To again steal, this time the correct line from Camus, "Mama died today." Of course, there are two small problems with that statement. One, she died last Thursday, and two I didn't find out till two days later. Also, I guess problem three would be this post is about a week late for the quote, much like her, I am not perfect.
I am also not Camus' Stranger, I am not going to wander off, stare a lot at the sea, and eventually kill an Arab. I don't really go in for murder as a general rule, and I don't have anything in particular against Arabs. Either way, my mother, otherwise known as "The Wolf that Raised Me" is dead. I was told afterwards by her brother that she didn't want me to know she was dying. Not to save my tender feelings, she knew me well enough to know that I don't possess tender feelings, but as perhaps one last act of a mother's guilt. She said that if I couldn't visit her while she was alive, what difference did it make if she was dead. Truth be told, I was 'read' out of the family a long, long time ago, and I didn't go see her. I spent 25 mostly awful years in the shithole county that the Wolf called home, and I felt I had done my time. I could have actually murdered an Arab, or anyone else for that matter, and done about that much time in prison, and that county was a prison, at least for me.
I took her univite of me to her funeral as a personal affront, and went anyway. I had never 'crashed' a funeral before, and figured it would be a long time (hopefully) before I had the chance to do it again. I didn't bother to tell my surviving relations of this plan because quite frankly, fuck them. I kept a respectable distance, and watched as they put the Wolf in the ground. I said no prayers they wouldn't have been to the same god as the Wolf worshiped anyway. I just watched, I had said all that I needed to say to her ages ago, I guess the pity of it is that she didn't realize that. I suppose it was difficult for the Wolf to look at her prize male pup (I was her only male offspring), and realize what a bastard she had reared.
Much like the paterfamilias, and the rest of the clan that I am related to by blood, we had nothing but DNA, and a love of John Barleycorn in common. That and we are all carbon based life forms, but the connections ended there. I wasn't built for the stage that the shit county the Wolf called home provided me. Mainly because there isn't one in the whole damn county. It is a boil on the ass of the world, and very little, if anything of note is there, and it will never change. It is the land that time forgot, and time forgot it for a very, very good reason.
She reared me the best she could I suppose and my many, many faults are mine alone and are not exactly her fault. In my more melancholy moments, I blame her for have a child with the paterfamilias because, quite simply, they just didn't need to have offspring. Of course, the problem with that theory is it means I wouldn't exist. I am not sure how to square that circle, and being a rather dull fellow I try not to ponder on it too much. How do you hold your own birth against someone? If you possessed a Tardis, would you go back in time and tell the Wolf to not marry the son of a bitch that sired me? It is a thought experiment that leads nowhere, trust me I have tried to make it work.
I suppose she did the best with what she had to work with, i.e. me, and overall my sins should not be placed at her feet. She was dead two days before I found out, and I felt about 8 minutes of sadness. I shed about 6 tears for her, and that was it. This should be further proof that the Wolf sired a bastard, what kind of monster can't cry for the dying of his Mother? I suppose we have the answer to that question now. The kind of monster that is me. I spent a few solid years resenting her for birthing me, but at the end of the day (end of her days at least) it really wasn't her fault. I mean she was just getting laid, I seriously doubt I was planned, and I am quite sure that if she had her own Tardis and could go into the future to see the result of that one night of whatever the fuck it was, she might have denied the paterfamilias access to her "delta of venus." Maybe waiting a couple of weeks before giving it up would have produced a better result.
But, that is not how it works, time flows in one direction in this world, and that is forward. She made her decision, and here I am trying to find the grief I suppose I should feel for her. Trying, and failing it seems. The death of Camus' stranger put him on a path that led to murder and the guillotine, I am not some French author's construct, I am the product of the Wolf despite my protestations to the contrary.
I didn't even christen her the Wolf that Raised Me, that was someone from my distant past that, when confronted with the results of the Wolf's teaching me to suppress my feelings by all means, asked me "if I was raised by wolves?" She was unimpressed with my pithy reply of "just one." Thus, the name "The Wolf that Raised Me" was born. That was more years ago than I care to remember, but since that day she was "The Wolf." A cool nickname for a very, very uncool woman, but at the end of the day it suited her.
That day was last Thursday or maybe a bit earlier, I don't nor shall I ever know. The day the Wolf sorted out she was dying, the day she realized that her and the darkness were about to come face to face. Did she wonder if her season was coming to a close? I don't and won't know, and I don't know that I care. I know that she made the conscious choice while still lucid to tell her brother, my sole surviving (and therefore my now favorite uncle), to tell me to fuck off. Perhaps wisdom does come late, as the saying goes, and perhaps wisdom hit the Wolf at the end. That wisdom telling her that the cub she reared was, in fact, the exact bastard that she deserved.
I think the major problem with the Wolf and I was, I just didn't respect her. That is my failing not hers, and I take that blame with eyes wide open. She can't be blamed for the sins of her offspring, nor should she be blamed for the man I became. I cut her out of the loop on purpose, and eventually on her deathbed I think she sorted that out. I am prone to think that it was that knowledge that led her to make what would be, between us, her final decision. The decision to tell her brother to tell her only (loving) son to go fuck himself. So, here we are (well here I am) after close to 30 years later, finding respect for the Wolf. Farewell Mother, (not Mom, Mother) and in keeping with your upbringing, I will tell you the same thing I told the man you chose to father me, at his funeral, which I was invited to. Rot.
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