Our family is riddled with estrangements, most veiled in secrecy for decades. My great-grandmother in Ireland disowned all her children at one time or another. She disowned my grandmother because she married a Baptist, a non-Catholic, back when anyone not a Catholic was destined to go to hell, no ifs, ands, or buts. The story went that Granddaddy sent a letter to his estranged mother-in-law to tell her about the birth of her twin grandbaby boys. The news was not to seek a reconciliation, went the story, but just that maybe she would be interested to know that she had twin grandsons in Alabama. One boy was named with the hope of ingratiating a benefactor of the dad’s (my granddad’s) law school education. [It did not work; no further financial support came; law school ended.] The other boy was named for the baby’s grandfather, husband of the estranged grandmother. This was 1915. The story is that there was reconciliation between the Irish mother and the now-Alabama daughter. As life unfolded, there were more babies – eight more in twelve years after the twin boys. However the reconciliation went, the Irish daughter Nan never saw her mother again. Nan went to Ireland in June of 1946, but her mother had died that spring. So, that’s episode one.
Episode two was cloaked in secrecy for decades. My sister and I grew up with the story that our dad’s mother had died when our dad was young, an early teen. It turned out that she'd left the family – her husband and son – with another man. I don’t know when that abandonment happened, if she continued to know her son, whatever happened with that relationship. Since all that happened before we were born and our father died when we were little girls and we were not told this story until we were grown, my sister and I never knew what the real story was.
Episode three was excruciatingly real to my sister and me. We did not know the why of it. When she was 14 and I was 11, the relationship between our mother and her sister Claire ended. BOOM. No reason. No discussion. Just no more visits. No more Thanksgivings, no more Christmases, no more summer vacations, no more cousin Susie. That was 1956 or 57. There was reconciliation more than 25 years later through an invitation from another aunt. But, god, 25 years lost.
Episode four was estrangement from Bud. That was eight years from after my wedding until my second son was an infant. Bud’s wife got everyone together for his 57th (give or take) birthday. It later turned out that Bud had cancer. He was with us another five years after he and Claire reconciled with my mother.
Episode five was the estrangement with my own first son. Precipitated by his father, my husband, our first son was out of our house when he was 19 years old. I let my son know I was there, always there. I left my husband when our third child started college. I always kept the door open to my first born. I had taught my children from the time they might understand that I would never coerce them through guilt into seeing me and I did not try that with my first son. After almost twenty years, he called one afternoon. Through therapy, he’d decided that he wanted me in his life no matter what I’d done in his young years. Mostly what I’d done was not set boundaries or not kept them. I thought you loved without bounds or you made your love conditioned on acceptable behavior and attitudes. I was not going to have my love conditional. I jettisoned that generational toxicity when my first was a baby. Again, I did not know that a parent could set and hold a boundary while exuding unconditional love. Lessons learned.
That was the last episode of a “big fight” and the need for reconciliation. I hope we are done with that generational pattern. And good on my first son for his journey to independence and his journey back and on me for immediate acceptance.
— Marmar
Episode two was cloaked in secrecy for decades. My sister and I grew up with the story that our dad’s mother had died when our dad was young, an early teen. It turned out that she'd left the family – her husband and son – with another man. I don’t know when that abandonment happened, if she continued to know her son, whatever happened with that relationship. Since all that happened before we were born and our father died when we were little girls and we were not told this story until we were grown, my sister and I never knew what the real story was.
Episode three was excruciatingly real to my sister and me. We did not know the why of it. When she was 14 and I was 11, the relationship between our mother and her sister Claire ended. BOOM. No reason. No discussion. Just no more visits. No more Thanksgivings, no more Christmases, no more summer vacations, no more cousin Susie. That was 1956 or 57. There was reconciliation more than 25 years later through an invitation from another aunt. But, god, 25 years lost.
Episode four was estrangement from Bud. That was eight years from after my wedding until my second son was an infant. Bud’s wife got everyone together for his 57th (give or take) birthday. It later turned out that Bud had cancer. He was with us another five years after he and Claire reconciled with my mother.
Episode five was the estrangement with my own first son. Precipitated by his father, my husband, our first son was out of our house when he was 19 years old. I let my son know I was there, always there. I left my husband when our third child started college. I always kept the door open to my first born. I had taught my children from the time they might understand that I would never coerce them through guilt into seeing me and I did not try that with my first son. After almost twenty years, he called one afternoon. Through therapy, he’d decided that he wanted me in his life no matter what I’d done in his young years. Mostly what I’d done was not set boundaries or not kept them. I thought you loved without bounds or you made your love conditioned on acceptable behavior and attitudes. I was not going to have my love conditional. I jettisoned that generational toxicity when my first was a baby. Again, I did not know that a parent could set and hold a boundary while exuding unconditional love. Lessons learned.
That was the last episode of a “big fight” and the need for reconciliation. I hope we are done with that generational pattern. And good on my first son for his journey to independence and his journey back and on me for immediate acceptance.
— Marmar
A nice, long write, Marmar. Almost like a history of nations! (I'm thinking of that because of the prompt following this one). Amazing that you don't really know what happened with your mother and Claire! At least you must be fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with Catholicism! I didn't know that folks of other faiths were now allowed into Catholic heaven-- is that so? I left Catholicism back in the 1960s. I'm also amazed that your son harbored resentment about permissiveness! (from "Macoff").
ReplyDeleteMuch, much later we did learn what precipitated Mama's breakup with her sister. Claire had left her husband and their four children. She came to our house with her lover. Mama was outraged that Claire brought her lover to our house "with two little girls at home." Go figure. Much better to see the example of ostracizing your sister, right? Thanks for your note!
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