Blood and water

Blood, so the saying goes, is thicker than water. I first heard that as a child and wondered what it meant. I remember thinking about it for days before I finally decided to ask my grandfather just what it meant.

"Family," he informed me, "is a stronger bond than you'll ever find with anyone else. You can always count on your family to be there, to support you, to challenge you and to love you for you. You don't get that guarantee from anyone else."

My mother and father separated for the first time when I was four and I never forgot it. It was right around Mother's Day. We felt like we'd done something to make our father leave for another woman and so we decided that we were going to be extra good on Mother's Day to make our mom feel better.

Of course, it didn't work that way. When mom yelled at us that day and broke down in tears, we thought we'd failed in our mission to be good kids. Over the ensuing weeks, we came to realize that we weren't the ones that had hurt her, but that it was our father. Over the course of that year, we came to understand quite intimately how much he could disappoint. We didn't see him often, but we lived for the days he would come and pick us up. We just wanted to see him, to spend time with him. When he didn't come, our hearts broke.

Not too long later, mom decided it was time to go home to her family and so we packed up and we left dad half the country away. As the years wore on and other hurts moved in to replace those, having a father seemed to become less important.

And then mom informed us that they were getting back together. That's when I asked grandpa just what that saying meant. It seemed to me that some family just wasn't worth the heartache.

We moved back to California the summer after 2nd grade. Mom and Dad seemed determined to make it work. They bought a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood and we quickly started making friends. And we went out as a family, played together, acted silly together, talked together. It started to feel like a family again... for a minute.

They made each other, and by default, us, miserable. But, they stayed together for 3 long years. After he chased me around a campsite one day in a rage, I never felt safe with him again. I wanted to be free of him, wanted my mom to be free of him. When she finally left him, I cried. I wasn't disappointed, I was relieved that I wouldn't have to worry about her any longer.

And then we found out we would be spending time living with both of them. I didn't want to do it. He terrified me and I hadn’t figured out how to work past that. So, I begged my grandparents to let me come live with them and away I went. Mom and my younger sister moved back to Arkansas while I was in Florida and during my first visit with them, I couldn't work up the heart to return to Florida. I had two families tugging at me, and the only thing I could think was that if I stayed with the one, I wouldn’t have to be scared of my father.

But, the grass is always greener on the other side. I'd changed during my short stay with my grandparents. I didn't want to be with my mother. I didn't want to be with my father. I just wanted to feel the peace and quiet I had found there. But, fighting with him was easier than fighting with my mother so I made the choice to go back.

She didn't let me and for weeks, I didn't speak a word to her. My mother and I fought constantly. And when I talked to dad, we fought. Mom blamed dad for everything, he blamed her for everything. They talked about one another constantly. And neither of them were responsible enough to be parents. Somewhere along the way to learning to hate one another, they forgot how to be parents and put their differences aside for the kids. I couldn't stand it.

Eventually I'd had enough and my sister and I moved out. I was a sick teenager, raising a teenager. Sis drove me to my appointments 100 miles away and sat in that tiny little room to comfort me while they did my MRIs. When I couldn't walk because I was so dizzy I couldn't even see straight, she stayed home from school with me. And I tried to keep her under control and give her some semblance of normalcy in return. More than any of us, she needed that. And we both needed time and space to heal, to sort it out and to live our own lives without being mediators and the adults where our parents continually failed.

My husband moved in 2 years later and it's been the three of us since. Now sis has two little boys and a new baby on the way. When people ask about our family, that's it. After she has the new baby, we'll be striking out in our own directions for the first time in a very long while, but we'll always be family and will always be who the other thinks of first when asked.

We've become closer to our mother as we've gotten older and have come to understand a little more of where she was coming from. And she's come to realize that she messed up too. Our relationship isn't brilliant, but I've never really needed brilliance. Peace is all I've ever wanted from them, for them, with them.

I can't remember the last time I talked to my father, but I wish him well.

My husband and I went to see The Bucket List last night. Lying in bed he asked me if I thought my father and I would ever reconcile like my mother and I had or if it would take something drastic like in the movie. I thought over everything that had happened between us and how much I had changed because of it. I heard my grandfather at that moment and I shook my head.

"No," I told my husband, "I really don't think we will regardless of what happens in the future. You shouldn't have someone in your life because you feel you owe it to them for some reason. You should have people in your life because those are the people you want there for no other reason than that you can't live without them."

My father and I are two different people from two different worlds and sometimes it's better that way. I stopped being angry and forgave him, and myself, long ago. Our relationship, as heartbreaking and impossible as it was at times, helped me grow as a person. And that is a person who finally understands what that saying means. Blood is thicker than water, but sharing blood is only half the battle. And for me, it will always be that other half that makes the difference and shines light on the significance of a relationship. I don't need to reconcile with my father. Our relationship is not broken. It's merely different and because of that difference, I am who I am today.

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