Ties that bind...revisited

This is about family – *MY* family.

I am the eldest of 4 children. Each of us is unique, different and exasperating in our own ways. Each of us has fashioned our own lives – separately from each other. I try in a lot of ways to be the ‘glue’ – not because I am trying to exert my will on anyone but because to me these people, the ones who shared the same mother and father as me are the only ‘remnants’ I have left of those parents and I want us to be close...

When I was growing up in that small town (Verona) in Pennsylvania, the clearest ‘example’ of a sibling relationship was the one that existed between my mother and my aunt ‘Jada’ (her name was actually Mary Concetta – but everyone called her Jada). Aunt Jada was my godmother. She was older than my mom and she led a better life (financially) than we did. My mom was during these years a ‘stay-at-home’ mom. Aunt Jada worked for a bakery down the hill from where we lived – she worked outside the home because her kids were high-school aged when we were still little – my parents got a late start and did not marry until their late 30s, which for the time was unheard of – I am sure my mom was considered an ‘old-maid’ – therefore a lot of my cousins were quite a bit older than us.

Everyday the sisters would meet and have lunch – they were extremely close – in fact I’d dare say that Aunt Jada was my mom’s closest sibling. I grew up going over to Aunt Jada’s all the time – attending family functions there, being baby-sat there, playing with the kids in her neighborhood – I knew some of them better than the kids in my neighborhood. I knew in the back of my head growing up that ‘this’ was what family was all about and this was what I envisioned for myself as well...

Because of how things played out in my own life – I was banished from my dad’s house at the age of 19 – I ended up in Houston, I ended up pregnant. I had my daughter without any blood relative around and I was in an abusive situation, but I could not go home. Eventually I DID go home and mended those relationships – however I was still down in Houston – in fact when my step-mom died I was unable to get to her funeral because I was not allowed to fly due to being 8 months pregnant with my son. I was finally able to make my way home not long after the birth of my son. I figured that since I lived closer to my siblings that we would all somehow grow close and raise our children together. But I was wrong. This apparently was not to be. My children did not grow up knowing their cousins the way we did. I am truly saddened by this. There are a lot of issues at work here. I am not trying to judge it – I am just making observations here.

My sister (who is next in birth order to me), keeps a lot to herself – she had struggled to raise her son mainly on her own – she has done an outstanding job of raising him. She was able to, later in her life, find a wonderful man to marry and now has a young daughter – motherhood at our age can be kind of trying – but it’s a choice she made and I admire her for doing this so late in life. My sister and I have always struggled with our relationship – we fought all the time. After we had children we seemed to patch that bond but we never ever seemed to share the closeness I saw between our mother and our aunt. We are just too different.

My next sibling - the first-born boy in our family – was always shy, almost fanatical about sports and in my estimation the one who got the ‘looks’ in the family. He was gorgeous as a young boy and young man. He went off to the Navy at a young age and came back and has kind of been a ‘loner’ – he struggles with alcohol and drug abuse and has never married – I don’t think he ever will. He seems happy in his own right. My heart aches to be closer to him but he has to want that too. My son loves him and is always asking if we can see him – but I can’t force a grown man to pick up the phone and call.

Finally there is my youngest brother. The ‘baby’ of the family. I remember the day they brought him home from the hospital and he was one of the most beautiful ‘dolls’ I had ever seen. As a child, he was precocious and highly intelligent. He is more like me (I think) than my other siblings. For that reason, we seem to be closer to one another. He got married to a wonderful woman who gave him two wonderful children and it has been a great pleasure for me to get to know my niece and nephew. They are great kids. Fortunately my son has gotten to know them as well – so I feel that in at least some way he has known what it’s like to have close cousins, albeit younger than him.

I have in my life read a lot about family. About the dysfunctionality of it all – how can it be otherwise? I will cite John Bradhsaw as a wealth of information on family dynamics and trying to heal yourself when your family does not function well – he helped me a lot when I was dealing with my own demons long ago. Most families don’t even know how to talk to one another let alone try to mend rifts or damage when it occurs. Most families sweep things under the carpet and hope it will go away. This is true of countless families and it is unfortunate.

I know because of my birth order and because my mom died when I was only 15 that part of me feels it is my ‘job’, ‘burden’, ‘responsibility’ whatever you want to call it – to hold us together. I want us to be a close knit group that can come together and be there for each other – but again, unfortunately this does not seem to be the case. It is going to be a rough Yule for me this year. Because the people I love the most probably won’t all be together. I now realise that this is how families come undone. There is no glue you can use to stick things back together just because it’s going to make *you* feel better. Sometimes you just have to resign yourself to it never working out. I hate to ‘give up the fight’ for this – but I am truly lost as to what to do. I want to be the ‘peacemaker’ I want to say to both sides “Work it out!” but I fear the rift is too deep. It is really sad. I can see both sides. We are all stubborn, we are all difficult, we can all be asses. We all just need to realize we are human and we have faults, we need to try to be compassionate to one another. I find it funny/odd that we will feel compassion for a total stranger but when it comes to our brother, our in-laws – we can’t seem to muster up unconditional love. We can try to ‘overlook’ their annoying habits – but truly understanding their ‘nature’ and loving them DESPITE what we find annoying seems unthinkable. Please understand I am speaking in generalities here. Personally, I hope and pray that our family does not become one of the casualties of our own agendas, our stubbornness and pride.

I can hear my mom now…telling us to stop fighting and get along – perhaps we’ll listen this time.