Do you believe that family wounds pass on through generations?
Frank was 20 when he took his life. Nobody speaks of him.
Selma hated pictures of herself so much that she would scratch out her face.
June was basically an orphan caught between two warring worlds of Swedish Lutherans and Irish Catholics.
And let’s be honest, there really isn’t that much difference between those two denominations.
It’s funny the differences people choose to magnify.
Her Swedish aunties took the helm and doted on her.
The Cullens would have nothing to do with her.
Robert and Mary knew how to have a good time and forget it all in a fog of liquor,
Including their youngest child ailing with scarlet fever.
They went out one night to party and came home to a blind child whose fever had taken his sight.
Despite them, he went on to become a talented pianist who hosted his own jazz program on the radio.
Jo has always been jealous, and she had three daughters to bring down with her spite.
God gave her an opportunity to change her green with envy heart for something warmer toned –
The chance to love her daughters and bring them up with confidence.
But she chose throwing tantrums, hiding in her room when she didn’t get her way, and leaving her children to wonder what they did wrong.
Norm was an alcoholic, but he sobered up in favor of cigarettes.
Then, he sobered up from the tobacco to take up gardening and car remodeling.
I can remember the smoke clouds choking the back porch at Mia and Papa’s when we arrived in the summer.
To this day, I find tobacco smoke comforting. Don’t smoke personally, but secondhand smoke doesn’t bother me one bit.
Wanda and Ray had Norm; but nobody knows what happened to Ray. Skipped town?
Norm knew Joe as his dad, but it was far from paternal. Far from filial.
They lived next door to one another for years and never spoke, built up hedge walls, warred about nonsense, and cut each other out of their lives.
Cut the rest of us out, too. At least they kept the hedge trimmed and clipped.
Mom says I met Wanda when I was a baby. I have no memory of her.
I certainly have no memory of Big Joe because Papa described him lovingly as a SOB the day Big Joe died.
Sometimes I wonder if jealousy is a family trait.
I wonder if I am self-conscious because of people who slashed their own image or never grew up in a house with a mother who really cared.
But I also don’t believe in blaming the past for the present – not 100% at least.
People have choices and personal responsibility is paramount.
But sometimes I wonder and sometimes I feel haunted with wondering about all these family thorns.
❣️
if it quirks.. 