Again, as Jami Attenberg mentions in her novel The Kept Man, artists have to pretend that their parents are dead...When I am with my sister JL we tend to ruminate over the past dysfunctions of our family--not in anger or accusation, but in order to understand and process. It turns out that there are stories we both don't remember, or didn't know to begin with. Some I think I should skip until after my dad passes away. I have forgiven him much and do not mean to harm him now.
There is the story of the affair... JL did not know this and was shocked all these years later with the details. I will leave those for later.
JL recounts a story of grandpa K cautioning her about marital choices when she was dating the dreaded Perry...
When BZ visits us on Friday at Indian Lake, we reach further into the family vault and go down many branches and share and remind each other of stories we don't remember. BZ is 10 years younger than me and almost 15 years younger than JL. She doesn't know even a fraction of our family stories, but we shared grandparents and there is a wealth of stories from that connection.
Uncle Gerald the pedophile--we believe sincerely that he abused each of his children and certainly some of his nephews and nieces. Grandpa protected his own, and none of his three girls ever showed signs of abuse. Gerald's children all struggled with the entire array of possible outcomes from abuse. Our dear, dear cousins--children of his youngest brother--probably were repeatedly abused. Yet, until the most recent years since Gerald's death, my dad would find it necessary to give each of us the current Gerald update...
WHAT! Doesn't dad have a memory. What is he thinking? Why would any one of my siblings want to hear one word about him? We avoided abuse, but Gerald certainly tried. This is a very distinct evidence of God's protection and sufficiency.
