A Death In The Family

[mfh]

Harry, this is a wonderful tribute to your dad. He has had quite a career and obviously a very intelligent and respected man. It seems the apple did not far fall from the tree...i.e. you have so much in common with him.

It is good to hear from you and I wish you a safe trip home if you are still out west.

Peace,

Mary

[enna]

Thank you, Harry, for sharing this wonderful piece about your father. I also feel as though I've met him through your writing.

[kayc]

Harry,

You did a beautiful job. I've never given any thought as to what to say in my mom's obit. when the time comes, I can't even think of it right now, right now it's enough just getting through one more day. I have been thinking of you and wondering how you're doing, looked on FB but it didn't say much about you personally, more about Walking with Jane, so am glad to hear from you here. Your dad sounds like quite an impressive person and I can see where you got your intellect.

[Wifflesnook]

Such an interesting piece, Harry. Your Dad made a difference

[Queeniemary]

Harry, just a wonderful writing job on your father's obituary. Your father definitely was one of those making a difference in the history of our country. The pride you feel for him is shown in the writing. Safe journey home Harry.

QMary

[feralfae]

Dear Harry,

MY thoughts are with you as you make this journey of so very many layers, nuances, sorting of feelings and relationships, and more.

Peace to your heart.

fae

[melina]

Harry,

I'm so sorry to hear about your niece - it's a hard thing for a family to take. And now your father, even if you didn't have a good relationship.

My father died thirteen years ago. We didn't have the best relationship either. In fact, we really never spoke. Then my brother died, by his own hand,

after years of drug addiction, six years after my father. I loved my brother, but we rarely spoke either. He lived in such a different world.

Thinking about you and your family - and hoping you can all find strength in one another at this time.

Melina

[mfh]

Harry, I am sure it feels good to. E home and get so e rest as you ponder all that has happened. Be peace, Mary

[HAP]

My brother found my parents’ wedding license the night before I left Seattle. He also found the wedding guest book. It contains just two names: the pastor and his wife’s.

The documents prove some things we have always suspected. First, that my conception was the reason for their marriage—I was born seven months and one day after their wedding, and was way to big to be premature in any but the most generous sense of the word; and second, that they did so without parental consent.

I remember the first time their parents met. I think it was in 1961 after my father’s graduation from Carnegie Tech, though it might have been a couple of years earlier. I was at least six—and three of my other siblings were there. It was, even then, a cold meeting. I suspect each side blamed the other for the seduction of their child.

I suspect that any seduction was mutual.

Throughout their marriage, however, they kept much of this a secret. They did not visibly celebrate their anniversary—in fact never made reference to it. My brother Andy had the greatest interest in the mystery. He says he asked Mom about it when he was about 40. She was uncomfortable and refused to say anything about any of it. He also has talked to siblings on both sides. They claim no memory of the events—being busy with their own educations and families at the time.

I’ve never quite understood my brother’s fascination with this topic. He greeted finally being able to prove his suspicions with an unseemly glee. The combination of that joy and my own visceral pain at finally knowing the truth about my body’s origin awakened things I thought I had put to rest years ago. Suddenly I was 13 again and dealing—as I had then—with my brother’s harping on my alleged bastardy.

The word bastard has evil connotations that go far beyond the word’s casual usage today. A bastard in the old days was a demon spawn—and that was how I felt for a number of years after the initial accusation was set on my doorstep. The relationship between Edmund and Edward in King Lear is the archetype of the peculiar treachery a bastard is capable of.

And when my brother claimed then to have held in his hand the paper that proved my illicit conception, I was in real pain—pain that he did much to purposely exacerbate at the time. He acted the bastard’s role for all that I was the illegitimate spawn. To say we had sibling rivalry would be to understate the case. We had an active dislike for each other I was in my 20s before I began to recover from.

I don’t think he meant well at the time. Today he is a different person—a good man, by all accounts. So his reaction to finding those papers—and his joy at sharing that information with me in particular—was disturbing—especially given the hurt I was feeling at the time. It is one thing to think you know something about yourself. It is—I discovered—quite something else to discover concrete evidence that confirms it.

I know—intellectually—that I am not a bastard in any sense of the word; that because my parents were, in fact, married at the time of my birth, that I am not legally a bastard, either; I know I do not have that evil taint so long associated with that status. I’ve even joked about it for years.

Truth be told, though, I’ve always felt responsible for my parents’ marriage, always felt responsible for every fight they ever had, always felt responsible for my father’s anger and frustration and violence, always felt responsible for the dysfunctional nature of our family. It is illogical—and I know that. But it does nothing to change the way I feel. And in some senses, it has been one of the driving forces in my life. I want people to have a better life than I have had—as free as possible from the pain and bitterness that I have lived with.

But my youngest brother brought a different—and more positive—perspective to the conversation. He pointed out that had my parents put me up for adoption or arranged an abortion—although that was illegal at the time—or I had not been conceived at all and they had gone their separate ways, he would never have been born. My conception made, he said, not only his conception possible, but the lives of all my other brothers and sisters possible as well—and everything each of them has become.

It was certainly an interesting view of things—and one that gives me some marginal comfort a month later. There are, indeed, two sides to that coin. I may feel responsible for the bad things that happened in our family—but I can also feel responsible for some positive bits as well—not, logically, that I am really responsible for either set of events.

