Seriously. My family. These people. Who the hell are they? We do not choose them. They have not chosen us. I guess the circumstances vary as to what claims any of us can make on the other, but increasingly I’m thinking that such claims are unnecessary trivialities of which I can be spared.
Characters. They’re all bloody characters trying to play pawns and not be one.
With some of these folks, I finally find that it is possible to love, but not like; however, in that, I also find that sometimes love is nothing more than a heart full of the highest, and unfortunately, the most dash-ed, hopes.
I’m enduring one of these cases where fundamental misunderstandings, miscommunications and misinterpretations generate drama (or melodrama). I wonder how it is that I, my sister, my brother-in-law, my mom and even my dad have this vision of family and what it means, and the funny thing is that outside of our circle we’ve each learned the hard way that this apparently is a near-sighted view.
What makes it seem so funny is that when I talk to any of you, I find that your interpretations of family coming to aid are similar to mine. You’d think that should your sibling fall ill, you’d help in some fashion.
Note: “Help” does not come in the form of, “Well I told you this was going to happen …, You should’ve done this …”
Does it?
The best way I can think to describe what has – and is – happening is that nursery story where someone (or something, a bird, perhaps?) is making some bread and has asked for everyone’s help. He goes through the community and asks each animal and they’re all like, “Not I,” …
Granted, my mom being ill isn’t like making bread. In fact, I should point out that we didn’t go knocking on doors or callin’ folks to ask for any help either, but the point kinda is it’s like you thought we were the plague the doors seemed to close so fast. People in my family actually said things like, I’d help you, but … BEFORE we even thought to ask for help.
For instance, Kim was there for the whole thing and made it her business to stay in the hospital room virtually 24/7. The reality was she wasn’t going to leave the room for anything or anyone to be close to our mom if it wasn’t me or Rob, but she called one day and was like, “Girl, so-and-so was just here and do you know she actually said, ‘You look so tired. Someone else should stay here. I would, but I have to go home and cook, I’ve got choir practice, yada yada.’”
I think the thing that stunned us both was that Kim hadn’t said anything outside of thank you for stopping by, and yet this person offered reasons why they couldn’t stay, wouldn’t be back until such-and-such a date, etc. Maybe I’m being irrational, because I know when things happen like this, it’s natural for people to come see, and that’s fine. However, there was just something awful and strange about people coming to see and then telling us what they would like to do but couldn’t.
I thought it’d be enough for you to just come and wish somebody well. Yet these people came and asked, “What y’all gonna do now?” in what can best be described as nosiness, and then when one of us, too weary to have gotten to that part, would just sigh and say, “The best we can,” sometimes we got, “Well, we’re praying for y’all,” but most times we got, “Well, I’m not saying I know what to do to help or if I can help at all because I don’t know what you could possibly need, but if you think of anything feel free to call. We ain’t got much, but I guess we’ll come up with somethin’. Po’ Margaret Ann, I don’t know how she got herself into this mess, but the Lord willin’ she’ll make it on through.”
Um, yeah. I ain’t calling you fuh shit.
It’s also funny to me how people that don’t contribute monetarily always have damn opinions about what folk should be doing and how it could be better. Like no one was opening up their homes, or offering to help anyone move, or to check in on anyone, but everybody thought she should stay put or go to an assisted care facility. Rob, he’s a bold one, would ask curtly whether anyone was willing to pay for anything and of course, that always shut plenty of folk up. One case in point, my mom gets relocated, much to her dismay, to Philadelphia. My sister and her husband at that time felt it was their only and best option (I discussed the pitfalls of this option in the post prior, but it’s all good. You know what they says about hindsight.), and it was one that at the time, my grandmother and my aunt (two people who felt most concerned) felt were the best options, too. They voiced up to step up and help Margaret Ann get better as soon as possible.
“The most important thing is that she settle in, get a solid routine with all the help and encouragement she needs so she’ll feel the least amount of stress. We all have to be positive, yada, yada,” my aunt says.
“Y’all talkin’ about moving her this way and that isn’t helping alleviate any stress, and the last thing she needs is stress or worry of any kind. She just needs to focus on getting herself better.”
“She’ll be fine. Her room’s all prepared. It’ll be good. I can look after her. I’m her mom, that’s what moms do for their kids.”
I don’t even want to get anymore up in the travails of this situation than I already am, but I just had to come here and say, Lord, have mercy. People is triflin’, and as I’ve heard and I’ve seen before and will be damned should I see it again, money has to be the root of all evil. We are not any of the words you’d ascribe to people of financial means, so I don’t know what in the hell all the fuss is about. But I’ve learned that some people, usually the people who gab the most about money, are the ones who will spend – or have spent, quite literally – their lives clamoring for it, and that is unfortunate.
You sacrifice the love and the closeness of people who really care about you just because … the people who are waiting in the wings just to love and be near you … the people like me who really hope beyond all hopes that you can just be the good that I’ve dreamed, the good that I envisioned across distances and through the years. But I guess it’s my own fault. Things that look and seem good from far away aren’t always so great up close. I guess up close you see how much work has been done or is being done, all to produce what amounts to an illusion. By the time you’re that close, it’s too late to realize that you should’ve kept your distance. It’s too late to shake the feelings of foolishness that overtake you when you really probably should’ve seen the signs far, far ahead.
But.
I’m reminded of the yin and the yang, I s’pose. I cannot know joy without knowing pain, nor can I know pure love without greeting hate. I will not know success without failure, and I will not know where I’m going until I’ve seen where I’ve been.
It’s times such as this where I find myself alone – in my thoughts mostly, because fortunately, I have a set of friends and your very existence buoys me, even with a mere “hello.” And when I’m alone, feeling befuddled and sometimes blue, vexed and primed to move on, it never fails that instinctively I turn to my Bible.
It’s like a place I should visit more often because it always is so good when I am there. Like a porch in the wake of the sun and a summer breeze, I’m just warmed by it from the inside out.
It also never fails that a) some haphazard bookmark falls out and I find a verse that’s jus’ fittin’ to the occasion or the feeling, and b) that I get to readin’ and again, I always come away with a little more strempf I need to proceed, strempf I need to believe …
So to paraphrase a bit, I found an old e-mail from Kim that instructed me to “despise not the day of small beginnings.”
And pain may last through the night, but I’ve heard that joy comes in the morning …
… perhaps even on a Tuesday ;).