The Pain of Loss or the Anguish of Family

12th May 2008

IS IT THE PAIN OF A LOSS OR THE ANGUISH OF FAMILY?

Everybody grieves differently and the impact of loss is felt by some deeply, while others internalize it and yet some may let it expunge from their system with the tears spilling out from their eyes. None of these methods of grieving are wrong and is as personalized as the person enduring the loss.

I’ve written of the closeness I shared with my Grandmother and yet I have yet to understand why the relationship with my immediate family so diametrically apposes the wonderful experience between Grandma and me. I feared that I would not be told by the very souls that should be the closest to me as to her passing. I was immensely appreciative when I woke early Thursday morning to find two phone calls from my younger sister and older sister accompanying a message explaining the death of Grandma. My first thoughts were of the graciousness that it took from both siblings to inform me and then I thanked my guides and God for the inner tranquility she must have felt as she passed in her sleep; peacefully devoid of pain.

With the absence of communications with my family; it made the arrangements of getting to Walla Walla difficult and costly, but there was never a question of where I needed to be. I didn’t slow down long enough to think about anything other than how to manage the journey and making the necessary steps to be there for my mother and the remainder of the people who loved grandma so dearly. I never once stopped or slowed long enough to think about the latest acts ostracizing me by my family or the impact as I moved towards Washington.

I made flight plans, rental car and hotel accommodations, packing and moving at such a feverish pace that I never thought about what I needed or how I would feel being in the middle of a family who loathes and hates me based on what I do. I understand why my actions exasperates the family members so profusely, but I have yet to figure out why if my writing is so loathed by them, why do they tune in to every blog. A prime example of my egregious behavior is what I’m doing right now…pouring my heart and feelings into a blog for the world to read.

The family does not care that without any meaningful expulsion of our true feelings that the subjects remain bottled up only to eventually explode or implode causing far more damage to all who truly matter. I found that by blogging I am able to release the harmful feelings and by doing so via a positive conduit that serves humanity extremely well. I have been able to traverse such personal ground enabling the subjugation of such negative thoughts and problems exchanging them for positive ones. In releasing the bad feelings that have been stored deep within my persona, forging a way of transiting these harmful memories creates a void that I have been able to fill with peace and solace. I have a better outlook on life and with each of my family members for which I have longed to find a way to be at peace with each person.

However, it doesn’t matter that my writing has everything to do with me and nothing to do with them. It has never occurred to anyone in my family that my path this past seven years has been a spiritual awakening of my soul and yes I write about my past because I desperately hopes that someone out there in our vast world might actually get some help or find tranquility in their own lives by knowing that they are not alone. I discuss the experiences that have defined me as a person for far too long and in my writing I am taking control once and for all over the ghost haunting me from my past.

No one else in my family had to suffer with the loneliness of coming to terms with being gay, so they don’t know the pain of feeling like you are the only one like yourself. They’ve never had to question the very breath they take trying to balance the taunts and treats of society who tells anyone daring to be anything but heterosexuals that they are wrong. Not one person in my family can understand the spreading of fear by most religious groups and their message of hate burn in hell while it sears into the mind for of all reasons that they never had the ability to choose. Why should anyone at such a young age have to try to challenge these notions when it is hard for them to even verbalize their own thoughts to themselves much less anyone else? Not one person in my family cares to understand the implications of starting their lives with so much weight bestowing them only sorrow nor can they summon the courage it would take to argue those points with the very family who should love their sibling unconditionally. Because they don’t know the isolationism and because most heterosexual people cannot comprehend the arduous journey that each homosexual must endure and how being isolated from the ones you love the most harms a person to their soul. My family is unable to recognize that my writing is a beacon to all others in this vast world of ours that might find themselves in similar situations in hopes of illuminating the fact that they are not alone in their quest for acceptance and unconditional love. Because the effects of being in a crowded room does not necessitate a warm or loving sense amongst the other cohabitants. Yet being so coldly treated might as well be isolating me to Siberia, but I never once thought about these consequences as I considered where to be at the loss of my Grandmother.

