IS YOUR CALENDAR A MINEFIELD OF SORROW?

Grandpa Edward Joseph Shea II, Great Grandma

Mary Alice Merkel Shea, and Ruth E. Brewer Shea

(Grandpa's 3rd wife)

This time of year is hard for me because, even though I (ostensibly) live as a religious person and consider God the father MY father, and the Blessed Virgin Mary as MY mother, the secular calendar and its holidays assert themselves, not just on the calendar on the wall, but in all the advertisements around me, the entertainments, and the sales at the shops.  Inevitably, most of these holidays point back to family, and I have huge family issues.

The picture of my grandfather and great grandmother, above, was kindly forwarded to me by email by a cousin I found on the internet after YEARS of searching for my father's paternal family.  I never met that grandfather or great grandmother, although I could have, given that in 1977 (when this picture was taken) I was living in California and was in my 20's.  I was IN San Francisco, near where they lived, many times, because my mother's mother lived there and I visited often.

My father's mother, however, refused to help me find my grandfather and his family.  She hated him, and therefore she would not help me.   She herself had never been but vaguely interested in me or my sibling.  I think I met her twice when I was very young.  Likewise, her children (my aunt and uncles) with the second husband took no interest in us.  We were the product of the first husband's child.  This picture is the closest I will ever get to my granddad or his other children, my other aunts and uncles.

From my genealogy research, I have gleaned a long line of divorces in the family.  With each divorce, more brokenness enters the family line.  We lose our connection to relatives.

Edward Joseph Shea III

My Dad

My parents likewise divorced very early on, and my father proceeded to pursue multiple women, married a couple more, but used to brag that, "I have never been faithful to any woman and I never will be."  How much of that misguided bravado and immoral worldview was bred into him by a family line that could not manage to stick with one partner, for whatever reason?  His own father either abandoned him or was kept from him, or both.  How had that affected how he dealt with his own marriages and children?

I was horrified when my father showed up at my apartment once (the only time he had ever just dropped in on me) and announced that he was leaving his wife because she might have cancer and she might have to have a mastectomy.  He was very agitated.  I have no idea why he came to me, but I gave him a piece of my mind and sent him away, telling him he could not leave a woman just because she was sick and might not have a perfect body any more.  Where does this kind of thinking come from?

I think that, generally speaking, children of broken families just do not learn how to be whole.  They are always insecure as people and never see the benefit of an intact family...because they have never experienced an intact family.  At the slightest provocation, they run to the next mate.

When a father leaves a family, especially when the children are very young, it often breaks the father/child bond.  Subsequent mistresses and wives do not want the children of a previous wife to be in the life of the father and actively work to break the relationships, usually successfully.  It is nature to do so.  Females of the species are attracted to the security of a man's resources, money, etc.  Having no bond with the children of another woman, there is no interest in seeing to the survival of those children in any respect.  At least, this is the utilitarian, primitive perspective.

My sibling and I were raised in a tiny bubble, with a nearly insane, sickly mother, in poverty, while my father bought airplanes, spent Christmas in Aspen with some woman or another, and generally pursued his own pleasures without thought of the cost to his children.  I loved my father very much, as is natural for any child, and spent most of my life doing a frantic tap dance in my attempts to convey that love and get love in return.  But he grew more and more detached.

I went on to marry men like my father.  My first husband began an affair while I was pregnant and, when I discovered it, he told me, "I never promised you I would be faithful!"  How did I miss that?  My son was 2 weeks old at the time.  Then proceeded my own broken life, and my son was the one who suffered most.  He couldn't understand why Mom and Dad were not together, and I was not about to tell him about the mistresses that his Daddy would not give up.

My son at age 6, and me, about to

go to lunch with my Dad

My son later committed slow suicide with alcohol, drugs and ignoring a diabetic condition.  At age 40, he was gone, leaving an angry teenage daughter behind, as well as me, his dad, a stepmom, and many friends.  My son's wife had already left him, after 15 years of marriage, because living with a sick man was like living with her father.  At least, that is what she told me.  So she lost some weight, slapped a tramp stamp on her backside and moved 1,000 miles away to live with another man.

I fully expect my orphaned granddaughter to fall into the family tradition of broken relationships.  And so it goes.

What does this have to do with the calendar?  Well, this month was mother's day and is also the anniversary of my father's death 6 years ago.  In June, I have to contend with fathers' day, and in September will be my son's birthday.  In December will be the 2 year anniversary of my son's death.  Then there's Christmas, which is supposed to be about Christ, but in America is all about family...and there is no family here.  January is my mother's birthday anniversary.  February is my grandmother's birthday anniversary.  There's no end.

Each time an anniversary rolls around, my PTSD flares up and I have the fight of my life.  I throw myself on the mercy of the Lord and pray that the memories will abate and that I will not drown in sadness.

Yes, I wish I was a saint and could just sail through life unperturbed by the brokenness, but, at best, I can resist the urge to sink into a depression and despair, reminding myself that "...my father and my mother have left me; but the Lord has taken me up."  Ps. 26:10

Concentrating on the beauty of the present moment, the many gifts and graces with which the Lord constantly showers me, and the great good fortune of being able to live in a country that is not destabilized with war and violence, is a daily practice of mine.  It is how I fight Satan and the memories of his work in this world, in my life, and in my family.  He likes me sad and despairing and thinks that I will lose heart and follow him again, as I did before my baptism and conversion, but I am determined to avoid his clutches.  My walls are choked full of beautiful icons and crosses to meditate upon and remember the Truth.  I use the sacramentals of Holy Water and blessed roasaries.  I pray to the Lord.  I ask for Mary's intercession.  I feel the sadness, but I will not let it take me down.

There is a reason why Jesus hated divorce and remarriage.  Judging from the number of walking wounded in our world, I am surprised that most of us have not made the connection between what He advocated and what we do in our lives.  But that is a bigger problem than I can handle at the moment.

Right now, I am working on substituting religious holidays for the distressing family holidays.  Coming up in a few days is Pentacost, a beautiful holiday in itself, but also the anniversary of my entry into the Catholic Church.  I was confirmed on that day, with its beautiful imagery.  I am training my mind on THAT, with great difficulty.  Please pray that I am successful.

God bless us all

Silver "Rose" Parnell
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