TheBanyanTree: LA Update

[Gail Richards]

Thank goodness for the Nancys of this world and your Nancy specifically!!
May your pain lessen and your comfort increase!
On Sep 7, 2013 12:00 AM, "Monique" <monique.colver at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Lovely People,
>
> I am in LA for a funeral. Yesterday I was in San Francisco for a
> conference.
>
> I'm staying with my brother, Mike, and his wonderful wife, Nancy. Mike and
> I are like opposite twins.
>
> Well, we aren't twins, if by twins you mean two people born at the same
> time to the same mother. He's slightly younger, but if we were twins, I
> would have been the carefree wild child and he would be the straight laced
> accountant who keeps his life in perfect balance.
>
> I'm the accountant, strangely.
>
> We have the same two parents, which in my family is no small thing. I'm
> here because my half-sister, Sandi, with whom Mike and I share a mother,
> asked me to come. Mike did not. I'm not exactly sure I even register on his
> scale of People Who Matter. Which is fine -- he has a large family, and his
> wife is very good to me.
>
> My stepfather died recently, and that is why I'm here.
>
> But my family sees it as an opportunity for all of us to see each other,
> in case one of us has grown another head and neglected to mention it.
>
> So tomorrow is the funeral. Jerry, my stepfather, has 4 children, and
> they're taking care of the arrangements, just like my siblings and I did
> when my mother died. Mike has offered to take me and our sister and our
> cousins to dinner tomorrow night -- my cousins are close to my sister, and
> were close to my mom and Jerry.
>
> But that doesn't mean I'll be seeing all my brothers and sisters tomorrow.
> So Mike and Nancy are having a barbecue on Sunday -- with pool time, which
> is convenient since it's 197 degrees here.
>
> Showing up will be my brother Jeff and his wife and their two little boys,
> who are adorable. Jeff is not related to my sister, or my mother, but we
> have a father in common. My sister Patty and her husband will be coming.
> Patty had a different mother than all the rest of us but the same father.
> She had a slightly younger brother with the same two parents as well, but
> he killed himself in his early 20's -- by that time he was part of my
> traumatic past, the first in a series of male relatives who behaved
> "inappropriately" with me, and I was not sad to see him go.
>
> Sandi will not be here because she only knows me and Mike, though she did
> meet Jeff and Patty at my mother's funeral, which they came to as a show of
> support or something.
>
> Patty's son, C, and his wife and their several children can't make it
> Sunday. It wasn't until last year that I learned that Patty's first
> husband, who she was married to when C was born, is not C's father.
> Fortunately C knew that long ago, and while he has no relationship with his
> bio father, he is close to a half-brother from his bio father.
>
> I swear I am not making this up.
>
> Tonight we had dinner with Mike's daughter, K, and her husband and their
> two adorable daughters. The husband has a couple of older children from a
> previous alliance, but I know nothing about them. Also on hand for dinner,
> and staying overnight, are two of Nancy's grandkids, two of three which are
> the result of her daughter's marriage.
>
> Which, I just learned today, is not withstanding the test of time, and the
> three boys, ages 12 and down, are just starting to learn what it's like to
> have parents who live in two different places. Fortunately the grandparents
> (Mike and Nancy) are, as usual, helping out.
>
> Mike has another daughter, Heather, who has finally gotten over her fear
> of commitment and has found herself a man. She's been told, poor thing,
> that she's a lot like me, which probably gives her nightmares. I know it
> would give me nightmares.
>
> Nancy has a son as well, who has a different father than her daughter.
>
> Here's the thing: everyone is having multiple babies who are all boys, or
> all girls. No one's mixing it up anymore. Three boys, two girls, two boys
> ...
>
> None of this was my point. My point was, Mike is the only person with whom
> I share both a mother and father (though the point of sharing parents who
> are dead now is lost on me). This evening, as Nancy and I watched Mike
> admonish a tiny child who was having fun racing around  a fountain not to
> "get dirty," I said to Nancy, "It's like we're complete opposites."
>
> "You're telling me," she said.
>
> Mike and I experienced events when we were young that had a profound
> impact on us, when it was just the two of us sometimes. And then we shot
> off into completely different directions, as if we came to a fork in the
> road and couldn't decide which way to go, so he went his way, and I went
> mine. He's built a stable life, keeping his family close to him as much as
> possible. He's had only one employer, and he's been employed since high
> school, through college, and on and on. His life is exact, his schedule
> doesn't allow for much in the way of spontaneity, and he is constantly
> stressed that something might go amiss. There might be a spot of dirt on
> the floor, or a granddaughter might soil her outfit, or someone might make
> the mistake of trying to eat a cookie in his spotless vehicle. (All their
> vehicles are huge, whereas all of mine are little.)
>
> And just for the record, it wasn't me who was in danger of eating a
> cookie, but one of his grandsons.
>
> His occasional texts to me are short and noncommittal, formal in the way
> an oil company executive might send texts. That is what he is, after all.
> He tries to keep his emotions in check, or else he doesn't have any, but he
> loves his kids and grandkids and is a good father and a good grandfather.
>
> I'm liable to text people I barely know with, "You rock," or little smiley
> faces, or xoxo, but I'm the emotional one.
>
> For the record, it's not just me. His daughters tell me that his emails to
> them are very formal, as if they work for him.
>
> He has control over his life to a great degree, and it appears to be a
> pretty good life.
>
> But I don't know how Nancy puts up with him. His attitude towards her is
> sometimes belittling, because he thinks he's so much smarter than she is.
> And maybe he is -- but Nancy's the one with the people skills. She's the
> one who takes me to meet her friends, and brags about my books, and then I
> have to say there was just the one, so far. She gives me far too much red
> wine, laughs with me, and complains about her uptight husband to me. She
> makes me want to visit.
>
> My stepmother loved Nancy, and Nancy's a lot like her, in some ways, but
> only in the best ways. Then again, turns out stepmom was a psychopath, and
> Nancy is not.
>
> Mike married his stepmother, the person who could give him a fabulous well
> decorated comfortable home, the person who could plan a party AND carry it
> out, the person who would take care of the grandkids, befriend the
> neighbors, and give him the stability he needed.
>
> I ran from anything resembling that sort of life.
>
> I'm pretty stable, anymore, but it wasn't something that came easy to me.
> I never had children, didn't want to, never felt I had a life I could bring
> children into.
>
> We're like two sides of the same coin, but at the moment I'm not sure what
> to do with that metaphor.
>
>
>
> Monique
> Sent from an unknown device
>
>