I learned yesterday that my Uncle Phillip had passed away after a battle with cancer. Honestly, I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel or react to the news, because I’m torn.
I’m torn, because he’s a man I met once maybe twice in my life.
I’m torn because he looks so much like me {and my dad}, yet I know literally, only what is written in his obituary and from a few stories shared through the years by my dad.
I’m torn because it’s another connection to family that will never be ~ and I don’t know why or how to fix it.
See, my family, they don’t have anything to do with each other. On my mom’s side, everyone has died and add that she is adopted and well, there is no one left. That’s a story for another day {or a lifetime of stories}. My dad’s side, where my Uncle Phillip falls, is just a huge mess of dysfunction. The brothers and sisters haven’t spoken to each other and I have never met some of my cousins EVER.
My circle of family is shrinking quickly. I’m like the center of a bulls-eye and there are so few family members left – other than those I’ve never met or seen. It’s like being on an island and slowly seeing that the sand is eroding and it’s closing in. There’s a feeling of loneliness for a family circle that’s never been established.
My sister and I are close and we have chosen to break this circle of dysfunction. But, I don’t know how to break it with the rest of the family. What might I be inviting to the table if I open the door to the family I don’t know? My husbands family is just as dysfunctional as my own so we distance in an effort to keep our son Pierce safe. People joke about parading crazy on the porch, but sometimes, the parade just isn’t worth the work.
I don’t want to go through life continuing this cycle, but how does one reach out – do I use Uncle Phillip’s death as the catalyst to send a message saying sorry for your loss, and I want to know you or do I just let that branch of the family die off and tend to the branch {my sister and her family} that I know and who wants the relationship enough to invest in it themselves?
Perhaps Uncle Phillip’s family will read this by some freak act of social media and reach out, but I’m not holding my breath. I know I’m not the only person in this situation – I mean my sister sits calmly on the bench with me knowing that dysfunction hides behind every door and window we peak through. It’s not something we want to invite to the table. It’s something we actively run from on a day to day basis. Until the call comes, on Easter to say, your Uncle died…on Thursday…it’s Sunday and they just called to let us know. Of course, this phone call came in a series of messages left by first my mom, then a call from my sister who was trying to run interference, and finally a blunt message left by my dad. Because I haven’t spoke to my parents in almost 2 years, but that is also a story for another day {or series of days}.
Uncle Phillip, I’m sorry I never got the chance to know you, and I wish you had made an effort to get to know me. Maybe you did, but I never knew. I don’t hold you solely responsible, but there are a lot of silly things that happened between adults that ultimately affected their children. Learning that you and Aunt Charlotte were married for 50 years would have made for some interesting conversation as I love to talk to people who’ve had long marriages. I’d love to have met my four cousins, and all their children who “cherished” you as a grandpa. To me that says a lot about you as a man, a father, a husband and a grandpa. I wish I knew why you and your siblings never talk, and why my dad now won’t be attending your funeral, because I just can’t fathom not being at my own sisters or her families side should she ever need me in that capacity. But losing you, other than being shaken that my circle has shrunk yet again, won’t do anything but make me grasp harder to those I do have left in the circle ~ and hopefully I’ll have the courage to send a card with the right words to comfort strangers who are family.
Uncle Phillip
