Here is some free and unsolicited advice for you: if you are ever mandated to go for any type of evaluation with a counselor, and they ask questions about your family of origin, DO NOT say that things were “fantastic, wonderful, or, the worst choice of all – normal”. Any of these answers will quickly have the person holding the manila folder and the sharpened pencil furiously scratching words like “denial, deceitful, or delusional” about your response and guarantee you a seat in a room full of other people exhibiting similar delusions about their biological and environmental backgrounds.
When I began writing these blogs last year, I never expected to come face to face with many of the skeletons of my past, let alone the collected bone yards of my relatives. But in that weird, quirky, miraculous way the universe has of getting us to look at things that we would rather not look at, I have found myself face to face with many restless poltergeists from my families’ collective past. Just this week, for example, the last strings are being cut that connected myself and my living family with a business that my grandparents built in the 1950’s. The three people in the photograph above, my father and his parents, are sitting on the steps to the business during its early days. Each of them spent countless hours in the place, and they sacrificed much to keep it going over the years. My father took over the business after his parents passed away in the early 1980’s, and then I took the reins after my father’s accidental death in 1996. A wonderful, spiritual woman took it over shortly after that and has kept the business and traditions going for the last 15 years, with minimal guidance from us, and with never a complaint or grievance. And now it is hers alone, with only the spirits and energies of my relatives left in and around the grounds. My feelings about this are mostly joyful, with a dash of bittersweet ruminations on the true cost of that business on each of the people in the picture and on myself and family.
As I look at the three figures, I have so many questions I would like to ask, and I realize how much that we see in an image is left to personal interpretation and perception. I have always scoffed at “body language” experts who will tell you if married Hollywood Stars are really in love by the way they are standing, but I think when you look at pictures of people you know, especially family members, you really can interpret the energy of the moment. Since each of their deaths, I have learned more about my grandparents and father than I ever knew when they were alive. They were not “talkers,” especially when it came to the subject of family dynamics, or, God forbid, any type of feelings or reflections on how life was in the world before I entered into it. The only clear impression I got from the trio about their lives before my grand entrance was that things were, in general, very bad. And I know now that things were indeed quite bad for each of them. One of the heirlooms which I have acquired is a family Bible, and in it there are hundreds of newspaper clippings and various old photographs telling the stories of many intersecting lives. I was looking through this Bible recently and was struck with the magnitude and frequency of the tragic events that these people lived through. Here are a few examples: Suicides, Accidental death by lightning, Embezzlement charges, Severe poverty, Childhood abuse, Military deaths, Cancer, Strokes, Mental Illness, Infidelity, and Alcoholism – just to name a few.
I had little knowledge of these bits of family history when I was younger, which I guess is common, but as I read through the news clippings and thought about the overall burdens and pain carried by my loved ones, I felt more connected to them than I ever really had before. I look now into the faces of my relatives in old pictures and I see them not just in their familial role, but I see the deeper, human part of them – the delicate and fragile souls beneath those resolute, often sad, faces. I was speaking to an older cousin of mine who was adopted into this maelstrom of misery a while back, and she remembered many of the misfortunes and overall dysfunction firsthand. She laughed as she told me how she used to rationalize to herself that all of these things were in no way a reflection upon her since she was not related “by blood” to the chaos. She had decided for herself that her biological mother was a college professor, who lead a “normal” life, and that some day she would reunite with her and take up “professoring” herself. My cousin did actually reunite with her biological mother – her mom had been living in an abandoned school bus for some years and suffered from severe mental health issues and raging addictions. She told me she was glad that she believed the professor myth when she was younger – it gave her hope and strength that “normal” families do exist.
And maybe that is my point – if I have one at all. All families have warts, and skeletons, and scars. I was a big fan of the t.v. series “The Sopranos” when it was out because I loved watching the family dynamics. I really was not interested in the mob aspect of the program, but I took great pleasure in watching the glaring and beautiful imperfections within the family – a family that seemed to love each other, but wore their character defects on full display in every episode. I think the Kennedy Family has held public interest for so long for many of the same reasons. Dysfunctional? Absolutely! But somehow reminding us all of our similarities and shortcomings as people and as families.
I have met with many, many people who carry the baggage and pain and secrets that the people who raised them placed upon them and inside them. One of the hardest things that many of these suffering souls struggle with is coming to a place where they can say: “My parent/guardian/responsible adult did the best job that they could in raising me – but it still was a lousy job in many areas.” Believe it or not, countless people are able to break free of the “my family was great/wonderful/normal” delusion by simply stating the last sentence and acknowledging the truth. Not blaming, or using the past as an excuse to stay stuck in unhealthy behaviors and thoughts – just stating the truth and moving on. I have always thought that there is great wisdom in the adage “Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.” Unfortunately, we often negate this advice when it comes to looking at our personal, family histories.
