No More Hiding ...

No Place to Hide
Originally uploaded by OneEyedJax-catching up..slow connection
I have enough distance now from my healing lunch interaction with my mom and sister and niece to be able to write about the tenderness and the incredible connection shared among 3 generations of women in our family that were bound in information we each held in captivity related to my father's passing.

The conversation at lunch had been focused on my sister and I's concerns about our brother and how he was repeating the patterns of retreat and withholding and disconnect from his own children that we experienced directly from our father. And how our brother is still young and he has time to make a difference in his children's lives in terms of how he connects and interacts with them.

From this, the conversation had shifted to our father and my sister bringing up how she recently went to our father's grave and how she talks to him. And that her recent "talk" at his tombstone was to ask if he thought she was a good parent. All of us at the table, naturally, reassured her that indeed she has been an amazing mother. And then, my sister shared that she knew in the week or two before my father died that he perhaps was getting ready to die because of a couple of interactions she had with him, that were "unusual". He had made it a point to insist that she gain custody of her children when she was leaving an abusive marriage. He told her that it would be important for her to do this and checked up on her a couple of days later about it. This would be very uncharacteristic for our father, who basically removed himself from most aspects of "family", particularly involving his only 2 grandchildren at that time. He thrown my sister out of the house when she was pregnant at 18 with her son and never really warmed up to them, nor in his role as their grandfather. My sister's regular visits to the cemetary to speak with him made me realize how much she is still grieving and how she has always wanted to "prove her worthiness" to him, as he judged her harshly. I can feel these broken places in my sister and felt so much compassion sitting across the table from her.

After her sharing, I opened up and spoke about my last interaction with my father when I was visting to go to a music festival with my ex, with whom I had only been involved at that time for 6 months. And, I had not yet "come out". My mother had made it a point to show me the wedding section of the paper, as she often did in my 20's, so I could see how another person from my high school had gotten married and, underneath that, was her "hint hint" about my not having filled my heterosexual womanly duties yet. My father, in response to hearing her, was animated and even defended me (this would be a first) that "this was not going to be the life I would have" (his words). On my drive home from that last time seeing him alive, my ex and I spoke at length that this was my father's way of acknowledging that he "knew" about the truth of me, my lifestyle and sexual orientation. He died 6 days after this interaction.

My niece, who was only 3 years old at the time of his passing, shared that she wished she had gotten to know him, even though she thought that he was "mean" and perhaps didn't like her. What has always hit her hard is the fact that our father died on my niece's birthday. This day for she and my sister has always been bittersweet.

Then, mom spoke up. There was a tremor in her voice and I could tell that she was about to reveal something painful. She tearfully shared with us that 2 weeks before he died, in a drunken stupor one night, he badgered her with this question: "Do you still love me?" She told us that she could not answer "yes" because that was not the truth. She would not answer him until she could no longer take his persistence and aggressiveness. She finally said to him: "I do care about you. And that is all." She believed for quite some time, having never uttered this, that her response caused him to "let go" and give up any hope and that perhaps this is why he died when he did. She does not feel that way now and we all agreed that the timing of his death was just right and it was a huge turning point for all of us, particularly mom and our brother, to finally have relief and freedom.

In this moment of my mother sharing what she did, everything came full circle in terms of the healing work I've been doing about our relationship. Her courage to stay in integrity and to not give a false answer to her husband was an act that I did not believe she was capable of. And had I confronted her 2 months back without claiming all of the voices of my "little one", I would have missed out on this exquisite opportunity to see my mother in a different light. In an act of bravery.

And the best part of this lunch was that 3 generations of women in our family sat together, talking about the ghastly reality of who our father was and the tender, truthful interactions that we each had with him before he died. And my niece could witness what it is like to speak from your heart, without shame or judgment, and the openness and the love that was here among us. And that perhaps, one day, she will model this and carry this onto her children and so on.

We agreed that a monthly "girls' lunch" is in order. From this point on in our family, there will be no more hiding.