Every other year we travel to spend Thanksgiving with my sister's family, but I believed this year it would be different. I thought this year SK would want to come home for the holidays, so I was over the moon happy when I got the call that said, "I want to go to the beach with the Sherrills." I tried to withhold my excitement as I asked, "Are you sure?" "Yes," SK responded, "I didn't see Ellison this summer. I want to see her." (Now Boss tells a different story, but this is MY blog.) I couldn't believe my good luck--our beach house (read my own personal sanatorium), all four of my children and husband together, and my sister/best friend and her family all together. IT WAS GOING TO BE PERFECT!!!!
Planning the meal wasn't as hard as I thought--the children pretty much told us what they wanted and we complied. Things were going beautifully. This was a piece of cake (which may in fact be the only kind of dessert that wasn't requested.) SK, Meredith and her girls arrived Tuesday night and the rest of us rolled in (after a 9 hour drive, but who cares when you're heading to heaven) Wednesday afternoon. There seemed to be a tad bit of stress, but that seemed to dissipate as we headed off to Poe's Tavern, a family tradition. I really believed this holiday was going to surpass all my expectations.We started teasing one another--some the same old things we say every year, but this year, for some reason, I got my feelings hurt. (And I suspect others feelings were hurt as well over the weekend, but again this is my blog.) How is it that family who knows you the best, loves you the most can also unintentionally (at least in ours) hurt you the deepest? I took my hurt feelings like toys in a sandbox and began planning in my head how I was going to respond or not respond or pretend to respond or well who knows, I just gathered up my toys prepared to flee--if not physically then emotionally. I decided disconnecting would be my response. When our feelings are hurt life isn't especially rational. And I certainly wasn't going to just admit my feelings were hurt or ask for clarification--why would I do that? That would have cost me hours of not being able to obsess over this.
Thursday morning during the Turkey Trot (and yes my 17 year old son who does not run on a regular basis beat me by at least five minutes a fact I'm trying to forget) I tried to process what had happened the night before--to make some meaning. I came to the beach with expectations--what I realize is that everyone came with expectations. We came together as a family who although is far closer than most extended families, doesn't live in the same places. We don't know everything about each other's daily lives; we all came with our own exhaustion, some of us with our own pain, some of us with our own feelings of failure and insecurity, but all of us with love. And we came with teenage children who have their own relationships with one another and thankfully with the adults. I truly give thanks to God for that. All those years of traveling to be together have paid off, but it creates a complex web of relationships. It creates a complex web of who knows what about who (and I'm not talking skeleton in the closest kind of stuff just stuff). Assumptions are made, comments are thrown out, words are said, and sometimes intentions are lost. We also came together as two separate primary families who have their own ways of doing things; their own ways of being--for starters the Sherrills are much calmer than we are--calmer by 1/2 the children, their own inside jokes.
As I was running I was thinking about our family, the unintended hurt and it occurred to me. Our family, probably many families, are a microcosms of what happens when different groups--whether its different races, ages, genders, political affiliations, schools--you name it, gather. Groups come together with their expectations of how things are going to be often without having discussed their expectations. Groups come together with different ways of understanding some words and actions; groups come together with their own histories, their own hurts, their own prejudices, and sometimes, these get in the way. Groups sometimes believe (and sometimes they're right, but sometimes they're not) that another group wants to hurt them--is making fun of something that is deeply personal and meaningful, and they want to hurt back or they want to flee. It is during these times we sometimes dig the trenches of differences wider and deeper and make the bridges to connection harder to construct. It happens in families; it happens in society.
I didn't take my toys and go home. I didn't even share my feelings. But I stayed and I engaged and everyone else engaged and it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was the peace and respite I so desperately needed with those whom I love most and who know me best--and still love me back. What keeps us together? Some may say it's just because we're family and we have that common bond--that history of love and forgiveness. That's where I was going with this blog on Thursday morning. That we have a commonality which is our family--our family name if you will. Then I was going to write that groups that don't flee also have a commonality. They have the commonness of humanity. The right to dignity and respect because they each and everyone are human and all created in the image of God however anyone understands God. That is all true--and I could end here, but for me it's not the ending. I think what made this the most perfectly hurtful, healing, loving Thanksgiving is that we all stayed and we all stayed engaged. That's the hard part--staying despite pain, despite anger, despite fear--staying and staying engaged again and again and again. Family staying; different groups staying; just staying engaged despite the difference, despite the pain. My prayer is that one day because we stay and stay engaged--the differences will diminish. We will no longer be different groups, different people, staying engaged--we will all be one.
No comments:
Post a Comment