The Ties That Bind

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that I write quite often about family members: my step-father, my mum, my sisters. In 2017 I wrote about family a lot; my brother Terry was ill, and then he passed away. I just reread one of those posts. All about family ties and how much I enjoyed the wake at Terry’s funeral.

That was unexpected for me. I loved my older brother so much that I expected to be really, really sad on that day. And, of course, I was. But, by the day of the funeral, it seemed that I’d finished my crying, mostly, and just really enjoyed meeting up with family and old friends. And not even my own friends, but Terry’s friends whom I remembered from when I was a kid. And I realized from that experience that the ties that bind are not necessarily always to do with blood. Or geographic proximity.

You may already know this, but I come from a complex blended family. Early in Hubby’s and my relationship it took a whole evening and several glasses of wine to explain my family to him. The half-siblings and step-siblings, not to mention the grandparents and cousins who were related to my sisters and brother but not actually to me because my sisters and older brother and I shared a mum, but not a dad. I also have an older half-brother with whom I share a dad but not a mum. And a step-brother with whom I share neither, but with whom I grew up after his father married my mum.

Then there are adopted cousins, and cousins-in-law, sisters and brothers-in-law, not to mention cousins that I only recently discovered. Like the woman who owns one of my favourite boutiques in Fredericton who, it turns out, is related to my mum’s first husband and thus to my brother and sisters.

But for all the family talk, I haven’t written much about my step-brother David. I’m not sure why. I’ve certainly written a ton about his father, my step-father, who had such a huge impact on my life. In a good way, I should add.

David was twelve and I was fourteen when my mum married his dad. My older siblings were either married (my brother) or away at post-secondary school (both sisters.) So, for the most part, life became all about a new sort of blended family. Of course my sisters came home for stints of various lengths as they transitioned from student life to adult life. And my brother lived with us one whole winter while he was recovering from two brain operations; he’d been flown home to New Brunswick for emergency surgery while his wife and young family stayed at their home in another province. But mostly, for the next few years, except at Christmas, there would be four of us around the dinner table: Lloyd and Mum and David and me.

I often wonder what David thought of being landed with three new sisters and a new brother all in one day. To tell you the truth, in one old photo, taken at Mum and Lloyd’s wedding reception, David did look a bit shell-shocked.

For the years following his mother’s death, David and Lloyd had been alone in the big old farm house. Except for Butch the dog. I think that must have been a lonely time for David, but he’s never talked to me about it. And then, all of a sudden, he had three older sisters and an older brother, a new step-mother, and frequently, when everyone was at home, a houseful of people where previously there had been only two.

Mum made huge changes to the old house when we moved in. She papered and painted all that next year, made new curtains and cushion covers, changed all the old woodwork from brown to white, and generally brightened and freshened everything up. To me it felt like a cosy, bright wind had blown through the old house. But I don’t know what David felt. Perhaps he was disconcerted by all the change. Maybe he was glad that the old house had more life and light and laughter now. And lots of delicious new smells. My mum was a consummate cook and baker. I do know that for the first few months after we moved, while I followed Lloyd around asking questions about the farm and the animals, David spent a lot of time in the kitchen with Mum.

David taught me how to drive the tractor when I moved to the farm. We both helped Lloyd hay, and operated the farmers’ ferry when needed. David mowed the lawn and I was dragged off to pick beans, both tasks we loathed. We learned to downhill ski at the same time when Mum’s cousin gave us lessons. We fought over who deserved the last spoonful of Mum’s raspberry jam. Trust me, Mum’s jam was worth fighting for. I gained my own room, finally, and several hundred acres over which to roam with my sketch pad, and he gained a set of grandparents, which he’d not had for years.

I’ve told you before about the winter vacation when I was fifteen and decided that going to the woods for a day of logging with Lloyd sounded like something out of a fairy tale. Or Anne of Green Gables at the very least. It was a pretty amazing day. And, as a result, David realized that he might be missing something. Suddenly there was stiff competition for the one and only skidoo suit that was needed for a day in the bush in winter.

I remember at supper some nights we choked down boiled cabbage (his nemesis) and liver and onions (mine) when Mum decided that it would be good to serve both contentious dishes at the same time. This came about because David would chortle all the way through a meal of liver and onions which I despised, and I smiled smugly when he had to eat cabbage. Mum decided the fairest thing was to make us both suffer at once. Hence the competition was ended. Pretty clever of her, I think.

David and I learned how to play chess, and he bought a chess set on sale that was missing half its pieces. So we used empty spools of thread in lieu of pawns and bishops. My grandmother gave us an old, tabletop, reel-to-reel tape recorder from the forties, complete with a stand-up microphone, and we spent hours reading comic books aloud, each performing different parts. Then we played them back, and fell over laughing.

