Why do we do the things we do? What overarching principle governs our behaviour? For me, I think relationships. "No man is an island", "I am a part of all that I have met", "Let me live in a house by the side of the road, and be a friend to man", all favourite sayings and ways of seeing life. Daughter, sister, friend, mother, wife, child of God, cousin, church member, volunteer, citizen - all are ways of relating to others and are important to me. I measure my success in life by my successful relationships and my failures by the relationships that failed. Not everyone puts priority on relationships. The church I belong to is first of all "Gemeinde", a group of like minded people who put relationship above personal interests. The community I live in puts relationship above individual interests. In the family, relationship counts for more than "doing it my way". As part of various groups, I am continually making compromises in order to preserve relationships. And that is a way of living that I find satisfactory. For my father, relationships were of primary importance and from him I probably learned this way of thinking.
Relationships were not of top priority for my mother. Preserving identity seemed to be most important to her. She seemed to have a fear of having her self-image swallowed up by others and was continually on the defensive, not a good way to build relationship.
My husband spent his life trying to assure himself of acceptance. Acceptance by his mother and siblings was never unqualified and so he went through life living an act, the act that he thought would make him acceptable to the ones who mattered most to him, his birth family, who alternated between acceptance and rejection. To the general public, he presented the image that others would smile on and would never refuse any request, no matter how inconvienient, in case that should lead to rejection. Intimacy is impossible when you're playing a role; the real you can never come out because it's not safe out there. That also interferes with relationship because relationship has to be based on trust, which has to be mutual. We never had the relationship I had hoped for when we first married.
Why did his mother do this to herself and to her children? Power seemed to be her dominating motivation. Feeling powerless to control the events of her life, she put all her energies into trying to control the people in her life. It was a very uneasy relationship between her and her children, who resented her for her controlling ways and felt guilty for that resentment because they understood her powerlessness. In turn, they turned their resentment against each other and tried to control their siblings, in particular, their youngest brother, my husband.
Where did their mother learn this behaviour? Was it from her mother? Her mother had a child before she married and married a man who was born illegimate, whose mother, also born illegitimate, died when he was fourteen. He brought up a family of thirteen children. What sort of life did they lead? His granddaughter said, as an old lady, " The Hannahs nae were a very sociable family". Was there love and acceptance in that home? My husband's mother left that physical environment behind her but brought the emotional environment with her and condemned herself to live with it to the end of her days. Now it lives on through her children and grandchildren. George Hannay, what did you do to Isobel Fairbairn almost two hundred years ago that the ripples should extend to the present day?
Monday, February 20, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Deathwatch
Everyday, my husband grows weaker. That's an oxymoron. He's not growing, he's fading away. Yesterday he drank a glass of water and could say "hello". Today, he could hardly keep his eyes open and he just couldn't manage to get a sip of tea to come up through the straw. There just didn't seem to be enough energy to make the effort to suck on the straw. His middle daughter and her husband and daughter come every Sunday afternoon to see him but there is hardly any recognition of their presence. His granddaughter always used to bring a smile to his face, but no longer. There seems to be no joy left in his life.
Last month, his niece and her daughter flew in from Vancouver Island on the coldest day of the winter to see him. He managed to get out "nice to see you" and mustered some smiles for them. His sister, his only remaining sibling, sent him a letter after that visit, telling him how much she loved him. He acknowledged the letter with a weary look that seemed to say "too little, too late" but had not a single word of response. Since then, he has continued to slip. He drinks his energy drink, liked the Valentine flowers I brought him, and had a valentine chocolate, but then almost choked on the last of it. At the end of every visit, we think, this may be the last visit, and then we come again the next day and he's there, lying in his chair, eyes half closed, mouth half open, looking more dead than alive but still - with us, at least in body.
I have been reclaiming my identity. My identity as Mrs. is history, so who or what am I? I have my own apartment, not a house. It's furnished with bookcases, a computer desk and filing cabinet, bookcases, six of them, bedroom furniture, a kitchen table and chairs, and a loveseat and two easy chairs. There's a wooden chest for my quilts and a CD player for my music. The accordion and keyboard are waiting to be put to use again. The pictures on the walls are my favourites, mostly scenery, and my University certificates are no longer embarrassed to hang over the computer desk. The music in my CD stand is classical, folk songs and religious songs. I can play it any time I want. I sit up and read until 11 or 12 p.m., get up at 8 and go for exercises and no one laughs at me for exercising. I can express my opinions freely without hearing "that's what you think". The people I live with smile when they meet me and greet me in a friendly way, no one scowls or expects me to make way for them.
