Family Issues

Family Issues

(Author's note: I apologize for the lengthyness of this first full post. This is what has been on my mind all weekend.)

So last weekend I went to my sister's house in Palestine, TX for a few days with Lauryn.

As usual it was fun, filled with board games, card games, the occasional obnoxious kid, and family.

This trip was a little different in 2 ways. The first was that my brother-in-law, Jason, was there. This is a nice change because we usually have a knack for coming down on the weekends that he is working in the oil field (meaning he stays on the rig for a few days while on the job). It was nice to see him and fun to hang out with them for a couple days. The 2nd is that I am currently in the middle of a dilemma in my family in that for the past 10+ years my sisters and my father haven't been speaking. At all. As in when my sisters got married/had kids/whatever he wasn't informed. When my Dad got married they weren't informed. Yea.

There is a long story (with differing versions) behind why they left and/or why they aren't speaking but the short version is that they carry equal versions of the stubbornness that runs in our family. This means that neither side will relent on their versions of the story. My father will continue to play the victim and my sisters will continue to play the victims.

Well the current situation is that of the wedding. Since I have gotten to know my sister Kim so well over the last couple of years and she and Lauryn have gotten close naturally we both want her and her family to attend the wedding. This automatically sets the plans into defcon 3 because of the impending meeting between my sister and my father.

Over the last week before leaving for the trip I got to talking to dad about the wedding and he asked if the girls were going to be there. I told him yes and that Kim was doing Lauryn's hair for the wedding. He stayed his course and told me that he would "keep his head up for me but wouldn't have anything to do with them." We then got on the topic of the girls and in short he said that he would like to fix it but he doesn't think it would be possible. I told him I think that they should just have a talk since they haven't done that since they left.

Fast forward to last weekend at Kim's and I told her about mine and Dad's conversation. She has several issues still with our father that I won't go into detail about. She said she has tried once already to initiate communication with him when she went back to Henrietta 11-ish years ago and she thinks it is his turn now. She told me that she doesn't want to bring any of this drama to our wedding and she wants this to be resolved by then. She told me that she wouldn't call him but if I was on the phone with him and I told him that she was sitting next to me and he was willing to talk to her she would talk to him. I told her that I could do that so we tried to find a time to do it.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. The short story is that I get dad on the phone and we talk about the weekend and random things then I tell him exactly what we planned: that Kim is there and she is willing to talk if he is to try to put this drama behind us before the wedding. Dad says "Sure." So I hand the phone to Kim. What follows is not exactly what I would call a victory for the situation.

The conversation basically follows this timeline: Greetings, Dad saying "It has been a while", Kim agreeing, Dad asking "So why was it that you brought the cops to my house?," Kim asking "Why do you think?" followed by the continuation of an argument sparked up after 11 years characterized by an accusation from dad that Kim "made all of that up" a statement that "you will never talk to me again. Have a good life" and a swift hang-up by our father.

Needless to say while I had thought that Dad had changed somewhat over the past 10+ years it confounds me that of all the time of silence between them the first thing our father wants to bring up is the last memory they have of each other. He doesn't want to hear about his daughter's well-being or about her family. He wants to address the wrongs he feels that have been committed against him. And why didn't Kim rebuff with something like "is that what you want to talk about after all these years? Why don't you just want to know how I'm doing?" instead of jumping into the fray of the argument and telling him how she really feels after all of these years?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that what happened happened for a reason and both sides may have had perfectly good reason for approaching the conversation like they did. I just don't understand it.

How can someone do something like that? How does a father tell his daughter "You will never speak to me again. Have a good life."?

I guess it doesn't really surprise me. Our father's life story is one filled with him excommunicating anyone in his life that has done him a major wrong and moving on without the appearance of an iota of caring. He has done that to his mother, his daughters, two of his ex-wives, and a majority of his brothers. I imaging one day I'll do something to him that will cause him to turn on me and I'll be just as dead to him as they are.

Needless to say Kim was crushed. Again.

I am not looking forward to that part of the wedding.