Years ago, I worked with a woman who was a joy in just about every way:
She was intelligent, attractive, funny, witty, dependable… .
She had one hang-up, though. She hated her father.
She hadn’t been abused, she said, and he wasn’t a particularly hateful guy. But somewhere along the line, he handled what sounded to me like a rather trivial situation with her little sister poorly, so she decided to hate the man.
In fact, she hated him so much that when he called her (this was in the days before Caller I.D.), she refused to talk back to him, forcing him to prattle on and on in a terminally one-sided conversation.
And if he wrote a letter, she refused to read it. Instead, she enlisted the aid of friends such as me to read the letter for her (not to her) on the off chance that something eataclysmic (a family death or something like that, I guess) would be outlined in the letter.
Perhaps not surprisingly, she typically was quick to volunteer for holiday duty – a shift not usually in high demand among people who enjoy spending time with their families.
And when the holidays inevitably rolled around, I would start in on her again: Why not give your father a call and try to resolve things? Give the guy another chance.
“No,” was her constant and resolute reply. And as far as I know, she never did.
I suppose we all have our quirks, but this was a big one. It affected her every day and in almost every way, and not positively.
So what, you may ask, is the lesson here?
By their very nature, family relationships are complicated and irrational and unpredictable, even on the best of days. Most of us have families and, more often than not, for that we should be thankful – particularly during the holidays. If ever there is a time to start anew, to try again – to forgive if not necessarily to forget – it is now.
During the holidays, both the good and bad of family life are magnified, and the opportunities for redemption and release are unbounded.
Just look at our cover feature this month, a tragic story of family and innocence lost, never to be completely recovered.
Clearly the writer would sacrifice an awful lot to be poked and prodded once more by a flesh-and-blood brother and sister. But fate has determined otherwise, and life goes on.
It goes to show that with families, the choice between happiness and sadness may be just a telephone call or letter away.
