It is strange for me to no longer celebrate family birthdays in the month of March. My mom would have been celebrating her 81st birthday on the 24th. My grandmother and great aunt’s, (fraternal twins who raised me), birthdays were soon after on the 28th. This would have been their 101st. Hence, the end of March was always a special time in my family. Since they have passed, late March is now a time of reflection and remembrance for me.
When we remember those who raised us, we often focus on one of two scenarios. We remember the fond memories we had together and the positive impact they had on us and the world, or we remember the hurt and the scars that they left upon our lives. Through time one of these two scenarios often gets amplified while the other slowly fades. However, both are usually present in shaping us, and both are valid to remember in better understanding ourselves once they are gone. In this writing, I am going to introduce each of these women to you. I am then going to touch on the relationships I had with all three of these important women in my life, and the positive and negative effects they had in shaping me. Finally, I am going to share tips on ensuring we remember both the positives and negatives from the people who have helped shape us in the past, and how we can use this information to shape our future.
In introducing these women of my life, I feel it is best to go order by age. Therefore, I will start with my great aunt Verna who was 30 minutes older than my grandmother. Verna was passionate about music. She loved playing the piano, watching musical themed TV shows, and she found joy in many of the simple things in life. She was always happy if you played a new song for her, or if you shared your excitement about an activity. Even if it was not something she was interested in, she was simply happy you shared it with her. She was born with scarred retinas in both eyes, and while she could see, she was considered legally blind. She was not able to work or drive. For this she had received permanent disability from the government. Even though she was on permanent disability, she still had a very independent streak in her. Verna had never married, nor was she ever interested in it. She was not the biggest fan of men in general. To my knowledge, she never had a bad encounter with a man that caused this, but she was certainly someone who did not want to rely on one in her life. With this, she always lived with my grandmother, her sister Vera. Even while my grandmother was married to my grandfather, she lived with them. However, she made it a point to say she never expected anything out of him, and I was told she indeed did not expect anything from him.
My grandmother Vera, Verna’s fraternal twin, had a hugely different personality. My grandmother always put family first, and she was very loyal to her family. When she was younger, she was the consummate housewife of the mid-20th century. My grandfather was the extrovert of the relationship. He was very active in the community serving as chief of the local fire department. He was elected to the school board, and he was a popular student athlete in high school when he was growing up. She was the introvert who kept the home fires burning and liked to stay out of the spotlight. He passed a few years before I was born, and after his passing she lived a simple and quiet life centered on family while working at a bowling alley snack bar. She was a realist, was blunt, at times did not have a positive view of the world. She was also into others business a little much and cared quite a bit about what others thought. However, at the end of the day, you knew she deeply loved her family more than anything.
My mom was mix of her mother and father. She was very extroverted, loved talking to others, and was very active in the community like her father. While she did not hold political positions, she took an active role in assisting with the fire department auxiliary when her father was alive and later returned to the auxiliary when my stepfather became a firefighter. My mother loved to be in the middle of all activities and was very vocal about her roles with such activities. This is like her father. Like her mother, she enjoyed delving into her relationships, and took them very seriously. She had a deep need to be liked and accepted by others. For her, the most important thing in her life was her partner and caring for him. She, in return expected to be cared for in the same deep manner in which she exuded. Even if it included crossing personal boundaries. Also like my grandmother, she could be blunt, and at times, overshared personal information. She struggled quite a bit with self-esteem issues. This manifested itself in her being morbidly obese. Unfortunately, this is something she never overcame. She never was able to confront the demons she had within. She passed from becoming septic, and her weight was what prevented the doctors from doing anything about her sepsis. She would not have been able to make it through the surgery necessary to rectify the issue.
All three of these women had a deep impact on me. In some cases, the impact was good, and in some cases bad. In both the good and bad cases, they helped make me into who I am today. From my great aunt Verna, I picked up a love of music, an independent streak, and a love of experiencing the world. All of these are good things. However, I also got a complex from her because I am a male. My dad was not really in the picture growing up, so I did not have a good male role model in my life to refute her view of men. With her not being a big fan of males, and me not having a good male role model, the complex I had developed about being male was one that I did not truly overcome until I was an adult and understood what masculinity truly was. While I am very open about my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, (things often considered feminine traits), at my core I am a masculine guy. I am driven by my passions and goals. I have developed a fearlessness. I care little about what others think, and I am not afraid to lead and make a decision when one needs to be made. It took time for me to get to a place where I was comfortable being who I was, and I would not have got to this place without examining the root of these issues through this relationship.
With my grandmother, she had the opposite trait when it came to what others would think. If the neighbors were mowing the yard, then it was time to the mow the yard. It did not matter if the yard was mowed two days ago or not. My stepfather asked her once, “if everybody on the street painted their house purple, would you?” Her response: “Well…” This is one trait I never really had. However, her actions on this certainly affected me. I went the opposite direction. Often times, I would do the opposite of what everyone else did just to be different and unique. This was not healthy because my actions were just as bad. My actions were controlled in the sense I wanted to do the opposite for a reaction rather than make my own judgment. I was caring what others thought. I wanted others to think I was unique. Even though this is the opposite of what my grandmother did, it was rooted in the same place.
