Falling Into Family

I’m always reluctant to visit my dad and sisters. I try not to be, but that’s the truth of it. When F. asks if I’m looking forward to the trips, my usual response is, “Honestly, no, I’d rather stay here.” It’s not that I don’t love my family; I adore, cherish, and love them unequivocally. I think my ambivalence towards visiting them comes from family being a paradox of support and a source of threat. Part of me wants the sense of connection to them, but they’re also a reminder of painful memories. If I’m not mistaken, I think that’s apropos for everyone who has a family: sometimes it’s full-throttled love, and sometimes it’s a down-shifting of gears into malaise.

I still mourn my mother’s death. I wonder if I’ll ever stop. I’m sad. I miss her. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about her. Sometimes the horrific images of her deathbed flicker like celluloid. I then think of her last words to me – “love you” – and the peaceful moment of her final breath, and I feel better.

When I visit my family, they’re a sore reminder that there’s someone missing at the dinner table. Her chair in the living room is empty, but sometimes I still see her sitting there. I also feel the absence of her inimitable laugh at my bad jokes. That’s why I don’t want to go to Pennsylvania. I was going to call it home, but my home is in New York City now. My home is where I am, and that past home life of my childhood only a memory and place that writer Thomas Wolfe said you can never go back to again.

Before I continue, I want to state that every family is dysfunctional, and perhaps that’s an inapt word that’s slipped into our cultural consciousness by psychologist who are determined to wipe it clean from the slate. Dysfunction is normal, so perhaps we should just simply say that family is what it is and leave it at that and stop trying to label it. Perfection in relationships would be very boring.

Last Spring, I went with my Dad to my sister’s house in New Jersey for Father’s Day. It was essential for me to go. Tears and emotions that had been blocked by my life in New York City needed to be unplugged, like a soapy bathtub being drained. It was a good trip. Once I got there, I was glad I went.

I’ll go back to the sister’s in November for Thanksgiving, although I dream of having a Thanksgiving in New York City with my family of friends. But I can’t do that to my dad right now. Holidays were my mom’s favorite times of the year, and this year, every holiday and birthday is the first one without her sitting with us, eating a meal that’s “the best ever”, and devouring a little bit of each dessert that fills the table.

We arrived at my sister’s on a Friday afternoon. During a late lunch, my dad said that my sister should stop praying for him because he’s never going to be all right, he’s never going to get over his wife’s death, he’s always going to feel an empty part in his heart where she used to live. I wanted to tell him she’s still with us, the pain will lessen, you’re going to be all right, but I didn’t. He didn’t need to hear that. It was important just to listen. I try to respect that more with people. Many times when friends or loved one express sorrow or complaints, I don’t think they want me to solve their problems or give vapid words of support because I can’t empathize; I think they just want me to listen, and that can be enough therapy in itself. Sometimes it’s better to simply shut one’s gob and open one’s ears.

On Friday night, I stayed up late watching Oh Brother Where Art Thou on the basement TV. My dad and I were sharing a bedroom down there. After the movie, I slipped quietly into one of the twin beds, but my dad was awake. I could feel that he wanted to talk, so I turned on the light. He cried and told me how badly he missed Mommy. We talked about her, reliving happy memories of the time we had with her, talking about her idiosyncrasies: she didn’t like drinking water, she wouldn’t think of sending back bad food at a restaurant, and she never, ever wore a hat because it would mess up her hair.

Daddy lay in his bed looking up at the ceiling as we exchanged our individual senses of loss. We talked for an hour until finally the conversation faded to silence; there was nothing else to say, and in that comfortable silence of empathy, I turned off the light and we slept peacefully.

I have to keep reminding myself that my mom is with me, because my family believes adamantly that she is gone, in heaven, and can’t be a part of our lives. But she is, and always will be with me because the past is a dream, the future doesn’t exist, and the now in which I live is inhabited by my mom’s presence, grace, and pride.

I can’t escape my family. Maybe escape has a connotation of imprisonment that isn’t appropriate, so perhaps I should say, I can’t leave my family. Even though I sometimes wish I could, I know deep, underneath my furrowed brow, behind the skin, and down deeper still, is a place that wants them in my life.

What if I said, “To heck with it!” and walked away? I would hurt them immeasurably. I don’t want to do that, even though the thought enters my mind now and then. I am theirs and they are mine, and we’ve come together during this lifetime for different reasons that I can’t always grasp. We’re here together and that I can’t deny. We’ve got to learn from each other to love unconditionally. My mom was an example of that.

On Saturday, I sat with my sister on the back deck of the house. We both read our different books – hers a Bible Study workbook, mine The Wild Braid by Stanley Kunitz. Like our books, we are two completely different people, but connected by the bond of our mother. And it was sitting there with her, quietly, when the moment hit me as something beautiful (the first few descriptions sound like something out of a Disney cartoon, but it’s true): chipmunks pranced around in the leaves, a rabbit ran by, a robin fluttered down on the deck with a worm in its mouth, clinking silverware sounded as someone set the table for breakfast, I smelled pancakes and quiche, and heard horses whinnying across the fence at the horse farm. This was all going on around me and I was comforted as I thought of Mommy and my family. It was both a burden and joy to be there, but then I forgot about the burden and only happiness was left. By being present, and in the beauty of the moment, I changed, and everything was enjoyable.

On Sunday, Daddy and I prepared to leave. I was upstairs with the family, but then had the overwhelming feeling that I had to go back down to the basement for some reason. On the wall at the bottom of the stairs was a picture of my sister and mom. It was taken on a cruise they went on a few years ago. Mommy looks radiant and beautiful, and looking at her arms and hands I remembered the feeling of them when she hugged me. My mom was great for hugs. She’d hug anybody. I remembered how her hands were wrinkled and soft, like fine tissue paper. I wonder if she wanted me to go downstairs to see her, to remember that she was with me.

Changes and decisions seem to be coming more quickly to everyone around me, and like it or not, it’s time to embrace them and take giant leaps of faith knowing that the net of our Source will be there to catch us if we teeter and fall. I fell back into my family that weekend and they into me, and my mom was there to catch us. This doesn’t mean I’m going home to visit every weekend. Once a month, every five or six weeks, that’s fine by me.