We're on holiday this week in deepest Devonshire .... although it's just called Devon theses days. I like the "Austenesque-ness" of adding the shire though.
Anyhow the "we" in this case is, Trev and I, my sister Kath and her mob, and my middle brother Brendan and his mob. All seemingly normal eh? Families are rarely if ever normal though. In the last 37 years I've spent less than five days in Brendan's company ... and that's a generous assessment of the time we've spent together.
T'is odd. He seems both familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. And I feel the tug of those ancient deeply held resentments which would be all too easy to dwell upon. But that would detract from what is a HUGE opportunity to start a healing process both long overdue and much longed for ... at least on my part.
Like many children whose backgrounds are scarred by abuse we are ... or at least have been ... a fractured family. Long decades of not a word and now? It seems we have to choose. Shall we ask why? Why did you take yourself away and lock us out? Why did you compound the hurt already done?
Except I already know why. To stop more hurt it can seem like a good option to shut ourselves away from all that's gone on in the past, create a new persona and live that life instead. I get it. Compassion is not a soft option that's for sure.
I get to know my nephew Liam though as well so instead of two small(ish) boys I now get to play with three. I'm off to the beach to try to fly a kite.
Here's hoping for fair winds. xx Jos
