5/25- Last Day Spent With Family

My cousin Amy and her wife, Corrin, picked us up in the morning and whisked us away to what would be a day of family. There was a bit of a frustration lingering behind this event because I was hoping to be able to get to see my Dad in his element with big family around. The barbecue was at my aunt's house, his younger sister, with my cousins, their spouses, and Deniz, the sole great grandchild of my grandparents. Dad had called on Sunday to let me know he wouldn't be able to make it to the event because he and Barb had to pick her youngest, Dan, up from Boston at that time, but they could do dinner. Hence the day was split and a family reunion averted.

I go into all this because I find it a bit sad. My Dad has always loved his family, and has always made sure to make such events as these. He grew up among throngs of cousins, aunts, and uncles all picnicking and having big family meals together and all of that seems to have ended with the death of my Nana, his mother. The beginning of this distance seems to have started as far back as 1989 when my parents divorced and I went one way and my sister another. I definitely believe the divorce was a good idea, but the crack began there and seems to have widened to a chasm that my sister and I have been trying to close in the past few years. Its also been unmistakably noticeable to me that as this connection unspooled between my Dad and us kids his hair went suddenly white-gray in a matter of months. As his mother's health worsened and she faded away over her last years, as did his in tow. This is why I felt him coming to this simple barbecue was so essential for him, and why going to Boston for a pick-up seemed incredibly sad to me.

All of that said, the afternoon was quite enjoyable. My Auntie Sheeba, as I've always called her, and her husband, Frank, hosted at their house out on their back deck, pool and all with the barbecue smoking away. Frank's parents were there along with some of their friends and friends of my aunt's. Along with Amy and Corrin, my cousin Tim and his wife, Burcu, arrived a little later on with their son, Deniz, who as I previously said is the only member of the next generation from my grandparents. Although, Burcu is expecting in August/September so more are on the way.

When Tim arrived I was given a glimpse back to the old days of Sunday afternoon dinners at my Nana and Papa's through Todd of all people. I was pretty sure Tim wasn't aware of what I was up to, or at least that I was traveling with someone, so when he arrived and went around saying hello to everyone he came across Todd and I spotted a familiar look on his face of the instant acceptance of a random stranger present at a family dinner.

My grandparents were avid church going folks to the Christian Science church in Springfield. Every Sunday after, we'd all gather up over at their house in Longmeadow, right next to Dave's house, with my aunt, uncle, cousins, my family, and then various people from church. Invariably there would always be just one person who had no connection to anyone whatsoever, but my Nana would find out he had no where to go after church so she'd invite him along for our lunch. This was what I was reminded of as Tim went around hugging and shaking hands of all the people he knew there, and not batting an eye when he came across Todd. It looked to me that he took him as a random guy who'd been invited in for lunch in the tradition of my Nana. Made me smile.

The afternoon was lovely as we dabbled our feet in the pool and watched little Deniz tromp all over the deck. When it was time to go we piled back into Amy and Corrin's car with our packs and were off to get dropped at my Dad's now for the dinner end of things. He had asked us to come at 6pm and it was 5pm when we got to the area. As I've hinted before things at the home there have been strangely confusing for me as far as how welcome I was. Its perfectly possible that having Amy drop me off at the front door an hour early would have been fine and dandy but I just didn't feel comfortable with that given the strange vibe floating in the air there recently. I had them drop us down the block at the entrance to the woods so Todd and I could hang out there for an hour then make a more timely entrance.

I don't know that I've actually gone into what this strange vibe was. I have said it could all be in my head, and that distance and separation I was going on about in the beginning of this post could also be weighing hugely into my reception of this, but at risk of sounding completely spoiled, I've never received anything less than an open arm reception to coming to see my Dad until this visit. My sister had made an attempt to come at the same time and, though she was never told she couldn't say, it was clearly told that this was a bad time, despite her plans to stay with Amy and Corrin. All of this has become an unspoken knotted intangible mess, at least in the minds of my sister and I, due to this sudden unexpected lack of welcome. I've hesitated to write about it earlier because I don't want to create a mess that may not actually be there, but in light of how the majority of the people involved feel, there appears to be an unmistakable mess now that may or may not just be something as simple as communication failure and an insecure reception on our part. I just don't know.

Regardless, this is why Todd and I hung out in the woods for an hour before showing up at my Dad's. We even intended on camping out in those woods for the night, before I changed my mind and took up Amy's offer to put us up for the night. The one thing I did know was that I definitely did not feel comfortable staying at my Dad's whether an offer ended up being extended that night or not, and roughing it in some back woods seems to be my pissantish way of emphasizing this feeling of unwelcome and that is nothing short of childish on my end. One last bed, and a night with my cousins would be a healthier and more fitting conclusion to my visit "home". Leaving Mass from there would send me off with a sense of still having family, where leaving from the back woods behind my Dad's house would definitely have sent me off with an abandoned and slighted sense that I would have created distinctly and unfairly for myself.

The rest in the woods, however, was quite nice. Things were culminating in my head from all this undercurrent drama and it was exhausting me. To sit in a field leaning on my pack for an hour let me unwind myself and prepare for a good last visit with my Dad. As I've described before, these new visits since his stroke are emphasized in our unspoken words now, just being present next to each other, and I was anticipating a drawn out dinner of awkward silences but still was greatly looking forward to just feeling him being near. That was essentially what I got.

Barb's mother, Phyllis, was in town for the event. We went down the road to a little Italian pizza place off Boston Rd. where the six of us, Todd, Dan, Phyllis, Barb, Dad, and I sat down to eat. Dan mainly spent the dinner texting under the table. Phyllis and Barb had a strange vibe to them through the hour long meal. Todd sat quietly most of the time observing. I spent my time chattering away about whatever, mostly the trip, and anytime I trailed off an awkward silence arose. Dad, as Todd noticed quite astutely, ate and listened and struggled to converse but seemed to be trapped in his own head unable to get anything out. You could almost see the man of himself screaming and shouting "I'm here! I'm here!" against the windows of his eyes inside. His mind seems to be functioning perfectly and energetically with the only shut down of his processor to relate it outward.

As we left the restaurant all Dad could do was wrap his arm around me as we walked to the car, but it transferred everything he was aching to say but couldn't. When we got back to the house we were there only a few moments before Amy swung by to pick us up again. I gave him a long hard hug, then waved goodbye and was off.

Getting back to Amy's we were set up in the guest room and given access to the computers while they did their nightly routine before bed. After Todd did some internetting he retired for the night as well, and I sat at the desk clicking away at Facebook. I ended up running across an old acquaintance from high school who was the younger sister of my friend Eric from those days, Kerry. I'd Facebook befriended her just before leaving Denver, but didn't really have a chance to talk with her, but as it happened we ended up chatting well into one in the morning that night. I was fascinated to find out how closely in tune her mentality and spiritual exploration was to mine these days.

Finally, after a long, in depth, and catharticly exhausting day I retired to bed, excited about finally heading west the next day.

Click here for Todd's perspective.