reconstituted dreams

by Guest Blogger Naomi Munn
Blog: Writing for Life

It’s kind of funny to be writing about this as a guest blogger, considering the personal nature of a blog, but here we are.

Lately, I’ve sat through a lot of stressful time. A death in our family, sudden and unpredictable, spurred us into action and generated a whirlwind of despair and grief that tore through us; ripping the shingles off of our collective roof and shattering windows that once displayed only the beauty of the outside world.

It’s calmer now, although no less sad. My sister-in-law is gone, and we’re left to pick up the pieces of a very messy, unfinished life. But aren’t all lives left unfinished in some way?

So I drown myself in work, and I drown myself in sorrow. I drown myself in grieving other past relationships until finally, I hit bottom and realized there is one other person whom I have not grieved.

Not ever, not even once.

My parents, like many parents of Generation X, divorced in the mid 1970s when the laws changed and my mother could finally free us from a tempestuous relationship with a man in despair. That man was my birth father.

After the divorce was final, I never saw him again.

I never spoke about his absence, and this worried my mother. She brought me to a nice woman who watched me play with beautiful dolls, and she told my mother that I was furious. I was so angry I would not speak to her about my feelings. I don’t remember being angry, but I remember that every time I played with those dolls I always took out the Daddy and set him aside where the other dolls could not see him.

After a remarriage, another divorce, another remarriage and a final move to Canada as a pre-teen, I found myself in a typical GenX family of that time – reconstituted like orange juice. We didn’t speak of my birth father anymore, so many years after the fact. If I showed any unusual traits, it was due to some ancient relation on my mother’s side. I could not look like my father, be like my father or resemble any of that half of my genetic heritage.

So I assumed, in my childlike way, that somehow this man was dangerous. That we’d moved away and changed our names to escape something horrible in our past. I contacted cousins when I was in high school but begged them not to tell their parents where I was – I thought it was forbidden.

Finally, after a few years of my own disaster of a first marriage, I found the family of the man who left me behind, still living in the same cities spread out across the country. And in their contact, I found many of the missing pieces in myself. I found out why I’m good with languages, can play piano by ear and find poetry and dark literature so appealing. I found out why my smile was so big and my eyebrows so black and how I wasn’t the only one who loved to paint.

In a way, I’d found my father, even though to this day I do not know exactly where he is. Even his own family sent him packing after a while, and moved on with their lives as best they could.

Grief is a funny thing, sneaking up on me after all this time, decades and decades after the original wound. I guess I wasn’t ready to deal with a reality most adults my age have already discussed. When my step-father adopted me, I blended into my new family as best I could. I took their name and their habits and their dreams and made them my own.

Our generation is good at divorce, if there’s anything to be good at about it. We’ve lived through our parents’ mistakes and are, for the most part, bound and determined to give our children a better life despite our differences.

But I’m still living with the losses in my past. I didn’t realize this until tonight, when the recent grief finally subsided enough to let in other tears. I didn’t even know why I was crying; until I remembered all the anger I’ve felt recently and found the source inside.

Other generations are foolish not to recognize the hardiness, the resilience we grew into as we were forced into a “broken” identity so young in our lives. We became tough, but at a terrible price.

Bless the strength we bring to our children.

Naomi Munn is the author of the blog, Writing for Life. A professional writer, editor and amateur philosopher, she lives in rural mid-Michigan with her husband and three children. Devoted to Judaism, she often blogs about the mystical life. Check out her podcasts!

Photo via arindamsen