“Reveal yourself or see nothing and never be seen.”
It would be with my dad. I would respond to his offer by asking him about why the boys in our family tree struggle with issues of abandonment? Why our family story has a recurring theme of rejection and alienation of affection between fathers and their children. Why so many lies have been concocted to cover up the truth? I figure since he is now in the World to Come with the Creator he knows. I would hope that he could he tell me the whole story or at least tell me if what I do know is correct.
Here are the facts as I know them. about the loss and separation that has characterized my side of our family tree.
I was told as a child that my father was “adopted” by a couple in Boston after his parents, who lived in Texas, were killed in an auto accident. He had a Texas State birth certificate with his name, his parents’ names, so his family name and mine was the Renard. Right? He even wrote occasionally to the adoptive parents in Boston whom he referred to as his aunt uncle and we even got Christmas cards. It was sad and relieving his parents died, he was saved by adoption to a good family in Boston and grew up to marry my mom. Now he was my daddy.
All this made sense to me until my father and mother divorced when I was eleven years old. To respect the privacy of others in my family I will not go into detail, except to say my father became a scary unpredictable person in my early teenage years. He threatened to steal me and my sister. My mom tried to hide from him but he would always find us. He blamed her for all that had happened to him and me by association because I “sided” with my mom. I was scared of him or at least what he might do. He was not the same “daddy” I remembered from my childhood. I estranged myself from him as a teen. I only met with him once before he died when I was 24 years old. Later I kept him away from me my wife and our daughter. Tragically, he never met his grand daughter nor did he ever really know me as an adult.
Years after his death when I was in my fifties, I learned my father’s real history while researching my family tree on line. My father’s father was an “unknown” Frenchman in Boston. My father being born out of wedlock was given to his mother’s married sister to be raised as a part of her family. So my father never new his “aunt” was really his mother until she died at the end of World War II. Someone reportedly told my father the facts where upon he left town, abandoned his then wife and children, changed his name, and moved to upper state New York to start a new life. There he met and married my mother and had me. It was years later as adult I learned. I had older half-siblings living in Boston. Shocked I shut down. I never called or reached out to know them, telling myself that “family is just too complicated for me…dealing with my family I already know is hard enough”…why risk it”, I thought.
Now at 63 years old I find myself estranged from my daughter. Her mother and I divorced when she was 13 years old. She hasn’t wanted to see me or talk with me for the last 14 years. I did not give up and leave like my father did. I stayed. I reached out. I went to therapy with her and without her at times. I endeavored not to be the least bite scary.
I was different. I thought the fear that I could now see that had invaded the relationship between me and my father could not damage what my daughter and I have shared all these years. Sadly, I was mistaken.
So, I would ask my father to look into my daughter’s heart and mine and seek to help us reconnect before the estrangement worsens. He would know I was not asking him to manipulate my daughter. Instead he would see that my intention would be for good. I would ask him to help heal what is broken.
And if he could encourage reconciliation in our time, between his granddaughter and his son perhaps it would bring all the tragedy of our family’s prior generations to some better good. Mystical Judaism has taught me that our actions can serve to balance the world. I hope this is the case that what I have done and the intention of my actions are in some way repairing the world. Even if my father is not able to help my daughter and me, I would hope that asking would be understood as a good thing.
I would use this gift of connection between me and my father to tell him how very sorry I am for my part of the long years of our estrangement and that I have become more connected to him in recent years more than ever before. Saying this would make it more real. I would reconcile with him and I would know I told him what was in my heart.
That alone would be enough.
Broken
Broken is transformed.
Family bonds severed
new relationships ensue
marriage
children
the birth of a new generation.
Pain
a delight
or a source of suffering
chances we take
risking the unknown
transforms us
creating new life
hidden
Light
flickers.
Birthing
both unknown and desired
excitement and dread
predictably
it will break
one way or the other
transformed.
Bob
It would be with my dad. I would respond to his offer by asking him about why the boys in our family tree struggle with issues of abandonment? Why our family story has a recurring theme of rejection and alienation of affection between fathers and their children. Why so many lies have been concocted to cover up the truth? I figure since he is now in the World to Come with the Creator he knows. I would hope that he could he tell me the whole story or at least tell me if what I do know is correct.
Here are the facts as I know them. about the loss and separation that has characterized my side of our family tree.
I was told as a child that my father was “adopted” by a couple in Boston after his parents, who lived in Texas, were killed in an auto accident. He had a Texas State birth certificate with his name, his parents’ names, so his family name and mine was the Renard. Right? He even wrote occasionally to the adoptive parents in Boston whom he referred to as his aunt uncle and we even got Christmas cards. It was sad and relieving his parents died, he was saved by adoption to a good family in Boston and grew up to marry my mom. Now he was my daddy.
All this made sense to me until my father and mother divorced when I was eleven years old. To respect the privacy of others in my family I will not go into detail, except to say my father became a scary unpredictable person in my early teenage years. He threatened to steal me and my sister. My mom tried to hide from him but he would always find us. He blamed her for all that had happened to him and me by association because I “sided” with my mom. I was scared of him or at least what he might do. He was not the same “daddy” I remembered from my childhood. I estranged myself from him as a teen. I only met with him once before he died when I was 24 years old. Later I kept him away from me my wife and our daughter. Tragically, he never met his grand daughter nor did he ever really know me as an adult.
Years after his death when I was in my fifties, I learned my father’s real history while researching my family tree on line. My father’s father was an “unknown” Frenchman in Boston. My father being born out of wedlock was given to his mother’s married sister to be raised as a part of her family. So my father never new his “aunt” was really his mother until she died at the end of World War II. Someone reportedly told my father the facts where upon he left town, abandoned his then wife and children, changed his name, and moved to upper state New York to start a new life. There he met and married my mother and had me. It was years later as adult I learned. I had older half-siblings living in Boston. Shocked I shut down. I never called or reached out to know them, telling myself that “family is just too complicated for me…dealing with my family I already know is hard enough”…why risk it”, I thought.
Now at 63 years old I find myself estranged from my daughter. Her mother and I divorced when she was 13 years old. She hasn’t wanted to see me or talk with me for the last 14 years. I did not give up and leave like my father did. I stayed. I reached out. I went to therapy with her and without her at times. I endeavored not to be the least bite scary.
I was different. I thought the fear that I could now see that had invaded the relationship between me and my father could not damage what my daughter and I have shared all these years. Sadly, I was mistaken.
So, I would ask my father to look into my daughter’s heart and mine and seek to help us reconnect before the estrangement worsens. He would know I was not asking him to manipulate my daughter. Instead he would see that my intention would be for good. I would ask him to help heal what is broken.
And if he could encourage reconciliation in our time, between his granddaughter and his son perhaps it would bring all the tragedy of our family’s prior generations to some better good. Mystical Judaism has taught me that our actions can serve to balance the world. I hope this is the case that what I have done and the intention of my actions are in some way repairing the world. Even if my father is not able to help my daughter and me, I would hope that asking would be understood as a good thing.
I would use this gift of connection between me and my father to tell him how very sorry I am for my part of the long years of our estrangement and that I have become more connected to him in recent years more than ever before. Saying this would make it more real. I would reconcile with him and I would know I told him what was in my heart.
That alone would be enough.
Broken
Broken is transformed.
Family bonds severed
new relationships ensue
marriage
children
the birth of a new generation.
Pain
a delight
or a source of suffering
chances we take
risking the unknown
transforms us
creating new life
hidden
Light
flickers.
Birthing
both unknown and desired
excitement and dread
predictably
it will break
one way or the other
transformed.
Bob