So I find myself writing as I am in a hotel room wishing I had brought my winter coat, because the chill is constant and it has very little to do with the passing of such a loving woman. The odd thing is that I don’t believe I need to be here to speak with Grandma and to tell her how happy I am that she is finally at peace and in a loving place. I can and have been saying my goodbyes to her and did not need to be here in order to be at peace with her crossing. So, in Siberia I sit pondering why I remain and for whom?

The question first annoyed me because I never asked before leaving if I should really be in Washington or would it garner more peace for all others that I remain in Georgia. I just dutifully took the steps I knew where necessary to support my mother and family. However, it behooves the question as I contemplate leaving. When do I start taking care of me and if the family doesn’t want me present, why do I keep placing myself in such situations remaining within their scrutiny, judgments and their loath for my life. I desperately need to extricate myself from these situations by saying farewell until such time that they decide they want and need me present unconditionally.

I was struck by the bluntness and acute assessment of my situation. I flew in to Seattle changing all of the plans once I got to my aunts. I finally received the real plans from my mother and it I had to change my flight back to Georgia, hotel and rental car. I could have saved several hundred dollars had I received the proper information initially, but all of the vendors I used for services worked with me under the circumstances to accommodate my needs. I recognized a familiar pattern that has evolved in this family with every crisis that has occurred previously. No one of importance has ever called me directly respecting me enough to give the news and plans, much less ask my thoughts.

In every family emergency I must hear the news through others secondhand and only when they either remember to tell me or realize that I have not been included in the events. In this set of events, everyone knew that I would be the only other family member daring to make the trip. As with all past scenarios, I am always left for someone else to reach because I am of no importances. My older sister’s birth of my niece, my mother’s accident that almost took her life, my younger sister pregnancy and later birth, all of the surgeries and major ailments of the family and the important aspects that you would think to be communicated to immediate family first and then outbound; however, I have always remained among the last to find them out. The initial announcement of grandma’s passing followed up with the distribution of the proper details necessary for making plans was not told to me as there are so many other people and tasks that are of greater importance rather than me. Even knowing that I would be the only one to attend; but as usual, the black sheep of the Dobson family was always the last to know. Here is where Grandma would say actions speak louder than words, so show me you love me! So am I to garner that my family loves me? Well, I need to start listening to the actions of a family that repeatedly tells me through their actions how I am not wanted.

So out of the four children it was known that I would be the only sibling making this trip. Yet as with all previous urgent family business, I was the last to know any details. As I laid in a bed in Seattle with that recognition falling upon me like a blanket filled with bricks, I wept because old patterns never change when the reflections of the family past is incapable of change. The dynamics of my family will never elevate me to a status greater than bad seed, annoyance and that of shameful black sheep.

I let myself get caught in the midst of this sentimental review when my Aunt, with whom I was staying in Seattle, begins to fuss about my blogs and the harm they do to the cohesion of this family. I know she’s just being the mouth piece for my mother, but she angers me since she has not read any of my blogs and the family only reads the sections they find themselves a party too. They never read the duality that I pride myself in trying to place both sides of a story or a structured reason of such atrocious actions. I don’t try to excuse any of us for our injustices, but rather I try to explain what it is that makes us the people we are…and I attempt this through love, understanding and objectivity. I have always tried to end each blog with how I or we must Love, Honor and Respect everyone, especially those who might harm us while calling it love. In their eyes I am exploiting them for my own gain and it is amplified with the words of my mother, “I am sure you gain lots of sympathy by telling everyone how horrible your life is, but they don’t know what you write is fiction”. My Aunt was relentless with her denouncing my writing without ever reading the words and yet I asked if anyone in the family has told her how many blogs were about my family and how many were on topics of politics, life, love and homosexuality. She stammered as I opened my blog and showed out of the last twelve posts, not one had anything to do with my family. She faltered slightly at this fact because as with most stories in my family, they stretch like a rubber band and evade the actual truth as it is always bent to allow that specific family member to acknowledge themselves superior to all others. My aunt revisited the subject two days later telling me that if I wouldn’t use their names how they would not think so ill of me and while I promised to only refer to my family by titles from this point forward, I explained that it would have little to no positive affects in the families loathing for my writing. They will always complain as long as I use my life as fodder and example.

