::Reintroduction, the Final

toplayalongathome:thefool3rdestate

In which our Protagonist is Glad to be Quit of this Series

This is the last. I waited until after Thanksgiving deliberately. The more I gave thought to this entry, the more I realized how bitter I am about my family life. Now isn’t really the time. But… is there an appropriate one?

Let’s begin with the basics:

I had a more-or-less normal childhood. My parents loved each other dearly and taught my little sister and I well. We weren’t beaten. We weren’t molested. We were fed and clothed and loved. We were made strong and smart. The usual teenage alpha-male bullshit caused me to leave the nest a little earlier than some, but my relationship with my parents became stronger for it after they began seeing me as an adult.

The only thing that was really odd about my childhood is the slow process of distancing from the rest of the family. We started out an hour from most of the relatives and saw them a lot, but had to move several hours’ travel away when the steel mills closed and we needed to chase real jobs for Dad. Each year we made fewer and fewer trips north to see the family. Eventually we stopped going up on holidays. The phone calls petered out. The Christmas cards stopped coming. When I graduated high school, one relative made the drive (I miss you, Great-Uncle Ben).

Now we are few. I wouldn’t recognize any of my cousins. I got word two weeks ago that one of my grandmothers died, and I realized I hadn’t seen her in probably fifteen years. I felt no sorrow, but felt ashamed for the lack of it.

My father died almost five years ago ( link ), escaping a good deal of suffering at the hands of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and (I think) too many prescription drugs.

I thought my mother couldn’t live without him, but fortunately I was wrong. She fought bravely through depression and (of all things) met a decent man on the Internet. He commuted down on the weekends to date her. They eventually married, and I couldn’t be happier. They were both widowed and needed a partner. He’s a good man and can take care of her where I cannot. Unfortunately, he also whisked her a day’s drive away, to the frozen wastes of Michigan.

My sister got an engineering degree and, eventually, a husband. She just had her first child six months ago. I don’t hear from her much. The man she married has a huge extended family, and that’s where she spends Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think she’s a little embarrassed by Mother and I. We sometimes wonder if she eloped to avoid having a church wedding with only two of us on one side of the aisle.

In any case, at least my little niece will have family.

I have my girl, K. She’s as good as family. It’s funny, she’s in a similar boat as me in regards to her own immediate family. Her father died a couple of years ago. She has some estranged half-sisters somewhere in limbo. There’s her mother, who is a dear and wonderful old woman. I love her. Two more of her mother’s generation, two of our generation, and their son, all of whom I’m barely acquainted with.

Mom and her husband visited last week! Ten people at our Thanksgiving — and I was thankful for it; it was the most in years. I really am happy for these people being in my life. But in truth, none of them live within an hour of me. I see them at holidays and on special occasions. I don’t have (and never had) the kind of family support structure that many of my friends do.

I’m jealous. A little bitter. Maybe a lot bitter. I worry about what’s going to happen to me when I get old, and who is going to take care of me. What will I do when my mother dies and my sister moves farther away with her husband and brood and never calls?

Sometimes I think about children of my own. I worry about that. I’m still not ready. I started on “adult life” so late. I don’t have assets or a college degree; a child now would guarantee a life of poverty for all of us. And, all that aside, I’m still not ready for that 24 hour responsibility and neither is my mate. Maybe my little niece will soften us up on that. Remains to be seen.

My other sticking point on breeding: my father died at 50, when I was 25. His father died around the same age — I never met him. I’m older now by far than my father was when I was born. Is it moral for me to even consider having children if I won’t be around to father them? Cardio science is what it is, and it is always getting better. But I still agonize over what could happen if I try to start a family when I’m already (unknowingly) past my mid-life point. I don’t know. I’m not ready to make that decision now, anyway. Even if I were wealthy, established, and guaranteed of a 100-year lifespan, I’m not sure I’d be ready. So we’ll let that dragon lie.

Fifty cents and a thrown rock to the person who guesses where in this entry I shed a tear.