I come from a fairly large family. Certainly not large compared to some other families, but my mother had four brothers and sisters. Each of them had two children, except my mother who had three. That means I have two sisters and eight cousins. Again, not the largest number, but big enough.
In 2001, our Uncle Ricky took his own life. In 2021, our Uncle Rob was very sick and in hospice care. From what I recall, he had multiple cancers and I believe a stroke at the end. There was a weekend several weeks before he passed that all of us gathered to see him one last time.
I drove to Cleveland and stayed with my oldest sister. My mother also made the trip and stayed with her. During that Saturday, we visited Uncle Rob at the hospice facility where he was receiving care. That evening, several of my cousins, and one of our aunts gathered at my sister’s house. There was food for grazing as people came and went. In addition to that, there was alcohol.
By the end of the evening, so many Fireball shots had been taken that the husband of one or our cousins who hadn’t been drinking, went out to get another bottle of it.
Needless to say, I ended the evening by quite literally passing out on the couch. The next day I had a ferocious hangover that kept me horizontal most of the day. Only becoming vertical long enough to throw up over the toilet and sit at the table for a few minutes when somebody would come by. My sister had set out breakfast food and people were in and out most of the day as they had been the evening before. They didn’t see much of me since my horizontal moments were best spent on the bed in a spare bedroom. Being the seasoned drinkers that they are, my cousins (and aunt) declared me a lightweight. That day I learned the value of a greasy meal as a hangover cure. If you’re from the area, a Roman burger from Mr. Hero was the best sandwich I had ever eaten in my life and seemed to instantaneously cure my hangover.
Uncle Rob passed a few weeks later, though I did not make an additional trip for his funeral.
I’m thinking of that weekend now because our Aunt Linda is sick now. There isn’t a clear picture of what is going on with her. We just know she’s in the hospital and something is going on with her kidneys. This is the aunt who I have to reference when I have a mammogram and the tech asks about any family history of breast cancer.
It makes me wonder if there is going to come a point where the cousins will gather again to see her one last time. Will we spend another evening at my sister’s house sharing food, drinks, and family stories? And if we do, will my mother come? She and her sister had a falling out after their mother died. My mother was her caregiver at the end and I suppose there was some hostility about who knows what after she passed. She explained it to me at some point but I have since forgotten the details. It has led to her having complicated feelings about her sister. It was complicated when they both wanted to visit Uncle Rob that weekend. There was no speaking to each other. And it’s complicated now. Not just for her, but for me.
A few months ago I broke off communication with my mother and father. There was no final message from me to them saying I was going to do that. I just quietly blocked their phone numbers and blocked her from all of my social media platforms. She can always find me here, on WordPress, but since she famously told me she read enough of what I’ve posted and doesn’t need to read anymore, I doubt she’d look here. As my husband has said multiple times, if she wanted to, she would.
And it’s with that thought that I wonder about a family gathering if something happened to Aunt Linda. Even if we don’t gather at my sister’s house for a final goodbye, there will be a funeral. Would I go? I can imagine the anxiety I would constantly feel if I was in her presence. My husband told me tonight that she would probably try to talk to me and I’m not good with confrontation. Am I still that way though? I seem to have a much easier time saying exactly what I’m thinking these days. I feel reasonably sure that if she was in any way unkind to me, I could be unkind back to her. And if I didn’t go, do I really want this ‘no contact’ with my mother to prevent me from visiting other members of my family? We are getting to the point in life where we are soon going to be the only ones left. Us and our (their) kids. I don’t see them very often. Actually, none of us do. We have become a weddings and funerals kind of family. As in, that’s the only time we see each other. Uncle Ricky was the proverbial glue that held us together. After he died, we scattered and stayed that way.
There are so many things to question here. And there are complicated feelings associated with each question. But as my husband also pointed out, this is not something I have to decide now. In fact, we don’t even know what is happening with Aunt Linda right now.
Just throwing this out there. This is the reality of going no contact with members of your family. It’s complicated at times. And honestly, I don’t think there’s a single right or wrong way to navigate every situation that comes up. We’ll just see how it goes.
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