My grandmother was very much a realist and was blunt about it as well, (even if it included being negative about it which it often did). Later, this would turn into an asset for me. I am a dreamer, and her perspective led me to developing the skills necessary to put my dreams into action. I can dream all I want, but without a plan to make it happen it most likely will not happen. Her challenges gave me the skills to defend my dreams and plan for them. In my life now I appreciate blunt individuals. I like to hear the honest answers rather than the sugar-coated ones. Not everyone is like this, but for me I appreciate the honesty.
I also picked up on loyalty from her. Nobody in the family cared on the level she did when it came to caring for those they love. At times she was overzealous about it. After all, she had the names of all the females in my family handwritten on her calendar once a month. While probably not the most ideal or healthy way to show you care, it does show how deep connections were to her. I value my connections deeply as well, (even though I will not write a female’s name on a calendar once a month). I tend to open myself in layers. I let few people into my deepest layers. Once you are in though, I am always going to be there on a deep level and would walk through hell with you. My grandmother was the same. I am thankful I got this trait from her.
My last parental relationship I will write about was the one that was the most difficult for me to navigate. It was with my mother. I loved my mom, and I have no doubt she loved me, but we were quite different. These differences often clashed. It was actually a difficult relationship for both of us. She felt at times I did not love her, (which was not true). I had to set up personal boundaries with her as she did not have any filter and would overstep appropriate boundaries. Through this, I learned a lot about how to set personal boundaries by navigating this relationship. For her though, my boundaries felt like rejection. After all, she felt a deep need to be liked and accepted, and when someone sets a boundary with you it can often feel like rejection even when it is not the case. So, while she felt like she was being rejected by me, I felt like she did not respect my independence. This was one of the issues at the core of our relationship. This though does not mean there was all conflict from this relationship.
My mom, (with all of the demons for which she struggled), absolutely loved helping others. If she had the time and energy to devote to activity involving others she was there, and she was committed. She was never a half-in or half-out type of person. She went into an activity with an all or nothing mindset. This extended to her career as well as she often got wonderful reviews from her employers. This has motivated me to chase my dreams and to be diligent doing so. When I chase a goal, I go all or nothing as well. This does not mean I do not stop and reexamine the situation as I go along. This is important to do. However, by going in all or nothing there is a much better chance of reaching a goal. This also helped me overcome the negativity I got from my grandmother when chasing my dreams. My mom gave me the tools necessary where I could learn to take my grandmother’s negativity and turn it into constructive criticism to better myself. In a sense, my mom taught me how to think in a complex manner. I am grateful for this.
In reviewing my relationships, it is easy for me to focus on the fun and positive times with my great aunt Verna and focus less on her male bashing and the complex it took me long time to overcome. With my mom it is the opposite. It is easy with her to focus on the personal boundaries she broke with me and focus less on her altruism and diligence which helped me build my character. Just focusing on one side of the coin does a misjustice to the other. We are all complex people that are constant works in progress. There will be both positive and negative ways I will affect my son through his lifetime. The gist of this is we can learn a lot from our formative relationships. There are methods that we can use to understand them better. Here are a few of these I have used personally.
Examine your current relationships, such as with your children or your significant other, and ask yourself how the dynamics of this relationship relate to those in your past. Try to identify a family member who would most likely be source of a particular dynamic of the relationship. For example, I love sharing music with my girlfriend. This comes from my aunt Verna. (By the way, my girlfriend plays piano as well). I also crave openness from others. This comes from my mom as she was very open. This is something I need for any kind of relationship, (friendship or dating), for it to grow. When someone shares with me, I am honored. From my grandmother, I have come to like blunt honesty. I never had to guess what my grandmother was thinking. I do not like guessing what others are thinking now. My stance is please tell me about it even if it is not what I want to hear. This way I know a person is being real with me.
Another method is to list 10 good traits and 10 bad traits about your early caregiver and then reflect. By listing the same number of both it can help balance out the good and bad. It does not need to be exactly 10 traits, but it should be an even number of traits between good and bad.
One more method for remembering is look through old pictures and documents. These will bring up memories you may have forgotten. If the pictures are older than you are, then you can compare their life at the age in the picture to how yours was at that age. This can lead you to deep diving into your own feelings about their life and how it shaped yours.
In short, to truly understand the dynamics of our relationships with those in our past, it is important to see them not just for the good or bad times. We should not just focus on the scars or successes. We should look for the whole picture. This will help us understand more about how our relationships have shaped us, why we are the way we are, and how they helped us learn things we never knew about ourselves and those we love.
Entry March 31, 2021