Family is a 4-letter word
My mother wished me to write down what I saw a few weeks ago when I visited her mother at the geriatric home. It was breathtaking, to say the least, and I had tons to say about how she really was an old lump of meat that didn’t recognize anyone. Since then, she has gone twice to the emergency room, X-mas has come and passed, and I’ve been left with tatters of free time scattered among big chunks of work that have left me too exhausted to write anything coherent.
Today, however, it has become clear how things are working themselves out in this slow, agonizing death of my grandmother: to compensate for the glaring absence of my mother’s brother and sister (the ones”in exile”, or whatever tickles their funny bone to be called), it has become our responsibility to take over our mom’s and aunt’s efforts.And by “our”, I mean my brother, my sister, and I. And today I noticed, this is tearing us apart.
Our grandmother polarizes even in the throes of death. Not quite contented with having done all the harm she has to the generation that precedes us, she has also done quite a fine job of demoralizing the 2nd generation and tearing at the reedy fabric that has (sort of) bound us together for the past few years now.
Or maybe I’ve come to realize “family” is a four-letter word, and that blood has no fucking meaning at all, unless you want it to. Yes, that must be it.
Thing is: my sister, my brother, and I are taking the brunt of a responsibility that is definitely not ours to shoulder. It’s stressing us and the relationship among us to the point of breakage; and if there is one thing I do not want for myself and my peers, it is to replicate what happened between our mother and her peers.
I’ve had quite enough with taking a swig of sour repressions and recriminations every time I try to even pretend I have a family beyond the core of mom-dad-peers. Now I’m facing the prospect of having those same repressions and recriminations passed down to us via undue responsibilities and tasks. Responsibilities and tasks that don’t belong to us. Responsibilities and tasks that at least half the brood have shunned just so they can have peaceful lives.
Guys (aunt & uncle that probably read me): you WIN BIG at shaking off your burdens, but you are an EPIC FAIL at leaving behind the legacy of hate, resentment and sorrow of your mother. You think that by fleeing physically from your mother has saved you from a similar fate? Think again, and look really hard at your relationships, specially your relationships with your kids, and especially the way your kids see your own relationships with your mother. What you want to escape is the “vicious circle” of dysfunctional relationships. What you are teaching your kids? “Your mom is expendable”.
And in the meanwhile, the only three that have to shoulder the burdens you’ve shaken off are being brittled apart prematurely. In a few decades’ time it will be this all over again with our mother. I hoped that it would’ve been the only time we’d have to live this, but we’ve had to come through before our time to cover the gaping hole our mother’s peers leave. Fuck you, guys.
“Family” IS a four-letter word.
