Dear Perfect Family,
Every parent wants to give their kids the world, wrapped up with gorgeous shiny paper and a large sparkling bow. I desperately wanted my two boys to have a perfect childhood, filled with warm memories of family holidays, delicious gourmet meals and evenings spent playing Scrabble and Uno. No matter what I did, what herculean effort I put into such a blissful ideal family, there was one large snag. Their father didn't want shiny paper anywhere near him, in fact he would huff and puff his way through said "warm family holidays" with gigantic black garbage bags, snatching up gift wrappings as soon as they hit the floor. His control problem was always there, but it was always triggered by family; his, mine and ours.
It's true we lug our mental photo albums into our marriages, flipping through them to recreate what feels normal. Recently may father sent me a taped up box with all of my photos inside. I had to tip toe quickly through my awkward pimply adolescent photos to arrive breathlessly at photo after photo of our family without my mother. It's true she didn't mean to abandon us, that she loved us completely, that her mental illness stole her from us. But it did leave a gaping hole that my father was almost (but not quite) able to fill with overblown Christmases and new cars and clothes. Still, I would have traded all that for one more family scrabble night where he teased my Mom so adeptly her giggles echoed through our kitchen. I yearned for the day I would have my own family, where there was no chasm to fill, where giggles would be normal and everyone was Happy.
My ex-husband grew up in a strange huge house, where everyone was angry all the time and violence could and did erupt at any moment. Slapping, swearing, chair tipping, axes to doors, all part of the shadowy lines that had been drawn the day his father brought his mistress into his home to pick up where his dying ex-wife had left off, the raising of his two daughters. These lines squiggled through and around everyone in that house because a part of the baggage she packed to move in was their illegitimate two year old son. Still, from what I was able to piece together, the three kids adapted as kids will, as did the two children that were born after that. What could have been a Brady Bunch home never quite happened. The mother was bitterly disappointed in her new life, and the father was quick to find a replacement mistress. Of the many Jewish holiday dinners I participated in not one of them remained free of some kind of verbal or physical altercation, and I learned that a valium and a glass of wine was necessary before setting foot inside. It's no wonder my ex was angry all the time, that he didn't talk about feelings, that the only emotion I remember him expressing was disgust. And it's hard to create a Hallmark family when your spouse is dead set on recreating a bad horror movie.
My boys are amazing. They were verbally abused, sometimes physically abused, then abandoned... and yet they are kind, loving, sweet and helpful. When I sort through our family photos stashed in my television cabinet I see giggles and huge smiles and enormous stacks of elaborately wrapped Christmas presents. Anyone else flipping through them would see that all-american family I so desperately wanted to create. It's the mental photo album I hope my kids unpack when they start their own families. And I want to be a part of that, if only to hear the giggles and play Uno with their kids and take some lovely family photos.
