It's grey and dull and damp outside. And the cloak of my black fog has descended upon me now. So today before I write this I will imagine myself somewhere else. I will transport myself to the freedom of my imagination in an attempt to escape my blah existence. Today I am on the coast. I am sitting on my porch that wraps arond my Cape Cod escape. The ocean waves roar infront of me as I sip my coffee. The couds are dark and menacing. A storm is rolling across the water onto the shore. I love storms. Theres a feeling in the air. Like everything is heightened. The temperature is dropping but I don't move to go inside. Instead I close my eyes and embrace it. The heat from my coffee mug on my hand. The cool air brushing my face. Sand soon starts to whip up creating little funnels dancing on the beach. The beauty of the light from the shore against the black of the sky of the storm was breathtaking. Nature in all her splender. With the rain starting to fall with large drops I hesitantly get up and go inside. Lightening will soon follow so I head for the shelter of my home. It is here I write my blog today.
My heart is heavy as I come to a realization. My Grandma Ida (Dyer) Holyoak lived a grim existence in her last 20 years of life. As far as I can tell from my ancestry records as well as the stories I have heard from living relatives I can only surmise what she lived through in the end, but I am confident it is pretty acurate.
I have said before there seems to be a curse that runs through the ancestry line of the women in my family. Not all the women,... but there seems to be one female in every generation that ends up living a life of lonliness and poverty at their end. And so far it has been my branch on the family tree. It started with my Grandma Ida who it would seem ended up in a nursing home in Parkdale Toronto for a good many years. When Granpa died leaving her with 6 kids and pregnant with the 7th she really couldn't cope. Her life spirralled into drink and from what I understand she dealt with dementia leving her unable to look after herself. We don't seem to know how but she ended up in this nursing home in Parkdale. It sounds like her mind had deteriorated quite a bit and she ended up almost non-commicable. In the end I will never know what her physiacal or mental state was as the records seem to be gone. But I do know she was rarely thought of once she was in there. Most of her children had scattered and weren't able or willing to be in her life. I could only ask one of her children - my aunt - why she didn't visit and she felt it was too difficult for her emotionally because of her mothers mental deterioration and her inablity to even recognize who she was most visits. I get that. My aunt was still young herself and in the foster care system at this time so I can see how this would have happened. But knowing why no one visit isnt' the same as understanding why no one visit. Where was everyone? I know she had a 'boyfriend' (???) that visit a couple of times as his son Bruce had remembered going to visit her when he was a young child. (Turns out Bruce ended up being her grandson). But I don't think anyone else ever took the time to visit her. And so that makes me realize that she spent about 20 years rotting in this nursing home. ALONE. This breaks my heart. Probobly because I know exactly how that feels. To be thrown away and then forgotten about. Which is exactly what she was. Her kids all took off to do their own thing and she had no one to look after her. I imagine the system eventually put her in this home becasue her family didn't. We still dont' know exactly how she ended up in there. but she did,... for a long time,... alone,... My poor Grandma Ida died alone.
My Mom Diane Holyoak - Ida's daughter - lived alone up in the mountains of British Columbia. She too, died alone. There seems to definitley be a pattern here. All 3 of us women in the Holyoak line lived our last 20 years alone. And I don't know the full situation with my Mom Diane,...but I do know she lived alone in a trailer in the mountains where she eventaully died. Alone. The curse of the Holyoak women seems to be we lose our children and die alone. I have been alone for 23 years now. And heartbreakingly I realize I, too, am going to die alone,.... the curse of the Holyoak women,...
In a side bar of interest,... My great grandma Lizzy Ball (Ida's Mom) died of the spanish flu along with her infant daughter. HER mother ~ Annie Ball ~ died from chloroform narcosis ~ which begs the question ~ accident or intentional? Definitely some interesting things in this branch of my family tree.
But the one dominant constant for all of us seems to be that we all died alone and lonely,... like a curse,....
But going back to Grandma Ida,... Now that I know I feel quite guilty. Her kids did to her what my kids did to me,... they were disinterested and fucked off leaving her to fend for herself. Right or wrong it had to have been so painful for her to feel so unwanted. I feel the same way now. It breaks my heart to know that she was so lonely too,... But the worst thing that haunts me at night when I think of her is we never did find where she was laid to rest. I was told by the nursing home that she was buried in a pauper part of the cemetery - unmarked. The funeral home that dealt with her has long since shut down so the records are gone. This makes me sad. She died alone feeling unwanted and unloved and i don't even have a place to go to tell her that I am sorry,... she's just,.... gone,....
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