My five hour drive from Seattle to Pendleton was one where every mile closer to my destination became another pin prick reminding me of the discomfort closing in around me. My mother wanted me to stay with her while she was staying with a friend and I very graciously denied. She then explained that she was staying at the hotel with her sister and I needed to stay with her enabling her to afford the room by splitting the cost. This only made me feel that much more uncomfortable because my last encounter with this aunt left with my first overt explanation by a fundamental Christian how being gay was a choice (and it is not) and how her Christian beliefs said that I would burn in hell. No matter what I said to argue her points she would not relent and while I can respect her feelings, I don’t have to subject myself to continued ridicule and abuse.

The reunion with my aunt was cold and harsh based on my unwilling ability to open myself up to ridicule again even with the attempts by my aunt to the contrary. I will gladly say that the next morning my Aunt acknowledged and apologized for hurting me those many years previously and tried all week to open lines of communication. I want to lift my armor, but I’ve done so too many times with this family only to be stripped of it and delivered to the rack where pain and suffering for all past, present and future accords will be garnered. It occurred to me while on the treadmill this morning; why was I here and for whom did I make this trip? If I answer as I did in my head at that moment, I feel my absence might grant more peace than could be ushered in with my presence. The little support I was able to lend my mother might be better felt if I was not present.

It was so much easier to be at peace with the isolation from the family when I was not faced with so many additional members. I don’t know what I am doing here excepting or causing more hurt for those grieving the loss in their lives and that should not be. I don’t know how to be my normal funny and happy person when some have been told how my siblings and mother feels about me and others do not. I hate the negativity that seeps out of me when I am asked simplistic questions about the family. Something as simple as “how is my older sister, younger sister, nieces or mother” when the answer is I don’t know because they have excommunicated me. I do know that moments like this should be good so that as my aunt did, you can open a doorway to forgiveness in those situations where it might help. I am sorry to those family members who wanted their cousin present and I purposely stayed away from them because I didn’t want to be close with my mother or harm an already tense situation. As for my family; I can respect their opinions about my blogs. They don’t like that I write with their lives between these pages, but as I’ve always said, there are two sides to every story and everyone is entitled to be judged by the truth and not speculation. My aunt in Seattle wants me to stop blogging all together and I won’t do that and am publishing a book this year, so my writing is not just a frivolous past time, it is something that will support me soon enough. It won’t be going away; it will only be increasing as I sharpen my talents and experience more of life.

In closing I will also send a strong message to my older sister and her daughter. I’ve known for some time that my niece is getting married this year. But my mother solidified that knowledge to the others gathered here. My mother did nothing wrong as the proud grandmother she is all too happy to speak positively of her grand daughters impending nuptials. I also know that my sister and her daughter have argued over inviting me to the wedding (no this information did not come from mom). My sister feels I must be invited out of obligation and my niece hates me and doesn’t want me present. Let me say how this day is for my niece and obligations should have no impact in the celebration of love; so don’t waste an invitation on me when it is not warranted. If I received one knowing how my niece feels, I would do the honorable thing and not show up. This should be a day to celebrate the love between two people and if either of those two people does not want a specific person present, they should never be forced to endure that hardship. It would only over shadow the love and joy the day needs to bestow.

With that being said, I have rattled the thoughts out of head and should shower after my run making myself presentable if only for myself. Do remember that the people in your life should be the ones you love. Learn from my mistakes and if you find yourself in the middle of any family situation that is too tense to bear, remove yourself for the peace in your heart as well as the harmony in the hearts of all others. It doesn’t matter why or for what reasons, learn that Love, Honor & Respect must be granted to yourself before you can truly give it to anyone else. We must also learn to forgive ourselves even when you don’t feel you did anything wrong, so that you can heal. Life is too short to spend it feeling pain and anguish over people and things you cannot or should not control. Stay tuned and I will let you know if I remained or if I leave before the ceremonies ever begin in an effort to maintain healing and peace for all.

Your humble servant – Todd M Dobson