I tutored David in Math one year. Not patiently, I must confess. I drove him and his friends around when we were both in high school and I finally got my driver’s licence. I advised him on fashion choices, trying to be tactful. And not always succeeding. I helped him figure out what to say the first time he called a girl for a date. And he bore my older-sister bossiness with fairly good humour. Most of the time. I thought such behaviour was my right after suffering the same treatment for years as the youngest of four.

When he graduated from high school at eighteen, David went away to school in Ottawa. Then, after school, he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, and then to Calgary for work. He’s lived there ever since. Of course when he was in school we were both at home for the summers, but for many years we’ve not seen that much of each other. We both travelled home for family occasions, Mum and Lloyd’s 25th anniversary party, Terry’s funeral etc. but mostly our visits home were not at the same time. We’d talk on the phone. Mum would report what we were each doing. Hubby and I visited David and his wife and kids in Calgary back in 2016 when we were out west for a trip. But the times when we were together were rare.

So we drifted apart. Stayed in touch with jokey phone calls. But otherwise, for the next fifty years, we lived our own lives. The ties that bind which we’d formed growing up on the farm together for those six short years loosened.

And then they tightened again when Mum died. And even more so these past couple of weeks.

That’s because David has been seriously ill. His wife Yu Ling called me two weeks ago and I flew to Calgary. But you know that already.

I won’t go into the details of his condition, except to say that it has been a difficult journey. And while he’s stable and making slow progress, he has a long way to go. But that’s his story to tell, not mine. I think I’ve violated confidentiality enough by telling you he hates cabbage and that I coached him on what to say to ask his first girlfriend on a date.

I feel closer to him now than I have in years. I realize all the questions I should have asked him over the years. All the things I never thought about. Things I probably missed because I was so busy thinking about myself, and my own life.

Geographical proximity kept me close to my other siblings over the years. Connie and I grew apart when she moved to Thunder Bay and married. Then they moved back to New Brunswick, and I followed in 1983, and we rekindled our relationship. Terry and his family moved out west and then to Ontario, and then back to New Brunswick. And I saw him and his family every time I returned home. Carolyn moved from southern Ontario back to the Ottawa region, and we have been able to stay close ever since. Then she moved in with Mum and now we’re even closer. But David and I have not lived in the same place since he was eighteen and I was twenty. And that has contributed to our growing apart.

I had not thought about all the stories of us growing up on the farm together for ages. Not until I was in Calgary a week or so ago. I had not thought about the fact that while I have two sisters with whom to share growing up stories, David just has me. My sisters love David, but they didn’t grow up with him like I did. Who else but me can tell his kids all the embarrassing stories about him when he was a teenager? I’m ashamed to say I have been very remiss in not doing so. I’m hoping to make up for that going forward. I’ve let geographical distance, preoccupation with work, then retirement, then looking after Mum, then whatever… get in the way.

So, I spent a week with David’s family in Calgary. David was very ill when I arrived. He made progress and then slipped back and then made progress again. He was mostly sedated. One day when he was awake and I was not at the hospital, Yu Ling made a video of him saying, “Hi Susie. The boy is back.” That made me tear up. For years after my mother’s marriage to Lloyd, my best friend’s mother could never remember Lloyd’s name or David’s. She called them “the man your mother married” and “the boy.”

I will say that despite the fact that David was so ill, I enjoyed my week with my sister-in-law, Yu Ling, and their kids, Ashley and Alastair. Ashley and Alastair told me all about their university studies in science and engineering. Remembering those long ago tutoring sessions, I told them they must get their proficiency in math from their mum. Seriously those kids are a delight to be around, so smart and funny. Yu Ling is an amazing cook. We ate and talked and shared stories. Stories of our life on the farm, and their life in Calgary. I learned things about David I never knew. Sometimes we laughed and sometimes we cried. We visited the hospital daily. One night we went out to dinner to celebrate a big step forward that David had made that day. The next day, he slipped back to where he’d been when I arrived. It has been an excruciating roller coaster for all of them.

You know, I’ve realized these past two weeks how I have let geographical distance make a rift where there should be none. I need to do better. More phone calls. More flying visits out west. More time together while we still have time. Time to tighten those ties that bind us together as a family.

Anyway, that’s enough from me tonight, my patient friends. I’m sorry that, while I intended to miss one post, I missed two. Thanks for sticking around.

Next week my post will be all about fashion. I need a fashion fix. Yu Ling and I went vintage shopping when I was in Calgary. Oh my, that shop was amazing. But I’ll tell you about that next week.

Until then, keep your loved ones close. Whether they are blood relations, in-laws, old friends, half or step-siblings, or family that only feels like family but isn’t. Who cares. Family are the people we love.