I had a falling out with my dad a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t do anything unusual to warrant it — he was just being himself. Accepting my dad for his (flawed as is all humanity including yours truly) self is something I’ve worked to do mostly with success. And in fact my freelancing struggles helped bring us closer because if anyone knows about cold-calling, networking and difficult clients, it’s my former insurance salesman dad.
But a number of things happened that just put me over the edge and I canceled the father’s day dinner I was going to cook him.
I’m not proud of this; it’s just true.
You know what it was, it’s that the Friedman Family reunion was just about to happen and I couldn’t go (neither could my sister). (It happened this past weekend.) And it made me think of all the visits my little sister’s have gotten back there courtesy of my dad and how he never flew us (myself and my full siblings) out there. How my big sister missed my grandfather’s funeral and how much this still devastates her. I can’t help it — it makes me feel like the forgotten post-divorce kid again. Apparently I’ve got an inner 12-year old who holds grudges.
I’ve always identified with the Friedman side of my family because I am a Friedman (in name) and because I look like a Friedman (in stoutness). Also I more strongly identify with my Jewish heritage, which is my dad’s side of the family. Finally we lived in California for awhile, where much of the Friedman family lives, and so when I was a kid for three halcyon years, we felt very Friedman-ish.
But once we left California and once my grandparents died, we had no real contact with that Friedman side. None. My dad’s brother came out a couple of times but the extended family? No contact. This was before the internet age, of course, and casual relationships were harder to maintain.
In my late teens, the whole Friedman family mystique kind of took hold. It’s when I took (and failed) Russian. It’s when I first started thinking about identifying as Jewish and learning more about Judaism. It’s when I knew I’d never change my last name if I got married. It’s also (early college) when I quit talking to my dad. Coincidence? I think not.
I had this idea that there was some place I belonged without question and that when I found this place my life would start to make sense. I was eighteen, searching for myself and desperately seeking guidance on the journey. And like many kids my age, I was looking for those answers in my family tree.
So I was/am miserable about missing the Friedman family reunion not just because it reminds me of how much I don’t have as far as those extended family ties but also because I realized I had this very quiet, very childish inner dream that they were all missing ME like I was missing THEM. Like they were all sitting around going, “There’s a place in our heart that is just so Dawn-shaped but where is Dawn?”
It’s funny how those childish dreams just keep on powering our emotions even when we’re not aware of them.
But what made me identify this was thinking about how adoptees in reunion are sometimes disappointed and I thought about how family ties can matter to us in a way that is different than how they play out practically and what would I tell an adoptee who was trying to find herself in old photographs and failing as often as she’s succeeding? I would tell her — they’re your family no matter what and you can take what you need but you also have to accept the limits of the reality of your relationships. Which is what I’m working on for myself. (And as an aside, I am of course thinking about Madison and her family ties and her losses and feeling grateful — dare I say it — for this hard-earned empathy so I can help her if her struggles are similar.)
I told my sister (my full sister, Erica, who is also pretty devastated about Friedman family reunions that don’t seem to miss us as much as we miss them) that I was going to try disengaging my fantasy. I was going to try interrupting it. I was going to try to say, “Yes, that’s where I got my Russian peasant physique but it’s not where I’m going to find all of my answers.”
I wondered to myself, why so much with the Friedmans? What about my mom’s side of the family, which is rife with passionate, smart, hard-working heroines and which has been so much more welcoming and so much more available? And the answer is — because my mom was there; I didn’t have to yearn for her. I could take her (and her ancestors) for granted. They were already mine. But the Friedmans — I lost them when I lost my dad.
I will always have lost my dad. I can’t help that. Even he can’t help that. We can’t fix the way back when. I can, however, heal some of the hurts by adjusting my point of view and letting go of daydreams I didn’t know I was holding onto. Only I’m not so hot at it right this very minute so I’m still not up to calling my dad. (Especially because he is totally impatient with this stuff — I think it’s the guilt, which he covers with exasperation because I do think he feels guilty and really, he ought to although I’m not sure if it does any of us much good. I’m just still mad enough to want him to feel lousy, too.)
Who knew that growing up could be so painful four decades into this living thing???
