Sheeping and Goating

I'm currently working through some judgementalness.

I call it sheeping and goating.  You know, from Matthew's image of Jesus on a throne separating people into sheep and goats, sheep in the right, goats on the left.  " ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³ and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left^."

The sheep are those who take care of others, the goats are those who didn't. "‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’"

The judgements with which I am struggling are of those who said/say they love me or care about me who were not present for me during my seven years of struggle with Will's dementia.  

For example:  A woman I know came up to me at the funeral to hug me.  This woman never helped me.  She isn't even a friend, she's the wife of a former colleague.  Yet she felt she had the right to hug me.  Maybe because she believed the bereaved value every moment of affection.  But as she hugged me I was thinking, "Well, fuck you anyway."

This is the judgementalness I want to get rid of.  I want to stop being angry at people who send me "thoughts and prayers" and who think that I am feeling worse now in my freedom than I did in my confinement as I took care of my sick and dying spouse.  I don't want to be angry with people who of course didn't understand about walking in piss, about cleaning up shit, about the whole struggle that I went through with little to no family help outside of 4 days this most recent September (for which I am eternally grateful to my sister Betz).

And that's another thing.  The way people would say to me, while I was caregiving, "Do you have any family here?" to put off their own discomfort of wanting to help me but being unable to do so.

And then there was the friend who told me, in the midst of my grief, that I lacked perspective.

Of course I lack perspective.  

I am moving through an ontological change.  I miss my non-demented partner every day.  But I even miss my demented partner every day.  Because even in dementia he looked at me with those eyes full of love.

And now he's gone.  Forever.  The sounds in the house are not him.  The tall person I see out of the corner of my eye is not him.  I will never see him again.