I had lunch today with a man who has been happily married for close to 40 years. He has 4 children and 10 grandchildren. His greatest happiness is the time he spends with his family. His children all live within 1 and 1/2 miles of his home.
I asked if there was fighting amongst the group and he said no. His son was divorced when the wife he loved felt that she preferred a same sex relationship. But the parting was amicable and his son still loves his ex-wife.
As I probed to understand what I never had, I heard what I expected to hear: His parents and grandparents were also happy, grateful and stable. The seeds for a powerful sheltering family were planted decades ago.
Families should provide shelter and comfort for their members. But that doesn't always happen.
Trees provide shade and shelter, but their ability to protect doesn't happen overnight. A 100 foot oak tree may take 20 years to reach maturity and might take 80 years to reach full acorn production (http://www.ehow.com/info_8449073_long-reaches-maturity-bear-acorns.html#page=1).
I long for the loving, caring and sheltering family I never had, but I have no momentum for that. I most often walk alone, and observe families from the outside looking in. Sometimes people share with me the trauma and darkness of their families and I know I am blessed to be alone and in peace. But occasionally, rarely, I meet someone who is reaping where they did not sow, as the Bible says:
"For in this the saying is true: 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors." John 4:37-38 NKJV
So few people seem to be living with an eye toward future consequences. Lives lived selfishly play out with deep pain for future generations.
My father chose to abandon us via a letter sent to my mother while we were vacationing abroad. We were living in England and had come home to the U.S. to visit. He sent a letter to my mother instructing her not to return to England but to send us children back to him. She did not do that, and thus we were effectively dumped off in the States on grandparents' land, and in a very different culture and environment. The pain of that abandonment and the repercussions of his choice are prevalent in our lives today.
Sometimes I wonder, and imagine, how our lives might have been different had my father been there for us -- an advisor, protector and provider.
My father did the same thing (on reversed continents) to his second wife who was from England. When she went home with their daughter to visit England for a summer, my father sent them a letter instructing his wife not to return but to send my half-sister. Of course, my half-sister's mother did not do that and they were effectively dumped off in England. My half-sister told me of the confusion and pain she experienced as a result. She orthodontics on her teeth and no one to adjust them. I don't think she has much, if any, of a relationship with him today.
My point in relating these familial stories is to show that my father is not an oak tree for us. He did not spend his years protecting and sheltering his family. He spent his years chasing women and having affairs. I don't know what he does now, but I do know he has made no effort to speak with me nor has he ever apologized for how he dumped us. And during the years following his severing of his fatherly ties, he never made one effort of his own accord to visit or to see us.
My point in recounting this sad tale is to say that, It is not my fault that I do not have an oak tree for a family. It is not my fault that my father abandoned us (and the family he created that came after us). It is not my fault that my mother had mental issues.
How COULD I have possibly been prepared to make a good choice in marriage after all of that? Both of my marriages failed and I am better off for not being with either husband.
A large part of the pain I feel as a result of being without family, love, shelter and support is wondering what is wrong with me. I have come to see things a bit more objectively, and I see that the loving happy families that are thriving are the result of seeds planted by previous generations and very seldom did those families spring up overnight.
Feeling left out and rejected is a common emotion for me. As a child growing up, I felt that something was wrong with our family (there was) and so I felt that we were different from others. As an adult, I know there was something wrong with our family, and I can better understand it all, but that doesn't mean that this is not painful.
And so, as I look and observe, I can see that I was not born into a sheltering family. That is not my fault. I always thought maybe there was something I could do to fix it, or to find a new family.
I have not been able to find a sheltering family of my own.
But what I have been able to do is study psychology, achieve a Master's degree and almost my PhD in Psychology, and go to a lot of therapy to understand what happened to me and most importantly -- to make sure that it doesn't continue to happen. I have been able to improve my choices and I am not in a toxic relationship -- something that I was primed for as a result of my traumatic upbringing.
And so, I am grateful each day for what I DO have. I am grateful for each kindness that comes my way. I do not take any friends for granted. I treasure each true friend, and am always ready if another real friend should appear. It hurts each time a friend cancels time with me because their family has a gathering to which I am not invited. But I understand that I am not part of their group.
I believe that my painful experiences have created a deeper understanding of other's pain. I hope that at the end of my life, even if I die alone, that somehow, my life will be a life well lived, and that I helped as many people as I could.
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