Over the River and Through the Wood

In 1972, sixteen year-old, Tess arrives from North Jersey to stay with cousins and to visit her Miami grandmother whom she hasn’t seen in some years. Rather than call in advance, Tess looks forward to surprising her mom’s mom. But when Tess arrives at her grandmother’s home, her grandmother looks stricken.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says. “I don’t have any food in the house.”

“That’s fine, Grandma. I came to see you. I’m not hungry.”

“You’re not hungry? All I have is cottage cheese. If I’d known you were visiting, I would have prepared a nice meal.”

The awkwardness is deafening. The conversation never recovers. Tess’s grandmother is unable or unwilling to talk about anything other than her surprise and disappointment about not having been informed of the visit. Tess, feeling unwelcome, soon leaves. She does not call her grandmother for the rest of her week in Miami. Nor does her grandmother call her.

On Tess’s grandmother’s next birthday, Tess does not send a card. On Tess’s next birthday, her grandmother does not call. Because of the distance between New Jersey and Miami, it is easy for Tess and her grandmother to avoid one another. They don’t show up to the same family functions. Weddings and funerals come and go.

In sum, they do not speak for the rest of the grandmother’s life.

How is it possible that members of the same family can allow a slight–real or imagined, big or small, intentional or accidental–to have an effect from which there is no recovery? Was there a history of bad feeling between Tess’s cousins and their grandmother? Was there a difference in social class between the two branches of the family? Was there a history involving a surprise visit or a bad meal? Had Tess’s grandmother been disappointed when Tess’s family had moved from Miami to New Jersey?

Anything is possible. But at the end of the day, either the family stays together or it falls apart.

Thirty years later, Tess, who has been married for twenty years, is getting divorced. Tess is furious with her ex-husband whom she blames for the dissolution. She tells her three children that their father was abusive, a philanderer, and a drunk. She works hard and succeeds in alienating the children from their father. She tells both sides of the extended family, “You’re either with me or against me. If you’re friends with him, you can’t be friends with me.” Tess refuses all contact with anyone who stays in touch with her ex.

In the decade since the end of Tess’s marriage, two of her three children have had no contact with their father. Their father sends birthday presents to his children; the packages are returned unopened. The oldest of Tess’s children is to be married next month. Her father is not invited to the wedding.

***

Experts talk about “splits and cut-offs.” They talk about people who are emotionally flooded, who cannot make good decisions because they are overwhelmed. Just like it can be hard to hear in a crowded room, it can be hard to focus on what is in the best interests of your children when your own all-consuming anger prevents you from “hearing” their needs. No matter how hurt and angry you are, it is seldom in a child’s interest to be turned against and have no contact with a parent. Surely your love of your child is greater than your hatred for her other parent.

Experts also talk about “modeling,” about how apple trees seldom produce pears.

Could the incident with the surprise visit all those years ago have “caused” Tess to be so completely and thoroughly vicious to her husband a generation later? Of course that explanation seems too simplistic. There are a host of other factors at play is any family.

And maybe Tess’s husband was abusive, a philanderer, and a drunk. Maybe the only way for Tess to get away from him was to cut off all contact. Maybe her children were at risk.

Maybe.

But as an actual member of Tess’s family, I am here to tell you that by any objective measure, her husband was none of those things. He might have spent too much time trying to make his law practice successful; he might not have changed as many diapers as Tess would have liked. But he was a loving, decent guy who did the best he could. It is a crime that he did not get to watch his children grow up.

It was not in the children’s interests to have their father ripped from their lives. It’s a shame for a dad to miss a child’s soccer game. It’s a crime for a dad to miss a child’s wedding. How will this next generation resolve conflict? How will Tess’s kids ever learn to say the magic words, “Okay, I guess we disagree but we have to move forward as a family”?