polarizeme

I have a really bad habit of spacing these out; by the time I finally get around to writing, I’ve got way too much to think and say.
…I really should stop that.

So I’m currently in England. Nan passed away last week and I had to jump through flaming hoops to be here for the funeral. I have roughly 5 hours until I’m sharing a room with the remaining shell of my grandmother, Betty Giles. I dare say that this moment, this week, is purely overwhelming.

You see, I grew up bouncing back and forth between two countries - my heart was torn in half. 90%+ of my family is here in England and for the last 16 years I’ve struggled to even remotely stay in touch with them. It’s not something that I talked about a lot until a few years ago when I realized that I barely even knew my family anymore. Earlier this year I came home and visited for the first time in a VERY long time. I felt reconnected to my roots again. I saw uncles, aunts, cousins and Nan; I saw countryside that I spent 25 years painting daily pictures of in my brain; I saw a part of me revived - a forgotten life force rematerialized inside of me. But there was still something missing…

There’s one thing you need to understand about my family’s history, and it’s that there’s only one word that could accurately describe it: secretive. Everyone in my family has their deep, dark secrets… and we’re not talking little ones. I’m talking about the stuff that 40 year feuds are built upon; I’m talking about the things that would make someone an alcoholic or ____ addict just to cope with the shit they’ve seen or done. But if you look past all of the bullshit that has haunted this family for 4 generations, you will see people that (at some point) stepped foot on the wrong path and simply may or may not have known how to make the necessary corrections.

Anyone that knows me, knows my stubborn nature; my drive to fix things. I’m left with a pit in my stomach on this trip home… I’m left feeling as if I ignored the force pulling me here for so many years and I’ve actually reached a point where I truly am helpless. I can’t bring sects of my family closer no matter how hard I may try and I’ll never get to truly understand who Nan was before passing. The years changed her so; they changed her mentality, her behaviour, her very nature. I want nothing more than to have spent more time with her and learnt about her life. I want to hear her stories. I want her to get mad and yell at me because she doesn’t think anyone understands her. I want to use my stubborn nature to hug her and tell her that no matter what she says or does to anyone in the family, I still know that there’s a person lurking inside of her that wants to be understood on a level that doesn’t involve dollar signs. I want to go back in time and be there when my little cousins were born. I want to watch them grow into the fascinating and hilarious young children that they currently stand as. I want to be there for my cousins by continuing the sibling-like relationship we had as children. I want to understand at a much earlier age that the feud between one generation of family should NOT be spread down to future generations; that sometimes you need to take your own stand because parents don’t always know everything.

But I can’t do any of these things. And it’s bringing me closer to tears than I’ve felt myself come in a very, very long time.

Closure was what I thought I was seeking when I came home… but now that I’m here, I realize that I wanted to come back just to continue to feel closer to a family that I had no active role in driving apart.

The secrets will continue, their nature having followed mum to the States a great many years ago. It is, unfortunately, instilled within me as well.

I only pray that it’s something I do not pass on to my children someday.

Rest safe, Nan. you’ve lived a long, strange, exhausting life full of things that I hope I never have to experience in my time on Earth. May I someday forgive myself for never trying to look past the bitter bickering of this family and understand you better, face-to-face.

xoxo,
- Tristan -

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 0:22 and is filed under England, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.