Examining family memories and a good book remind him — we are all linked together, we are all related
Some weeks ago I read a novel by Anne Tyler. I wasn’t familiar with her writing before that, but enjoyed reading it. I mentioned it to a friend and asked if he knew her writing. He said yes, that he had read a number of her works.
A day later, I went out our back door to discover a bag of books hanging from the outside door knob with seven Anne Tyler novels. (The most recent one I’m reading lists 22 works in all.) I’m working on them these days and discovering a common theme. It’s about family!
That is a common theme for all of us, isn’t it? Family! And the dimensions of our experience can be good and bad, weird and wonderful, challenging and supportive, all at the same time.
A family member, my sister, was just with us for the weekend. She traveled several hours with her daughter and daughter’s husband from Iowa. It had been several years since we had been together. We have both retired from driving long distances. But she seized upon the opportunity to come with younger drivers who were available and willing. It was a fine extended-family visit.
When I knew my sister was coming I was encouraged to dig into some old family papers and records that were long hidden away. We spent a good part of Saturday afternoon looking through them. There was a love note our father wrote to our mother on their anniversary. There were other poems and letters he wrote, expressing his love and appreciation for their relationship.
There was a memorial book from the time of our father’s death. It was filled with messages from people who knew him, often addressed to a certain family member. One read, “We should not be too sad when a man like this dies, but rather be thankful that a man like this lived.”
It was a typical kind of comment, as our father was a respected and appreciated clergyman.
There was a certificate of adoption for my mother. I recalled searching for our mother’s brother, also adopted as a child, but separated and sent in a different direction by the adoption agency. She had no knowledge of him or his whereabouts, only that he existed.
I pursued searching for him in different records to find he was deceased, but even that regretful knowledge pleased my mother, as she had known nothing of him from infancy.
We were reminded about how our crippled grandmother, who lived with us and was often our babysitter, stayed behind with me as I finished college, when the rest of the family moved to Hawaii. We were both to follow when I graduated. Grandmother died shortly after everyone left, requiring my mother’s quick return and impacting all emotionally.
Since both my sister and her daughter had birthdays while they were with us, with a few minutes difference between them, one Sunday and one Monday, we celebrated them both. The crowning event was the staff singing happy birthday at a Mexican restaurant while they were crowned with sombreros. Although we discovered both of them hated such displays shortly after I made the arrangements, saying they would walk out on such embarrassing activities, they stayed as they were serenaded, and I believe they have even forgiven me since, fortunately.
The previous week, other family members, our son and his partner, were with us for a few days. They helped us with tasks reserved for younger people, like cleaning out “stuff” from the shed. They enabled us to have a yard sale that pretty well emptied the upper shed floor.
Several other tasks requiring ladder work, like changing light bulbs, were done. Boxes of old canning jars disappeared from top cupboards in the kitchen; cabinets that hadn’t been opened in years. The jars went to new homes through his efforts and the yard sale. Both these family members were diligent in looking for tasks that younger hands and feet should perform.
Earlier in the spring, our daughter was with us for a few days. It was the time of my heart surgery. Although the surgery went quite quickly and smoothly, she was able to accompany my wife through the waiting and wondering. And it was an added joy for me to have her present in my recovery.
One more thought about “family” that needs to be mentioned. There was correspondence of my mother’s in the old files. One letter caught my eye, from the director of their retirement community, as my mother was leaving after the death of my father.
He wrote, “It is a sadness to all of our residents to have a member of our ‘family’ move away. You touched many lives and made a rich lasting impression, and we appreciate your contribution to the life here.”
We are reminded that family can be larger than blood kin. Even those like my mother, who don’t know their birth parents, can find and help make “family.” After all, aren’t we all part of the human family?
Carl Kline of Brookings is a United Church of Christ clergyman and adjunct faculty member at the Mt. Marty College campus in Watertown. He is a founder and on the planning committee of the Brookings Interfaith Council, co-founder of Nonviolent Alternatives, a small not-for-profit that, for 15 years, provided intercultural experiences with Lakota/Dakota people in the Northern Plains and brought conflict resolution and peer mediation programs to schools around the region. He was one of the early participants in the development of Peace Brigades International. Kline can be reached at carl@satyagrahainstitute.org. This column originally appeared in the Brookings Register.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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