I go where I want to, when I want to, and no one asks why I go where I go and why I was so late getting back and why supper isn't ready yet. It's quiet here and sometimes it feels lonely, but mostly, it feels very peaceful.
Guilt and a lack of self esteem don't make for a happy person. My husband struggled all his life with the guilt of having contravened his mother's wishes by getting married and leaving her to live alone. Apparently, the family, even cousins, knew that he was not meant to marry but was to stay with his mother on the farm. No one, including my husband to be, shared that piece of information with me, and so it was as it was. Once the vows had been said, "for better or for worse, until death do us part", it was too late, although my husband's mother and some of his siblings made mighty efforts to try to drive me out of the marriage. My husband and I hardly knew each other when we got married but how can you desert someone whose own family is turning on them, seemingly without cause?
After his mother failed, at considerable financial cost to herself, to break up our marriage, we were left in peace. By ten years after our marriage, she was again speaking to her son, although she never did condescend to speak to me, the villainess who had led her son astray. So we all have roles to play in life and mine was cast for me, forty-six years ago.
Now I choose my own. I am me, the me that I like and choose to be. Hallelujah!
Last month, his niece and her daughter flew in from Vancouver Island on the coldest day of the winter to see him. He managed to get out "nice to see you" and mustered some smiles for them. His sister, his only remaining sibling, sent him a letter after that visit, telling him how much she loved him. He acknowledged the letter with a weary look that seemed to say "too little, too late" but had not a single word of response. Since then, he has continued to slip. He drinks his energy drink, liked the Valentine flowers I brought him, and had a valentine chocolate, but then almost choked on the last of it. At the end of every visit, we think, this may be the last visit, and then we come again the next day and he's there, lying in his chair, eyes half closed, mouth half open, looking more dead than alive but still - with us, at least in body.
I have been reclaiming my identity. My identity as Mrs. is history, so who or what am I? I have my own apartment, not a house. It's furnished with bookcases, a computer desk and filing cabinet, bookcases, six of them, bedroom furniture, a kitchen table and chairs, and a loveseat and two easy chairs. There's a wooden chest for my quilts and a CD player for my music. The accordion and keyboard are waiting to be put to use again. The pictures on the walls are my favourites, mostly scenery, and my University certificates are no longer embarrassed to hang over the computer desk. The music in my CD stand is classical, folk songs and religious songs. I can play it any time I want. I sit up and read until 11 or 12 p.m., get up at 8 and go for exercises and no one laughs at me for exercising. I can express my opinions freely without hearing "that's what you think". The people I live with smile when they meet me and greet me in a friendly way, no one scowls or expects me to make way for them.
I go where I want to, when I want to, and no one asks why I go where I go and why I was so late getting back and why supper isn't ready yet. It's quiet here and sometimes it feels lonely, but mostly, it feels very peaceful.
Guilt and a lack of self esteem don't make for a happy person. My husband struggled all his life with the guilt of having contravened his mother's wishes by getting married and leaving her to live alone. Apparently, the family, even cousins, knew that he was not meant to marry but was to stay with his mother on the farm. No one, including my husband to be, shared that piece of information with me, and so it was as it was. Once the vows had been said, "for better or for worse, until death do us part", it was too late, although my husband's mother and some of his siblings made mighty efforts to try to drive me out of the marriage. My husband and I hardly knew each other when we got married but how can you desert someone whose own family is turning on them, seemingly without cause?
After his mother failed, at considerable financial cost to herself, to break up our marriage, we were left in peace. By ten years after our marriage, she was again speaking to her son, although she never did condescend to speak to me, the villainess who had led her son astray. So we all have roles to play in life and mine was cast for me, forty-six years ago.
Now I choose my own. I am me, the me that I like and choose to be. Hallelujah!
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