My mother’s family abandoned her innocently and geographically very smoothly because we lived in LA, and most of them lived in Minnesota. Unforgivably, they abandoned her emotionally…left her hanging…only to be dealt with by my completely ignorant (of how to deal with anything less than a ‘perfect’ wife) fearful (read: full-of-fear) father, who escaped further into alcoholism. So, he abandoned her, too. Another story, another time.
My father’s family, who lived kind of all over the country, mainly was centered in Oregon. They were better candidates to extend a helping hand chiefly because they were at least on the right coastline, and secondarily, it wasn’t their embarrassment. They could have had an excuse for caring/helping. After all they only were related to my mom by marriage and so therefore were not tainted with the most dreadful of the dreaded…the worst of the worst…the most clandestine and unacceptable illnesses: mental illness. Even so, the situation was too icky and sticky for them, I am sure of it. So the emotional abandonment was a given.
Even now when my sister talks about my maternal grandmother with stars in her eyes, I feel nauseous, because that woman – my grandma K – is now and has always been dead to me, and I have hated her for so long for the way in which she didn’t treat my mom: didn’t come out and help when she was diagnosed, didn’t stay and help with the kids, didn’t kick my dad in the butt for being such an idiot; didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. I just cannot imagine not doing everything in my power to help if one of my children and five of my grandkids were going through such an awful ordeal. Nor could I (in reference to my parents' siblings) imagine not reaching out to a niece if I had a sister who was hospitalized for schizophrenia and whose marriage was falling between the fingers of a gallivanting alcoholic.
I don’t stand on a soap box and shout to the roof tops or anything like that. But I am quick to disregard any nice things said about my mom’s or dad’s families. I barely knew them, and they rarely bothered with me. I am quick to point out the 'splinter' in their eyes of the way they took the easy road of inaction with my mom, even though the whole season is long past.
Well, guess who has a completely estranged brother who went homeless at a young age and was diagnosed with a mental illness? Me. He went homeless as a result of being separated from all of us emotionally. We all followed our dad’s cues of splitting him off from the pack of us. He had nowhere to turn but was only driven by his will to prove my dad wrong: that he could make it on his own. When he failed, he went in various directions but eventually ended up on the streets. What streets? I don’t know. I never wanted to know.
He is now 50…will be 51 in 2009, and I still don’t know him. I have never asked for his forgiveness for my indignation, ignorance, arrogance, and well, you name it. I only tolerated him, watched my other sisters discipline him, ‘deal’ with him, at least to do what the season called for in the name of being his sisters. But worse than any type of support is no support; which is what I offered…nothing. A void.
So much is water under the bridge. But these few things will always distill: he is my brother and I need him to know that I love him, I need him to know that I am so sorry for fearing to know him, not reaching out to help him in his desperate times when -especially when- I was equipped to do so, not stepping up, not being present, not letting him know he had a family, not, not, not…
Before I again attempt to disregard my parents’ relatives, I need to look at my big brother’s little sister: ME.
My inaction related to my brother is the plank in my eye.
MT. 7:3 lives in all our lives.
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