Sunday, March 14, 2021

 Dear friends,

I am reminded anew that my/our childhood was, in a word, fucked. My older half brother is in a memory care center and he is currently dying. I have not laid eyes on him since the 80's when my youngest brother invited all of us to visit him in Philly to meet his new wife and step kids. It was there that I learned that Dave (oldest) was told that his mother was dead when he was a child. Later found out she was very much alive and he tracked her down and developed a relationship with her. Stated that he hated both our parents, especially our mother. At the time, I thought, jeez, they're both dead. Now after all this time, I know how the damage done has long lasting effects. Dave effectively stopped communicating with the rest of us and we all scattered to our separate lives.

Geoff, youngest brother, spend that weekend completely drunk, as was his custom. Needless to say, it was not fun. My sister and I escaped as often as we could, to drive around the neighborhood and get away from the drama. 

So learning that Dave is not long for this world, I reached out to his wife. I have no quarrel with her, remember her as someone who was kind and loyal to Dave. There is much more to Dave's story (military school, jail time) that I won't go into here but suffice it to say, he survived by leaving and never coming back. We all did in our own way. Too much toxicity. 

All this to say. I've been thinking about him ever since my sister called with the news. Memories of him when I was quite small and the 'golden child'. He might have hated me, envied me, I'll never know. I idolized him, esp when he was in high school and I thought high school was the height of glamor and sophistication. I do remember several scenes of abuse and cruelty involving my mother and him. 

In the last several years, my middle brother has made a concerted effort to befriend and repair our fracturing. Dave wanted nothing to do with us. Geoff was gone to suicide. But we three-me, my sister and Dirk, have made an effort to connect and communicate. It has not been easy. But we've seen each other, we call each other and we stay in touch. I think all those years of pain and sorrow kept us running. Now we've decided to stop and stay. Before we too shuffle off this mortal coil, we can say we are family together. We may be weird as shit but we survived, we made lives for ourselves and we didn't perpetuate the damage. 

Dave's wife may not want to talk to me. So if she doesn't, that's ok. I can write to her, to apologize, to offer her good memories of her husband of over 50 years, to connect. And that's something.

 

4 comments:

am said...

Thank you for writing about the brokenness and healing that has taken place in your family. Your story of fracture and family healing is heartening and helps me move forward today.

There is a fracture between my two siblings and me that seems to be beyond repair in this lifetime. Until this past month I had believed that reconciliation was possible and had done my part to stay in touch, including engaging in counseling together. Under the dark circumstances of our estrangement and our irreconcilable differences in perspective (with roots in intergenerational trauma), I no longer see that as possible and made the difficult decision to say the word "goodbye"(God be with you) and detach with Love and begin the grieving and mourning process, for my own sanity. Nothing could have been more difficult or freeing than taking care of myself. Fully accepting their judgment and rejection of me as well as owning my own judgment and rejection of them and letting go of the things I cannot change is where I am now. This is new territory for me -- a place where I find that I finally feel safe enough to love my siblings. It was a revelation to find that I only felt safe enough to love my parents after they died. I know but little as to how further healing will unfold for my siblings and me, and I know that further healing is inevitable -- that in some mysterious way my siblings and I and our parents and all the generations that preceded us and the generations to come are still family together.

Ms. Moon said...

I am not in touch with my brothers.
One lives near you. We do email occasionally. One lives near me and we were always so close but after our mother died...
And one lives in Georgia, I think. He has not been in touch since, yeah, our mother died.
Oh Beth- aren't we humans so sad?

Sabine said...

Family can be so hard. I am sad reading this and yet, I am in a similar situation and there are days when I am just ready to cut them out of my life.
Growing up is a battle field.

Elizabeth said...

I will sit here quietly with this. You have always emanated connection -- even to "strangers" out here. Connection and warmth and calm. Thank you.