I still mark the calendar with the birthdays of my niece and nephew every year. Small remembrances come to mind when I see the little cake-shaped stamp over their names come and go as I flip the pages. The memory of the one Christmas I spent staying awake all night when my niece had a dangerous case of the croup, and the ice cream birthday cake that melted two days before her birthday because it was too big to fit in my freezer.
Now it's come to this: just staring at a familiar, lifeless name on my calendar even though no one has died...and looking at the stash of blank birthday cards in the stationery drawer knowing that none of them will ever see the inside of her mailbox again. The events that led to my fall from grace are as knarled and twisted as a tree after a tornado. The only truth that can be found from the mangled roots is buried in the mud, releasing only the occasional bubble of insight that taught me the consequences of wanting honesty TOO much...
At what point in one's life does one realize who their family TRULY is? My gut always gave me the best feedback, but at the same time I was usually eager to be swayed by the euphemistic and softly spun language the people around me used to send me back into the smoke when I was too close to the fire. Unfortunately, I watched myself be made a target by family members who honed in on and preyed on my weakness for comradeship and acceptance, which they mistook for simple-mindedness and gullibility. I was often all-too-easy pickings for the family I usually suspected had no intention of ever counting me as an equal.
My main blunder occurred after my niece stayed with us for a week and I learned through her words and her behavior that she had been coached into playing "one last role" of the good niece for our benefit under the silent promise that she would never have to stay with us again; an ominous and familiar phrase in my family which is usually the prelude to being cut off from the family circle. The overbearing role, however, crumbled under the weight of my young niece's separation anxiety and homesickness, revealing underneath the callous and hurtful master plan she had been charged with by her elders which I could not ignore. I was witness to a process of turning a good child bad by my own flesh and blood and I, for lack of better words, snapped. My family members, however, refused to be villified by an "underling" and they took aim.
It was then that the underbelly of the already ugly truth made itself known: there are those who would rather live by their lies than admit fault. It was also soon clear that there are those who are willing to do openly unspeakable and evil things for the express purpose of demonstrating to others how unspeakable and evil someone ELSE is. Soon my past secrets and indescretions and scandalous mishaps were being washed in the family laundrymat in the filthiest water my family could find. People I had never even MET were given my contact information just so they could write me and tell me how awful they thought I was. Such was my family's fine-tuned powers of persuasion they could make nearly anyone see anything my family wanted them to see no matter where the carnage was coming from...at least for a while.
In not so many words, my role in the family was extinguished for little more reason than protective pride. False offerings of reconciliation have followed, just as they always have, for appearances sake and for further opportunities for deviance on their parts, but I pulled the wheels off of THAT wagon. I used to apologize first, regardless of fault, just to keep the peace, but all that did was train my family to believe they were never wrong. There is pressure to stay within a family and work things out and forgive and forget...but there are certain things that cannot be forgiven and certainly not forgotten, if only for the fact that damage was caused that was so volatile that it cannot be removed from the environment it was opened in. No degree of optimism should make anyone feel obligated to kiss their "poisoner" just because the person doing the poisoning is family.