For me, I believe that my parents both did the best they could with what they had. But I am not sure if my grandparents did the best job they could at being parents – obviously I wasn’t around to witness it. They seemed like good grandparents to me, but they were really the only ones I had. My mother’s father died when she was young, and her mom was admitted to a nursing home and also died when I was pretty young. As I said before, they seemed very morose most of the time, and even as a hyper, excitable kid I could sense the energy they drained from a room. The pain and heartache inside them was real, and tangible in every sense – and they never seemed able or willing to work through most of it. From what I do know of my mother’s side of the family – their story wasn’t much better, but “her people” never filled the room with doom and gloom from old hurts. My mom’s mother was a first generation immigrant from Ireland that cleaned houses in New York City for a living and did her best to support three children by herself after her husband died in his early forties from a stroke. The family Bible on that side of the lineage is certainly no Harlequin Romance. Severe poverty, Mental illness, Unexpected deaths, Frequent unemployment, Alcoholism, and the desperate struggle to create a better life in a new country with no family supports. Yet on those few times that I can remember with my maternal grandmother, she always had a smile, and an intrinsic warmth as she would wrap you in a hug with her knotted and calloused fingers from the years of manual labor. From all the stories I have heard of her, she was a real adventurer who took great pleasure in the simple things in life, and made due with what God put in her path.
Similar life issues – both sides having dealt with pain and loss and tragedy, but vastly different perspectives and attitudes and questions of “doing their best” as parents. One of the “buzz words” I came across in my counseling classes and while working with children who have lived in and through tough issues is resiliency. Resiliency seeks to understand why two children, sometimes raised in the same house, can grow up and be impacted so differently by the experiences of their youth. It seeks to discover and explain the inner hard wiring that makes each of us able to go through various negative experiences and rebound from them so differently. In my work, I have seen many people who simply “don’t go there” when it comes to past trauma or negative experiences. Too often, counselors label this “denial” and pull out the therapeutic shovels and pick axes to unbury the realities of the past and make people face them. I disagree with this method, and with terming the coping technique as “denial”. I chose to believe that we all know what we have been through – we all have a consciousness of our past, even if some people have chosen to “bury it” in order to move onwards and upwards in a positive and successful way in their lives. I do not believe in raising these issues for others prematurely or without their consent – too often I have seen this method do more harm than good and keep people from getting future help.
The million dollar question when it comes to these old, often painful emotional artifacts is: “How is it impacting your life today?” Some people continue to repeat the same painful, dysfunctional, unhealthy patterns in their lives that were modeled from their elders. Others have learned what not to do from their parental figures and changed the behaviors that they were subjected to. In my case, I can see very clearly the demons my father and his parents carried around, and I acknowledge the changes my dad made in an effort to be a more positive, loving parent. I feel as if my job is to continue making these changes drawing from the things that he did, and those he was unable to do. I have come to realize that no one can really give away what they simply don’t have, and perhaps that is a better way to measure the “best job” question when it comes to our families of origin.
We need to allow that what was not given from parents, or the adults who raised us was sometimes, perhaps even often, not a matter of unwillingness, but a matter of incapableness. To this day, I know of no standardized tests that prepare or evaluate anyone’s capabilities for having children. There are also no mandated trainings for parenting. I do know that many of the people I have met who seem like they would make the best parents are, ironically, unable to have them. I have also talked with women who have had abortions and have never really forgiven themselves for the decision. Women who have chosen adoption over abortion talk about similar regrets – I have heard women in both situations tell me that they knew at the time that they would not be able to be a good parent. These are heartbreaking decisions. Moments and decisions in a life that will alter everything that comes after. And I could never judge anyone for their decisions at those times, nor would I ever want to make such decisions myself. Judging others without having spent any time in their shoes is always a dicey and dangerous business, but within families, finding the truth about your history, and your role models and the messages you carry from them often requires a degree of judgement – especially if you know in your heart that you have not been as “resilient” from past pain as you would like to be, and that you are continuing to “sound and/or act just like your mom/dad” when you vowed at some point long ago that you never would.
Imperfection is a universal trait. I take great comfort in that. I have yet to meet a person that is truly whole, and I don’t expect to during this ride on the planet. In my father’s case, I believe he married my mom because she had all of those positive, loving, resilient qualities that he desperately wanted – the ones that completed him in some way, even if he could never integrate them completely into his own soul. I think many couples do that – we look for the parts of us that are missing, or that are not completed, and we find a mate that has them. In this way, the trite expression “you complete me” might not be too far off in many relationships. It would be more accurate to say: “You bring to the front of my consciousness all of those things that I am lacking and need to incorporate in my self to live in balance and harmony” but that really wouldn’t sound as romantic on a Valentine’s Card. Eventually, without doing the individual work of changing what is missing, just finding and being with someone else who has those things does not usually work. In fact, it may just make the problem worse. The question over time becomes one of “What is wrong with me, because I’m not like them,” or “What is wrong with them, and why are we so different”? All of the decent self-help philosophies, practices, and roads to wellness are single lane thoroughfares – the work to be done is yours alone, regardless of the circumstances that may have put you on your current route.
Wow – almost up to 2,500 words, and I’m just getting started! Don’t worry – I’m nearly done. This blog has been in my head for months – forming, fermenting, and forbidding. Now it is done. Hopefully the universe can stop bothering me about it. As with most of my blogs, I have little idea what it will mean to you – but I hope it means something. Maybe something hopeful and empowering when you review your family dynamics and programming. Perhaps in some small way it will help you to realize that we are all similar in so many ways and we carry around such familiar baggage for much of our lives. As I look at these three people now, sitting together in a time and place long ago, I feel love, understanding, and an empathy for each of them. Their life stories, each one full of the divine tragic nature that defines our existence, have formed and shaped and dealt many of the cards of my current circumstances. Now it is my time, as it is yours, to heal, and grow, and learn from our families as we deal a new deck of cards for the next generation…
Leave a Reply