Family Reunion

Once upon a time, there was a normal family... ok, maybe not normal, but as normal as one would hope for a family to be...

Oh sure it was crazy at times. Sometimes we hated one another, and sometimes we wanted to trade one another out with other families we thought were perhaps a bit "cooler" than ours... but for the most part, our family was the family to be a part of... complete with big family dinners, lots of hugs and kisses, and just enough disfunction thrown in to keep things interesting.

That was life growing up for me... It was safe... it was secure... and it was home.

That was 11 years ago...

Since then, the entire concept of family has become completely foreign to me. Looking back on my childhood memories, most of the time it feels as if they aren't even mine... as if I'm dreaming the life of someone I once knew or read about once or saw in one of those cheesy movies that somehow always concluded with a happy ending.

Could it be that these memories actually belong to me?

My experience of "Family" since then is very different now. I do catch glimpses of it on occasion. Usually it's when I'm with my friends and I'm watching the interaction between them and their loved ones...

Being invited to join in on the special holiday dinners where the whole family gets together and laughs about Uncle John's impeccable timing when it came to bodily noises or reminisces aabout holidays of old while playing cards and sipping hot apple cider.

Watching a mom look upon her son with such love and concern, knowing that her role is so different now that he is all grown up and completely in control of his own life. Observing as she fights back the urge to grab him into her arms and just hold him to her in that special place where nothing can hurt him... nothing can break his heart... where she can wipe the tears away... kiss the bumps and bruises, and all the pain just disappears into that place where all fears and childhood monsters go when moms are around.

I have found through the years that these types of experiences bring up this weird sense of fear in me and I become completely uncomfortable around it. It's as if I have this unspoken dread that if I was to truly open up and allow myself to relish in these "family moments" (even though not my own)... that in some way, I would betray these ancient memories of the family I once knew... the ghosts of my past.

I have succeeded (for the most part) at shoving most of these feelings under the rug. After all, I'm the grown up now, with my own kids. Now the priority for me is to give my children the family that I know I will never again experience in my own life... and it works... for the majority of the time.

That is... until the past comes rushing back to me and I'm forced once again to deal with it face to face.

This week, on their way back to our home town to attend a family member's graduation, my estranged parents and sisters decided to stop in to see the only grandkids they know. This of course means that they will inevitably have to interact with two of the three children that they have removed completely from their life (I believe the term they used long ago was that we were "dead" in their eyes).

It was a minor inconvenience that was easily managed by making us feel like total shit while they played with the kids and spoiled them with all the great things that grandparents can get away with giving to their grandkids when they know they don't have to deal with them during the nightly bedtime ritual that only happens once they are long gone.

As I sat there that evening, watching my children interact with their Grandparents and Aunties, FROM ACROSS THE RESTAURANT (Apparently there is a "No Eat" rule when dealing with "Dead" children)... watching these people who have become all but strangers to me, play innocently with my kids as though the world was nothing less than perfect, I started to realize how disrespectful the entire situation was... and I actually felt furious... not so much that it was happening... but more at the fact that I had allowed it to happen! ONCE AGAIN!

Sitting here writing this, even now, I have all these great ideas about what I should have said to them... all the smart remarks I could have made to the brother-in-law that I have never "officially" met, who spent the entire visit glaring at me from a distance. All the smart retorts I could have made in response to my fathers insistent rants about "The Truth" and the scriptural principles that allow them to act the way they do with us... and of course, no visit would be complete without bringing up that at one point I too had knowledge of these principles... silly me... I forgot that verse in Psalms where it states "Thou shall not break bread with sinners". (ARE YOU SENSING THE SARCASM HERE???)

But no matter how much I plan on saying... no matter how much I psyche myself up to tell them where they can shove their biblical principles... I find myself completely shut down and withdrawn from them and the entire situation altogether.

At this point in my life, I have become completely numb to them... so much in fact, that after all was said and done, and my father was hugging me and kissing me on the cheek... whispering "I Love You" in my ear... I could say nothing.

No I love you... No "FUCK YOU DAD!"... Nothing...

At this point in the story I'm sure you are wondering to yourself why anyone in the world would put up with such madness? Why I didn't stand up for myself and make them pay the consequences for their rediculous belief systems? WHY? WHY? WHY?

The only answer I have lies HERE

As I watched the joy that went through my kids faces... and the joy felt by these people who were once my entire world... my everything... I cannot imagine myself saying no to it.

After all... for better or worse... We Are Family