Diaries from Down Under
Chapter Six
Friday, April 18th, 2008
Two years ago, when we first started considering this trip, it was because Jeff was hopefully going to be posted here for one year to do staff college. Sure enough, he got his wish and now, two years later, we are finding ourselves having family dinners around a table in Australia instead of in Ontario.
Families are complicated and large, extended families can be even more so. It certainly goes without saying that it can sometimes take a great deal of work to manage relationships within a family unit but, at other times, you are fortunate enough to also find yourself with friends and it makes the time of building lives together a completely different experience. Intertwined among the Smyth family is just that…a bunch of friends masquerading as “in-laws”!!!
When I was young, all of my mom’s family would go to Cypress Lake together every year for the May 2-4 weekend. We would pile kids, dogs, tents and marshmallows in our cars and head out for the woods where we would spend the entire weekend getting mosquito bites and scaring each other into oblivion around the campfire!! Rain or shine, that annual weekend has always been one of the highlights of my childhood.
As I got older though, I began notice the dynamic of certain relationships among my mother’s family and realized that many of the people I adored as a child really didn’t get along very well. Now, they seldom even talk to each other and family gatherings like those of our younger days are simply unheard of. This made me wonder if they actually got along during our annual camping trips or if they just tolerated each other for the sake of being a family. Or better yet, if they tolerated each other for the sake of all these little kids that would maybe (hopefully) grow up having a different relationship than they had??
It intrigues me when I think about how hard that must have been for some of my family; to be trapped in the woods together and having to endure each other’s company for entire long weekend. The diplomacy that must have been required to keep the peace in an otherwise hostile environment…I can only imagine. The thing is though, that when I do imagine it…it makes me sad. I don’t want that for our children (one day!) or any other of our nieces and nephews, as I truly believe that one of the best things that we can do for the children of our family is to love each other.
As I write this from the Smyth family house in Australia, I think that I may have uncovered the key to my own family’s lack of longevity; As I mentioned, families are complicated and there is simply no way around that. You can’t bring people together from different experiences and expect otherwise but you can become a part of each other’s experiences. All relationships require time and energy…they require a genuine interest in each other’s lives and they require shared experiences in order to exist beyond the superficialities of holiday dinners. And that is the very reason that Steve and I are here in Canberra right now…so that we can share in this experience with Jeff and Monica and allow it to become part of the relationship that we already have with them. It’s not just about traveling the world and seeing new together…it’s about living together for a week and sharing in each other’s anxieties about the possibility of that becoming a motive for homicide. It’s about enduring the grumpy days with the happier ones. It’s about being reunited after four months and having to say goodbye again for another six. It’s about enduring a wine-induced night of watching Borat with too much chocolate!!! It’s about expecting less of each other and accepting more of each other.
While our families may be one of the biggest challenges that we face in our lives…the relationships to be had within them is worth all our efforts. After all…for better or for worse… "we are family"!
Families are complicated and large, extended families can be even more so. It certainly goes without saying that it can sometimes take a great deal of work to manage relationships within a family unit but, at other times, you are fortunate enough to also find yourself with friends and it makes the time of building lives together a completely different experience. Intertwined among the Smyth family is just that…a bunch of friends masquerading as “in-laws”!!!
When I was young, all of my mom’s family would go to Cypress Lake together every year for the May 2-4 weekend. We would pile kids, dogs, tents and marshmallows in our cars and head out for the woods where we would spend the entire weekend getting mosquito bites and scaring each other into oblivion around the campfire!! Rain or shine, that annual weekend has always been one of the highlights of my childhood.
As I got older though, I began notice the dynamic of certain relationships among my mother’s family and realized that many of the people I adored as a child really didn’t get along very well. Now, they seldom even talk to each other and family gatherings like those of our younger days are simply unheard of. This made me wonder if they actually got along during our annual camping trips or if they just tolerated each other for the sake of being a family. Or better yet, if they tolerated each other for the sake of all these little kids that would maybe (hopefully) grow up having a different relationship than they had??
It intrigues me when I think about how hard that must have been for some of my family; to be trapped in the woods together and having to endure each other’s company for entire long weekend. The diplomacy that must have been required to keep the peace in an otherwise hostile environment…I can only imagine. The thing is though, that when I do imagine it…it makes me sad. I don’t want that for our children (one day!) or any other of our nieces and nephews, as I truly believe that one of the best things that we can do for the children of our family is to love each other.
As I write this from the Smyth family house in Australia, I think that I may have uncovered the key to my own family’s lack of longevity; As I mentioned, families are complicated and there is simply no way around that. You can’t bring people together from different experiences and expect otherwise but you can become a part of each other’s experiences. All relationships require time and energy…they require a genuine interest in each other’s lives and they require shared experiences in order to exist beyond the superficialities of holiday dinners. And that is the very reason that Steve and I are here in Canberra right now…so that we can share in this experience with Jeff and Monica and allow it to become part of the relationship that we already have with them. It’s not just about traveling the world and seeing new together…it’s about living together for a week and sharing in each other’s anxieties about the possibility of that becoming a motive for homicide. It’s about enduring the grumpy days with the happier ones. It’s about being reunited after four months and having to say goodbye again for another six. It’s about enduring a wine-induced night of watching Borat with too much chocolate!!! It’s about expecting less of each other and accepting more of each other.
While our families may be one of the biggest challenges that we face in our lives…the relationships to be had within them is worth all our efforts. After all…for better or for worse… "we are family"!
2 comments:
Families of Love and Families by blood all have one underlying "glue" and that entails working with and through love. Uncle Neil reflecting on one of Gen's sayings.
Post a Comment