I was stuck for 10 years at my mother's house in Illinois. Not consecutively, but my cats were there for almost that entire time. I'd try to bring them with me to TX, or CO or anywhere, but nothing worked out and we always had to go back. I was able to leave my cats there while I was off doing the music, sometimes for years at a time. I never took that for granted.
It was hell. I wrote the song "All is Well in Hell" about being stuck at home. Or rather, it's inspired by living at home. It isn't really about it.
https://soundcloud.com/pablosmoglives/all-is-well-in-hell
But if I hadn't been stuck there, my mother and I never would have gotten around to slashing through our dysfunction. Many things came to the surface, and all the ugliness was laid bare. We had our moments. Holidays were good. Other times too. But it was mostly rough. I literally couldn't walk down the hallway w/o flinching, and was so ashamed and disgraced to be there that I literally couldn't go to the mailbox. Someone might see me. "Look, a loser!" I spent days on end, weeks, holed up in the room either I or my brother grew up in. I got a lot of recording done, when that computer worked. I kept as busy as possible. I booked the Poor Nick Cave Tour, which was a full-time job for a month, just getting the shows. Things like that. But I couldn't move.
It took a long time, but it got so bad (it was never abusive w/ her) that it got to the point that somebody (probably me) had to say, WE HAVE TO PRAY ABOUT THIS. There is no way off this conveyor belt. So we'd start praying. AND IT WORKED.
After awhile, SHE would want to initiate the prayers. They were from the trenches, from the gut. We were pleading. We were weeping. We were crazed. It was rough. The sin and salvation message was our only way out. I threw it out at every angle, sometimes harsh, sometimes not, always copping to my own readily-apparent sin in the process, eventually.
We got each other Bibles for our last Christmas in 2019. Hers was purple, mine was bilingual. After I came to Mexico, we'd pray together on the phone. I didn't always initiate it. Very recently, she knew I was going through some inner turmoil, and she texted me, "do call. So we can pray." I couldn't call, but I thanked her anyway.
That wasn't the last time we spoke. The last time we spoke was on September 21st. I wasn't in a great mood, but talking to her always cheered me up, or calmed me down. It was an unusual mother-son relationship, but it wasn't weird. I don't expect anyone to understand it. No one ever has, and in fact I've never talked about it before. Friends would see us fight. My friends would come over and she would sit there hanging out with us, just to be friendly she later said, but at the time I was like, I've been in this house for 2 months straight can I see my buddy w/o my mom for at least one day? And it became heated. We didn't bullshit each other.
But in the end, she came to the Lord. We prayed that prayer several times, and I know it was true. Especially now. I have never heard the Lord's voice more clearly in my life. Not audible of course. But He's telling me, SHE MADE IT.
The song at the top of this message is called "It Will Be Worth It All." If I hadn't been stuck there because of my cats (the only reason I was there, so they wouldn't feel abandoned), she probably would have never gotten saved. It took me being stuck in that cold, wintertime dysfunction for 10 years to get her off the road to hell.
There was no way to know it at the time. Her going home brings peace I've never had, though I'm very, very sad. I never had peace because our dysfunction has been a theme since the beginning. There was no way to know my being stuck there would be the only way she'd make it to heaven (and maybe me too).
In hindsight, if that's what it took, it's true: it will be worth it all in the end. If God wanted me to spend 10 years in existential agony (all is well in hell) so that my mother would be saved, I say, THANK GOD. It really IS worth it. She would be in hell right now, and everything would be even worse. I have a lot of comfort knowing she is hanging out with our pets in Heaven. 10 years is a lot, but if it took 20, it would still be worth it. In hindsight, I'd spend 20 years in IL in those clueless, depressed, angry conditions if I knew it was going to end well. It really is worth it.
Rest in peace, mom. I know you are. Unless the Lord calls me home sooner, I'll do what I can to bring as many with me as will come. You always had my back. Is the pizza as good as it is in Rockford? Say hi to Grizz and Piano and Dewey and all the others for me. I miss you.
I will see you all soon.