I’m also carried back today to the scenes of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I don’t need a Clarence to show me that I have done more than a little good in the world—I’m just sorry I have not done more. I’ve never been the best that I might have been in any situation. If I had, Jane might still be here—as might a number of other folks be. I’m dealing today with the suicide of a former student I had not seen in 30 years. Part of me wonders what might have happened differently if I had stayed in NH. Then I realize that had I stayed there none of what I did here would have happened—and other people would have died, perhaps, instead.

That I would not have known those people would have made things easier, but the fact is I do know them and I do know where there lives were headed and where they ended up instead. Every decision we make has consequences—and those consequences are both good and ill. We cannot see very far down the road when we have to make decisions that will shape our lives—and those of others—in both good and bad ways. But we have to make those decisions because even not deciding is a decision with consequences.

My parents made a series of decisions in 1951 and 1952. I don’t know how logical or emotional they were in making them. But those decisions led to a plethora of other acts and decisions that have changed the world in ways both large and small since. Over the course of my life, I have made tens of thousands of decisions—and each has shaped who I am and what I am doing now. But those decisions have forced others to react to them. We are all stones dropped in a puddle. Our passage through the water may not change what the water looks like, but it changes—if even for an instant—the direction other ripples and molecules flow. And while everything looks the same to the casual observer, everything is changed.

My brother’s discovery makes him feel good—so let him have it. But I am mindful of the harm that can redound from his knowledge. I hope he is wise enough to keep his discovery to himself. I thought myself inured to the pain that knowledge carried. I was wrong. It stung rather badly—still does, truth be told. And it has that same potential for at least one of my siblings.

I’ll get over this. I have done so before. Things like this are little bumps compared to the wound I now bear every day. I dislike having to shift energy to dealing with it when Jane’s death still hurts me the way it does. It is one more wound in a life suddenly—and increasingly—filled with cuts and bruises to the soul.

But there is joy in the world as well—and healing hands and words. We just have to remember to experience those things and let them do their work.

Peace,

Harry

[enna]

Harry said:

"But there is joy in the world as well—and healing hands and words. We just have to remember to experience those things and let them do their work."

Thank you for sharing with us, Harry. We are resilient humans, aren't we?

Anne

[kayc]

Harry, my own origins were much worse than yours...I was born 3 months and 27 days after my parents wedding, and I've never considered myself a bastard. That is such an archaic view! Besides, if they're married before you're born, you aren't a bastard, even in the old school of thought. How sad that your mom carried around those feelings so that she could not fully celebrate her anniversaries for fear of what others would think! My mom married, had three daughters, then had an affair with her husband's brother...which resulted in my conception, but divorces took longer in those days so they were barely married before I was born. She used to chide me for coming early, she said it was bad enough, I had to make it worse.

The wonderful thing is, we were born and given life! All of that would not have occurred had our conceptions not occurred how and when they did. We were given our particular set of parents to shape and mold us into who we are...whether good or bad, it did just that.

As you might surmise, my family was estranged from aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents due to my parents actions. It was hurtful to us kids, being cast off and not having extended family to have anything to do with us. But all I had been through in my young life served to shape and mold my thinking...

When in my first marriage, my husband had a child with someone else. He brought the baby home to live with us when he was just four months old. I took one look at him and determined in my heart that he should not suffer if I could help it, because of his parents actions...I knew all too well what that felt like. His paternal grandmother called him a bastard and wouldn't let him in her house. I thought that was horrible of her. I loved Bo and treated him as my own child. He is still in my life today, he's now 41 and the most wonderful husband and father. I'd like to think I played a part in his life, in how he turned out, and that God used my own origins to affect my response to his birth. Nothing is lost, all is used in the shaping and molding.

[Wifflesnook]

Wow, Kay, what an amazing story. It's a lesson in how complicated relationships can work out one way or another. And we think that it's modern families which are complicated. Nothing really changes, does it?

[kayc]

I remember the story of Joseph, in the Bible, how years after his brothers had gotten rid of him, he ended up being THEIR rescuer...they were feeling rather contrite by then, and he told them "You meant it for bad but God meant it for good" (He had a plan). I love how something bad was used for something good, and that's how I wish my life to be. Yeah, it can be complicated...I think people forget sometimes that it's the kids that suffer with the adults choices. I would never recommend having an affair with your brother in law, NOT a good idea, but if my mom hadn't, I wouldn't be here, neither would my little sister. None of us kids would be the same people if we hadn't experienced the things we had growing up, it's made us tighter knit too as siblings.

[Wifflesnook]

Actually the very same thing happened in my family, but no children ensued. It caused very great pain though.

[kayc]

I also had a great grandfather that married sisters, which wasn't uncommon back in that day...the difference being, their parents were dead and he and his wife raised her younger sister as their own child and then he married her when she was grown.

It's all very confusing to kids!

You're right, it can cause a lot of pain to kids. I know you have been through a lot, but I am both amazed and impressed by the person you have become and what you have done with your life. You have touched a lot of lives. PROVING we can turn it all to good.

[feralfae]

Amen Kay, amen.

*<twinkles>*

fae