I had the same longings for my dad’s family growing up, and just this morning was thinking about how my dad, my stepmom, and my brother and sister used to take weekend trips to kings island in the summer and since I worked on saturdays (at my aunt’s store, b/c when my grandpa died I had to pay my own way) I could never go. And it never really bothered them, and they never really tried to work around it. And then fast forward to my wedding and they were hurt, shocked, and insulted that I didn’t consult them on my invitation design, and were offended that the first time they saw it was when they got it in the mail. Nevermind my dad was an ass about paying his portion and his portion only, didn’t matter to him that my mom lived just at the poverty line.
Whew. Thanks for that.
I also didn’t change my name, as you know, and this strong identification with my dad’s family was why.
Hmmm…I have a feeling I know at least one topic of conversation at dinner next week!
ugh…this stuff can keep us at a toxic state of being for decades…mine all had to do with our big move when I was 10. For the first ten years of my life I lived surrounded by love from my maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Then we moved and my paternal grandparents were cold (although I did eventually connect with my grandfather but then he got Alzheimers), distant, not very interested. My aunt was just plain evil and my cousin a pathetic result of his mother’s viciousness so yeah…then to add insult to injury even the maternal relatives on this side of the world were warped (my cousin would whisper things like “i’m only kissing you good-bye because they are looking” or “are you wearing THAT…can’t go with us if you do” – yeah…I spent many years angry and yet also pining for their love and attention…until I finally let go.
Some died off and the rest I just don’t see and those I do I keep reminding myself that I have to accept things for what they are and not for what I’d like them to be.
I understand though…my inner child is 10 and hurt that her new family doesn’t like her or actually emotionally hurts her so I have to tell her that “I” love her and that is enough…to hell with the rest.
Such an illuminating, intelligent yet heartfelt post, Dawn. I love how well you can express yourself. Thank you for sharing your experience. I learn about myself when I read you and that is a lovely and precious gift that you give to us all.
Well, this made me cry. It’s part because I’m home in MA right now and all up inside my family stuff…the stuff I only get to be all up inside once a year…and this year for some reason (maybe because I’m less attached to my point of view, maybe because I’ve reached the tipping point in how much far away from my people I can handle) I feel at home in the family stuff. I miss my people. I miss my home region. I’m thinking about my dad who is gone and living in FL and who I haven’t spoken to in 6 years and the miles deep holes of hurt that take his shape. It doesn’t help that I watched Rachel Getting Married last night and cried so much my nose ran down my chin.
reading your words and how you’re able to circle around the feelings you have to see it from all sides and still come back to the place where you know you’re not quite there yet is just so affirming. this growing up four decades in thing IS hard. So hard.
anyway. I’m glad you wrote this even if I do now have to explain to my mom why I’m all piggy eyed again.
love.
This feels timely in my world too. Went to a funeral yesterday for a cousin that I grew up with in a family we used to spend lots of time with when we were younger. As all the kids grew up and had kids, the group got too large to all be together for our summer gatherings, so I didn’t get to see them so much. It used to really make me ache for them all, but I also feel insignificant in their world.
At the funeral, I felt so much love for this cousin’s siblings and tried to convey that in my hugs and my words, and it felt like so little in the midst of their grief.
Thanks for writing this, Dawn.
Came here through a happy accident. I love the title of your blog and the honesty and clarity of experience written here. Glad to find you.
Maggie
Your father is so lucky to have you and I find you to be so very flexible and forgiving of him.
With my parents I explain to myself that it’s like expecting them to be able to play the violin – they can’t play violin and they can’t be any different either.
My father’s apathy towards me and my siblings is something I have accepted, I’ve also given up on him. Your father is lucky that you haven’t given up on him.
I don’t think there’s anything childish about your dream, Dawn, that they miss you as much as you miss them. That’s a reasonable expectation of family, especially of a parent.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t work toward accepting the relationships as they are rather than as you wish they were, of course.
And wouldn’t you know that Facebook can add a new dimension to the hurt that comes with feeling left out of a family where you technically belong, but aren’t included?
My situation is similar due to divorce and sibling issues in my dad’s generation, and when I see that my cousins– and second cousins and third cousins– are all friends with each other on Facebook–but not with my sibling or I, it hurts.
I try to envision how I can create a better extended-family situation for my own kids, but that’s a loaded bunch of relationships, too. What a mess!