good afternoon, my dear friend,
I’ve been feeling a pull to wade deeper into thought with you. there are some topics that have come to mind I know might take more time to hash out (and may require a little recovery), but my feet are walking towards the water’s edge regardless. will you join me for a swim?
in April, my grandfather (affectionately called Papa Paul) was having a hard time with his health. he was regularly getting blood transfusions, in which he’d sit very still for 5 hours while a resupply of red blood cells rushed through him. our weekly Sunday chats became short summaries; his speedwalks to proudly round out the day at 7,000 steps dwindled to 200. the spring began to such a shaky start—we weren’t sure how long we’d have him. on a trip out for what might be goodbye (for the record: he’s recovered and even back to 7,000 daily steps), my younger siblings spent the quiet hours of his rest poking through the garage. the smell of dusty wood and California’s heat; cardboard boxes heavy with family history documents, old letters crinkled around the edges, diaries, daguerreotypes, and ship manifests.
I wish I was with them, but for a few hours, it was enough to watch through the small screen of my phone. they dug into binders and boxes, often joined by our uncle; pages scattered on the driveway, reading through cramped writing. after thumbing through enough letters, understanding the irony of it all, we joked, if there’s one thing our family has been good at, it’s staying out of touch. from one branch up the family tree, a letter would read, “Aunt MaryBeth left to the seaside in August. I think she plans to live there. I hope she’s doing well, since we haven’t heard from her since her departure. This is like her, though, and perhaps we will reunite in a few years’ time.” a diary entry another generation before them, “I cannot say where my brother Rodger is living now, or if he’s still alive, but I wish him well.”
I keep finding myself in moments that are too poetry to read believably on a page. why is my lineage one of such division? this family tree, each branch stretching out far enough to call itself separate from the trunk. it seems marriage and childrearing are continually hand-me-down lessons passed on for the next generation to learn, subsequently ending in divorce and distance.
not only is it that I feel so out of touch with my parents, my aunts, uncles, cousins, or anyone who shares our name, but in reading through it all, it almost seems our namesake to do so. my siblings and I were intentionally kept from Papa Paul’s life and he to ours. he adopted a son, my uncle, whom I hadn’t met until last year. I know only one other family member on my mother’s side and I don’t think I’ve met most of my cousins. it would be one thing if we had a big family, but instead, this is what I gather to be disinterest. in my own childhood home, I grew up with a vague knowledge our family would never be one for reunions; any tie to my parents would fizzle out once I moved on to college. it is complicated, knowing I’ve gone through stages of more formally stepping away from them, the same with each of my siblings, but the more years pass without a word, I’m finding the line between choosing silence, estrangement, or falling into it is blurred.
even shifting beyond the scope of my own relationship with my parents, the story keeps relatively the same plot. between half-sisters, siblings, step-family, and the parents we share—our lives dance in such distant winds. my siblings can feel the loose stitching too; how inherent it seems to be. our relationships to our parents, theirs to their parents and siblings, and their parents after that. a family of unfamiliarity. after his mother passed away, Papa Paul’s sisters were taken to live with other families when he was younger. only later in life were they able to find each other. and though they reconnected when he was sick in the spring, the conversations with his children are still few and far between.
“we’re strangers.” Papa Paul states over the phone. emotion thickens in his voice, “when we do talk, it’s a shorter, superficial conversation, purely because we don’t know each other. I’ve wanted reconciliation between us all, my children, and them to their own, but I am happy enough to have this sense of family now with you and a few of your siblings.”
“why do you think our family is like this?”
he doesn’t pause. “it could be because it is simple to leave something untouched. it could be that it feels safer to leave first than to be left. I’m certain there’s a good chance it’s both. I don’t think you need to have the best connection to them, sweetie, but don’t let their absence hurt you. don’t let their presence either.”
there’s a part that might hurt either way; skin that’s grown over the sliver. I think about all that’s missed or lost, what don’t we know about each other; how I shake off envy when I see that getting older has made my friends grow closer to their parents. how often I dream of taking my mother on a road trip and airing out every grief between the open windows and an early Shania Twain album. I worry about my dad’s health and stubbornness; how frequently he’ll tell people he misses his kids, but refuses to pick up the phone. I know the images, the daydreams I hope to take place, are not with the same people that raised me, the ones I have. I can feel my mom’s detachment and her struggle to feel comfortable stepping outside the house. my dad joked about how I’d go to hell after leaving the church and finally getting a divorce.
Papa Paul hears my hesitation, “and remember we don’t have the power to make decisions for anyone else.” “right.” I respond.
“oh, my dear. I’m grateful you are willing to walk through the reeds and sit with this. I’m proud you’re willing to explore it. one of us has to. hey, have I told you lately,” Papa Paul ends our call in song, “that I love you? have I told you lately that I care?” his laugh, the most tried-and-true balm. “do you know that song, Schuyler? that’s it right there. that’s all we want to know. at the end of the day, that’s all we hope to hear. I love you. I’ve been thinking of you.”
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck
as someone with estrangement and distance passed from generation to generation, this really spoke to me - thank you for unearthing this cycle and sharing it with the universe. there are so many things unsaid, so many emotional barriers to navigate when dealing with family, the social construct of what family "should" be can make it difficult to accept anything other than what we're socially conditioned to believe family is. I have been leaning more into the concept of "chosen family" these days, without thinking that it's somehow lesser than a DNA-driven family tree.
How very resonant and timely. Beautifully penned, and so much I feel, is this representative of something so rampant in our shared social infrastructure.
I take this entry in even as I struggle with communication with my own daughter. The visceral push from within to initiate, and the hope that we can begin to knit together some manner of bridge to commence a healing. To open to the sea of who we are to each other in present time, regardless what has or hasn’t come before.
So…thank you for being the unwitting catalyst to what I hope to be a fresh chapter to the book of familial love and care.
Sincerely,
Nathan