… just for clarification, I mean the family I was raised in.
I have a big family.
A big Italian family.
A family that gets together frequently using something trivial like a hang-nail removal as the excuse.
We all get along :: even the multiple ex wives of my cousin :: .. we laugh.. we kid.. we joke..
We have no addiction problems.. no felons.. no pedophiles. We are all educated.. have good jobs :: well, except for me since I was laid off but hell.. I’m a BUSINESS OWNER! :: .. take care of the things we need to take care of and don’t try to get things for nothing.
Arguments are few and far between and the whole of my speed dial capabilities are filled with people I share DNA with. There is never an excuse to be lonely or alone… one can always find someone to do something with.. or vent to.. or ask a favor of.
Everyone in my family has been married in excess of a decade :: even the as-for-mentioned cousin with all of his multiple ex wives :: .. there is no such thing as “distant cousin” or “second cousin” or “fifth cousin once removed”
We’re family.. through thick.. thin.. good times and bad.
These are the people I know I can rely on .. have my back.. come to my defense.. any time night or day.. as they know the same about me.
I used to think that other people’s families.. the one’s rife with dysfuction were the exception to the rule but recently it dawned on me that MY family is the one of those things that’s not like the other’s.
For the last 30 or so odd years ago my brother has been friends with Trek. And because he is my brother’s friend.. my family has accepted him as one of their own. He is like another brother to me.. so when his mother recently passed, my family converged on the funeral as if it was one of our own. And in a way, it was.
What struck me odd was that in the thirty years that I have known Trek, this was the first time I was introduced to his brothers and their wives and their children. It never dawned on me before. But what struck even odder was the fact that my MOM had never met them before. Thirty years is a long time to know someone and Trek’s mom has been to our house and our functions a zillion times but I just cast it off to one of those thoughts you have when your sitting in a church with a casket three feet away and there really isn’t anything else to do until the service starts except people-watch.
So fast forward to after the burial and everyone is invited to a luncheon. I don’t know why.. it’s just something that’s done, I guess. But anyway.. because I know where the restaurant is :: and my brother insisted on following someone ELSE :: my, my mom and my aunt get there first. And because we are the first one’s there, it is our duty to make sure that there is enough seats at the table to accommodate us three, my brother, his wife, my nephew, my brother’s OTHER 30+ year friend and HIS mother.
The tables hold 12 and since we were only 8 there was more then enough room at our table. HOWEVER, the table assigned to the family was short one seat and it became very apparent very quickly that Trek was going to be the short man out.
He sat with us and it was then that I learned that not all Italian families are as close knit as mine is.. that hardly ANY families are like mine. Trek has issues with his brothers.. issues that go far deeper then the fact that as the youngest brother and the only single brother, care for their ailing mother fell on his shoulders without any help from the others. That now, even before this poor woman had dirt on her coffin, the oldest brother was hiring a lawyer because he wanted his “share” of the family home that was sold to Trek almost 10 years ago.
It was disgusting… and so very sad.
When I got home that night, I told Chief that all this time I thought my family was the normal ones. And I guess maybe that’s why I have such a hard time here.
I was talking to Chief’s cousin Bird last week and telling her about how I wake Bubba up.. make him breakfast.. drive him to school.. wake Spaz up.. make HIM breakfast.. drive him to school.. come home.. clean the house.. straighten out the bedrooms.. work at the shop for a few hours.. come home.. cook dinner.. clean up after dinner.. iron shirts.. clean the bathroom.. etc. etc. etc.
She was like, “… you’re fucking crazy! You do WAY too much”
But the thing is… my grandmother did that for her family … my mother did that for HER family … and now I’m doing it for mine.
It was how I was raised and given that both my grandparents were married for 50+ years and my parents were married for 40 when my dad died.. I guess they were doing something right.
Bird said, “.. you know. You’re right.”
I have to learn to accept the fact that Chief and his family are different.. and that they never knew enough to appreciate what I am doing for them. Chief’s mother wasn’t Donna Reed so he doesn’t know what it’s like to live in an environment where there is no air unless it’s perfumed with Pine Sol.
The question is… who needs to adapt to what?
LIVING ME 101 