Rhino Ramblings

First – an apology.  This is my first blog without a Rhino picture or reference. There are actually a couple of pictures/status I could have used but they are in Maryland and I am in Pennsylvania for the week.

Second – an apology.  After a rather heavy last blog, I was planning on this being about pianos – a wee bit lighter in tone, Instead you are getting an even heavier toned one.

Thirdly – a thank you.  Because of the now subject of this blog (my Mom’s death and all (well some) that preceded it ) I received numerous words of comfort, understanding, etc.  As part of that outreach, more of my contacts (family, friends and others) checked out my past blogs and some learned more than they expected along the way.  I only hope I can continue to provide thoughtful, entertaining or otherwise interesting blogs henceforth.

So my Mom died. She was 96 and was active up until the past 4 months.  Her obituary is at:
https://memorials.kuhnfuneralhomes.com/ethel-woytek/4972302/obituary.php?_ga=2.60102893.1154643603.1657467565-2139283224.1657467565

Thanks to my niece Missy who interviewed her Baba (Slovak work for grandma) recently and wrote the obit.  It is a bio full of surprises for me.  Missing from that obit is the past 30 years in which she lost a son and was never able to reconcile how to deal with gaining another daughter.  In fact this week my one sister hit me with a note that has changed the tenor of my thoughts and this blog.  Apparently Mom told a friend that she was confused since she once had a son Joseph and now had a daughter Joanne (so much to unpack in that wording).  Since I only recently had a family member trying to not refer to me as I am (they subsequently apologized and appear to now accept me as me) and another who is still not doing so (my name is Joanne, I am a woman and should not be addressed as Jo(e) or with male pronouns – it is coming on 30 years now.  Get over it),  Hearing that my mother actually referenced a daughter Joanne is actually pretty amazing.  Perhaps an opportunity was lost in a final reconciliation or perhaps there was as much reconciling as was possible for my mother (side note – I doubt my father who died 14 years ago would ever have come anywhere in a direction of understanding or acceptance.  But that is fodder for future blogs). 

There is a lot that occurred in my life and thus in the lives of my family in the mid 90’s.  As I entered into transition in 1995, I actually had an idea that maybe I could just pretend to be who my parents wanted me to be – Joe  – around them. But when I was forced to spend an hour as my former persona for my divorce proceedings (my lawyer, who supported my throughout, recommended I not complicate matters with the judge), I realized there was only one me and it was the reconciled Joanne and there was no past me to return to.  I tried to find support for my parents – not for them to accept me, but for them to have that support in delaying with what was happening.  Prior to transition and my telling them what was happening, I met several times with their priest – once even as Joanne.  The most amazing statement that to this day I am unclear of its truth, was when this priest told me I was the most unselfish person he had met.  In any case, as I understand it (I never really had any further interaction with my parents after 1995 so this is hearsay) the attempt to provide them support was instead seen as a further betrayal to them.  There is much more both about my father and mother but also my siblings who also abandoned me – although over the years our relationships have re-evolved.  To keep this from going into a novelette if not book sized blog, let me finish my thoughts with words from an 1899 novel, The Awakening, about a woman struggling with needing to live an unconventional life in terms of her marriage and relationships. I first read it in the 1990s as I started my transition journey. The quote that most struck me then and still does is : ““I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.”  “I wouldn’t give myself “– words that resonate with me and I do not know if that makes me brave or strong (as some have said of me) or even morally correct.  It just defines the path I have been on for myself. 

Thank you all again for reading my attempts of words of meaning for myself if not others.