Commentary: Family lore from my dad's side goes like this: Decades ago, an aunt I've never met drove to my grandfather's house, walked up with her toddler in her arms and rang the bell. When her father came to the door, she told him, "This is my son — and you'll never get to know him." She turned around and left.
When I heard the story for the first time, it was shocking. I could not understand that type of animosity, especially toward family. I had a very placid childhood in general, with just me and my parents. All the extended family I knew lived 8,000 miles away in my mom's home country. We called and sent letters and packages, but I didn't have cousins who would romp around the backyard with me.
When I was very little, I thought a small family was normal. I got the sense that how I interacted with my family wasn't much like how my classmates interacted with theirs, but it didn't feel strange. As I got older and my curiosity about how I came to exist grew, I wanted to know more about why my father didn't have a relationship with his family. He was the youngest of four, with one brother and two sisters. I started dreaming up the adventures I could have had with cousins who were likely out there.
I was shut down when I did any direct questioning, and the information I received only came from my mom, released in drips over the years. The faucet was flushed open when my dad started to die, particularly at the end, when, in the stream of decay, the stories told in lucid moments were the clearest thing he could hang on to.
Those stories he told me about his family and his youth, still vague in his sharing, seemed to be extra-poisonous for him, caked in layers of anger, regret and hurt. I received glimmers of what it means to remove yourself from a toxic family and try to start a new life without its influences, and what it's like to create a family when you have no guideposts for what a healthy family looks like.
When I was pregnant with my first, I got the hormonal hankering to reach out to my paternal side. With the help of a private investigator — whose office was on McClure Road, which I took as a sign — I went to find my dad's brother. A few days later, I had a phone number for someone who knew I'd be calling.
We had just one phone call. He sounded like my dad. He didn't know his brother was dead. Talking to me, he said, was too painful, but he felt I needed an explanation of why I wouldn't have an uncle. He explained a little family history and alluded to more recent family darkness. It was less than a half-hour conversation. As of today, the sisters, and any family from that side, are still shrouded in the obscurity of my father's past.
In the past week, we've watched another family, and family business, implode through Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Others are discussing better than I can what he called "colonial undertones," but what I sat with was the former prince's decision to step away from a toxic family. Granted, the operational structure of The Firm and family still allowed him to inherit wealth that carries financial security, whereas many who want to step away from family are hindered by the power that finances hold.
The pandemic may have had a similar effect on other families, with members realizing that toxicity — even if microdosed — just isn't worth it, even for all the cultural heralding of the intense value of family. A shared history doesn't mean that you have a shared future, and sometimes family dries up when held under the light of examination.
Cassie McClure is a writer, wife/mama/daughter, fan of the Oxford comma, and drinker of tequila. Some of those things relate. She is also a National Society of Newspaper Columnists ambassador and can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To find out more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.