow of mental illness took her to dark palces and she set up boundaries of fantasy to help her build walls to keep us all out.  A I said, again and again there was heartbreak and I, and her father, and her siblings grieved for her.) 

 

I can see the lighthouse through the smoke
Everything is lost, I know
Underneath the roaring of the storm

 

(There was nothing any of us could do to help her.  Any attempt was repelled in angry hateful ways.  Sometimes her fantasy stories faded and there as a glimmer of hope. Every time, hope was dashed.  And then she had problems in her everyday life.  Her friendships were eventually broken with her anger, jealousy, and hateful breaking down of those relationships.  She came into even worse problems, legal ones, serious legal ones.  Even then, she could not turn to her mother for support. That stress, on top of all she had put herself through caused her, at 52, to have a heart attack in the middle of the night.)

 

I can hear the breaking of the dawn
Can you see the broken rays of light
Caught into the dead of night
And I know that I'll see you again

Where the shadow ends
Where the shadow ends
I will see you
Where the shadow ends

 

(My children all sent me beautiful messages and called me with love and support.  I could not go to her viewing or funeral.  This was a huge heartbreak to me.  No mother wants to go through what she and I went through.  No mother wants to make the choice to not go to her funeral.  But, I knew, if I went, her husband, who knew only her truths that were so warped, and her son, who absolutely supported his mother and the untruths she raised him with, would have reacted horribly.  I could not cause drama by going.  Everyone who knew me and us and her problems totally understood.  I knew I would be judge by those who believed her truths, if I went or if I did not.  Those who love me and mine did not question. This is beyond heartbreak to me and our complicated relationship causes a more complicated grief.)

 

Can you see the broken rays of light
Calling through the dead of night
And I know that I'll see you again
Where the shadow ends

 

(Two of my sons sent perfect messages to me, and spoke to me on the phone… she is now going through the process of being forgiven, forgiving herself and us and her truths are peeled away.  All we can do is send great great love, all the love she repelled, as she is stripped down to the real truths.  How she had to suffer all her life.  How greatly did she have to block us all at different times, and repel any love we could show her.  Her life had to be hell.  In fat, at the end, her life was so wrecked that she died of the truths as they hit.  Now she is letting go of her untruths and is suffering in that next place.  Oh, how we all grieve in our different ways over our relationships with her.  My heart has broken into a million fragments.  I can not write.  I can not do any art.  I am numb with hope that what my sons say is true and that I might, in some way, feel or sense her returned love as she becomes that innocent beautiful little girl I adored…. when the shadow ends.)