Monday, November 15, 2004
A Family Story?
Our family doesn't tell many stories. I think it has something to do with our Scandinavian heritage -- keep secrets secret, and there just ain't that damn much good in the world to talk about anyway, so, what's left? I suspect, this attitude, the remnants of Calvinism, my inherited Scandinavian heritage.
There was a time, however, when I was let into the deep and dark world of my forebears. My mom and I were driving, late at night, home from the Twin Cities. My great-grandma was ill, about to die, and we had hastily driven the 200 miles, one way, to see her one last time. It was just the two of us -- no dad, no sister -- and 3 hours of blank roadway.
I started asking my mom questions about my family, my heritage. She told me of her grandparents, and the nightmares she endured after returning from the weeks spent with them during summer vacation. Seen, but not heard, silent, polite, obedient. To them, this was a child's role. They frightened my mother, so much so that she had nightmares for months after returning home.
She told me stories about my aunt, Judi. She was married young, at 17, to a hoodlum. She snuck out, had sex, smoked, drank, used a cornucopia of ilicit drugs, and so on. Her husband was shot and killed while attempting to hold up a convenience store. They had been married for 3 weeks. Judi was in the car, an accomplice.
I never would have guessed it. My experience with Judi didn't jive with this personification. She lived in Edina for christ's sake, an affluent western suburb. She was a school counselor, advising teens!, and very urban, very professional, friendly with Status Quo.
My mom continued to be forthcoming.
Judi had married again, bore a child, Jennifer, my cousin. She split with this new man shortly after Jennifer was born. I never met him, and, I guess, by now, never will. It's all very odd. Jennifer spoke once in a while of her father, usually at Xmas, in response to a question about what she'd gotten for Xmas, but that was about it.
I was realizing that Judi has this incredible, but invisible, past. What else didn't I know about my family? What else was invisible to me? What else was I being sheltered from? I was to find out, a great deal.
My mom told me the story of how my grandma, her mom, had passed out, dead drunk, head slamming down into a bowl of soup, at Thanksgiving dinner.
My grandfather, step-grandpa actually, which was sort of news to me, never hidden, but never really emphasized, had been married 7 times prior to meeting my grandma. He was quite a Don Juan as a youngster, peripatetic, handsome, romantic . . . selfish and self-serving.
These stories opened my eyes. I wondered why this was all news to me, at 16, arguably a young adult. I was sheltered from the "horrors" of my family, not trusted, not a confidante, and sadly, not really a participant, but that's beside the point. I learned -- don't cross the line. If you do, invisibility is the result. Imagine, Judi and Jennifer, unable during holidays and family gatherings of referring to part of their past, part of who they are.
In retrospect, I realize I have been a participant in this collusion as well. When I was 5, in kindergarten, at a big city school, after class, waiting for the school bus to pick me up and bring me safely home, some older boy pulled my pants down, around my ankles. Instead of pulling my shorts up, I cried. I wailed, calling that much more attention to myself. Yep. It doesn't bother me to talk about it now; I've told my own son the story and had a good laugh about it, but, growing up, I knew instinctually never to talk about this, the embarrassment, the shame(?). I knew I needed to hide it away, put it deep into a hobbit hole.
There are other stories I never told as well.
As we were pulling into the south side of town, our 3 hour commune over, outside, the snow dead weight on the barren potato fields, I asked my mom why I had never heard any of these things before? She had no answer for me, this silence speaking volumes.
Now, as a parent myself, I try to accept, publicly, my foibles and failures. It's hard, but I do it anyway. When my son wants to know about my childhood, I tell him the bully story. I tell him all my shameful stories. I blush, feel a hot flush on my forehead, appropriately or not, feel shame, but we're also, the both of us, made visible, made real, made human, and made whole.
Our family doesn't tell many stories. I think it has something to do with our Scandinavian heritage -- keep secrets secret, and there just ain't that damn much good in the world to talk about anyway, so, what's left? I suspect, this attitude, the remnants of Calvinism, my inherited Scandinavian heritage.
There was a time, however, when I was let into the deep and dark world of my forebears. My mom and I were driving, late at night, home from the Twin Cities. My great-grandma was ill, about to die, and we had hastily driven the 200 miles, one way, to see her one last time. It was just the two of us -- no dad, no sister -- and 3 hours of blank roadway.
I started asking my mom questions about my family, my heritage. She told me of her grandparents, and the nightmares she endured after returning from the weeks spent with them during summer vacation. Seen, but not heard, silent, polite, obedient. To them, this was a child's role. They frightened my mother, so much so that she had nightmares for months after returning home.
She told me stories about my aunt, Judi. She was married young, at 17, to a hoodlum. She snuck out, had sex, smoked, drank, used a cornucopia of ilicit drugs, and so on. Her husband was shot and killed while attempting to hold up a convenience store. They had been married for 3 weeks. Judi was in the car, an accomplice.
I never would have guessed it. My experience with Judi didn't jive with this personification. She lived in Edina for christ's sake, an affluent western suburb. She was a school counselor, advising teens!, and very urban, very professional, friendly with Status Quo.
My mom continued to be forthcoming.
Judi had married again, bore a child, Jennifer, my cousin. She split with this new man shortly after Jennifer was born. I never met him, and, I guess, by now, never will. It's all very odd. Jennifer spoke once in a while of her father, usually at Xmas, in response to a question about what she'd gotten for Xmas, but that was about it.
I was realizing that Judi has this incredible, but invisible, past. What else didn't I know about my family? What else was invisible to me? What else was I being sheltered from? I was to find out, a great deal.
My mom told me the story of how my grandma, her mom, had passed out, dead drunk, head slamming down into a bowl of soup, at Thanksgiving dinner.
My grandfather, step-grandpa actually, which was sort of news to me, never hidden, but never really emphasized, had been married 7 times prior to meeting my grandma. He was quite a Don Juan as a youngster, peripatetic, handsome, romantic . . . selfish and self-serving.
These stories opened my eyes. I wondered why this was all news to me, at 16, arguably a young adult. I was sheltered from the "horrors" of my family, not trusted, not a confidante, and sadly, not really a participant, but that's beside the point. I learned -- don't cross the line. If you do, invisibility is the result. Imagine, Judi and Jennifer, unable during holidays and family gatherings of referring to part of their past, part of who they are.
In retrospect, I realize I have been a participant in this collusion as well. When I was 5, in kindergarten, at a big city school, after class, waiting for the school bus to pick me up and bring me safely home, some older boy pulled my pants down, around my ankles. Instead of pulling my shorts up, I cried. I wailed, calling that much more attention to myself. Yep. It doesn't bother me to talk about it now; I've told my own son the story and had a good laugh about it, but, growing up, I knew instinctually never to talk about this, the embarrassment, the shame(?). I knew I needed to hide it away, put it deep into a hobbit hole.
There are other stories I never told as well.
As we were pulling into the south side of town, our 3 hour commune over, outside, the snow dead weight on the barren potato fields, I asked my mom why I had never heard any of these things before? She had no answer for me, this silence speaking volumes.
Now, as a parent myself, I try to accept, publicly, my foibles and failures. It's hard, but I do it anyway. When my son wants to know about my childhood, I tell him the bully story. I tell him all my shameful stories. I blush, feel a hot flush on my forehead, appropriately or not, feel shame, but we're also, the both of us, made visible, made real, made human, and made whole.
