I have been thinking more about the journey of family estrangement and the potential long-term generational effects. As part of my journey to understand this phenomenon, I had to dig deep into my family’s past history in order to begin to understand the dynamics.
I can only speak to the parent’s perspective, and in the short term, the fallout is devastating. There is the process of grieving the loss of a person in your life, knowing they are still alive, but they do not want you to be part of their life. There is only one way through. It is accepting the situation that exists now, knowing that nothing is permanent, and continuing to build and live a life of which you can be proud.
There have been circumstances on both my father’s and mother’s sides of the family where estrangement has played a major role in cross-generational relationships.The first hint that my family had endured estrangement that echoed from the distant past came after my daughter took a DNA test through 23 and Me for a college class assignment. She matched as a possible second cousin for a gentleman named Peter who was in his sixties. She had no desire to communicate with an older man who she never met and never even knew existed, so she forwarded the contact information to me to try to put the puzzle together. What I found out was a fascinating case study in how branches of a family can be completely severed within a generation or two. Ties are destroyed forever for reasons that have been lost to time, and to the point where no one can put all of the pieces together because no one knows the other branch even existed.
Paternal Erasure
Peter reached out and introduced me to his sister, Mary Lou, the keeper of family history from his family. It took both Mary Lou and I to go on a journey of discovery, and even then it was difficult to piece together what happened. We figured out that the family connection started with my great-grandfather,my father’s paternal grandfather. The story I heard growing up was that he had a very difficult childhood. He grew up to raise a family in a solid working class neighborhood. He sold furniture, owned his own home, and raised two sons. The story was he was able to overcome all of the disadvantages of a difficult childhood.
From what Mary Lou and I pieced together, his father, my great-great grandfather, left his family, which was based in Vermont. He was the black sheep of the family and it was rumored that he had an alcohol problem. Whether he was asked to leave or decided to leave on his own is not clear. He ended up in New York City and in a relationship with a woman who worked as a domestic with whom he had two children, a boy and a girl. The older of the two children was my great-grandfather, born around the turn of the century. They were unable to care for the children and both children were placed in an orphanage. My great-grandfather was able to make a respectable life for himself, but it did not come without a cost. He never spoke of what he endured as an orphan, or even that he had a sister. What happened to her remains a mystery. He struggled with alcoholism for his entire adult life.
When Mary Lou found out that my great-great grandfather had two children that were abandoned, she was confused. If he had returned home, she was sure that his family in Vermont, who had the means, would have taken in both children. Whether out of pride, embarrassment, or fear, that never happened. The family in Vermont never knew the children even existed. A branch of the family tree was entirely erased.
Mary Lou planned a family reunion in Vermont which included a tour of the cemetery where my relatives were buried. I would love to say that the reconnection was a permanent one. That didn’t happen, at least in this situation. There was too much loss to overcome. There was no recent shared history, and the six relatives and their spouses who showed up came out of curiosity about distant family history more than a desire to connect with unknown relatives. Mary Lou was in her seventies when I met her ten years ago and recently passed away. Her gift to those of us who showed up that weekend was the opportunity to see into the past and meet a few of the people who share that past. She also gave each of the attendees a printed copy of the extensive family tree that she researched that I still have and cherish.
Maternal Reconnection
The falling out on my mother’s side was slightly more recent. My grandfather, Thomas, was married to Grace, my grandmother. Thomas was the middle child and the eldest son in his family. He was named after his father, Thomas Joseph. The argument came about because his younger brother, John and his wife, Winnie, decided to name their newborn son Thomas Joseph while my grandmother was expecting her fourth child. The brothers had discussed the decision and decided that they wanted the name Thomas to be passed down in the family, Thomas and Grace had three girls with no guarantee that their fourth child would be a boy. Of course it was a boy, and she felt the name Thomas was her son’s birthright, and it had been stolen from them. She forbade my grandfather to talk to his brother. The brothers, Thomas and John, both worked in New York City and would meet for lunch once a week behind my grandmother’s back. Ironically, neither Grace and Thomas’s son, Robert, nor John and Winnie’s son, Thomas produced a male heir. So the name Thomas Joseph McCarthy ended with my grandfather. The fight over the name was meaningless. Because Thomas and John valued their relationship so much, the rift was eventually repaired, but it left a scar. My mother took Grace’s side in the argument. This distanced her from her younger cousins and over time their contact whittled down to a Christmas card once a year.
After my mom passed away, one of the cousins reached out. From this came an e-mail correspondence that eventually turned into an invitation to Narragansett, Rhode Island this June for a family reunion. There were thirty five people who attended. They came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York City, and as far as Georgia. We had the opportunity to share stories, go through photographs, ask questions, and laugh. We have been in touch since, and I am hopeful that this has opened a door for a reconnection that lasts. It was a wonderful trip and it was encouraging to know that family can be found and relationships rekindled.
Once estrangement happens, there is a divergence of shared history. The people who hold the memories don’t speak of them. Relationships that aren’t tended, wither and die. The next generation inherits the fallout from this loss. The generation after that may not even know that another branch of their family tree exists, much less what occurred to cause the chasm. I know this sounds bleak, but it doesn’t have to be.
How does this fit into The Best Third? Relationships matter. It’s important to tend the ones that you have, repair them when necessary, and reconnect when it’s possible. Whether it’s a lost branch of the family tree, someone you lost touch with in high school, or a family member that you lost along the way,reaching out may reunite you with your family. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it may at least provide history and context to how you became who you are. How someone reacts is out of your control, but isn’t it nice to know that hope is always an option?
The Best Third 