The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Trees
Montage by Victor Bloomberg, December 27, 2016
Cousin Jaqueline had died from a fast moving cancer that went from a lung to her bones. She was a bit older than me and was my playmate since my days of nursery school. I was always trying to be like her: strong, fearless, agile, coordinated and she always had friends around. We became less and less relevant to each other, starting in high school and there were years of total silence (except for the usual holidays). We started talking when her parents died and mine died, too. Then COVID pandemic happened. Maybe it was the death and isolation, but we started Sunday phone calls - that lasted five years. She wasn’t supposed to die before me, she never got sick - I had been the sickly one.
Almost a year after Jaqueline’s death, Cousin Barb sent back-to-back emails that were verbose. She was in fight mode, using Scripture quotes (and citations) to “should on me”. The “should” went to the past, “You shouldn’t have killed my turtle by putting salt in the water”. The should made it to the present, “You shouldn’t have showed up at the house, you weren’t her sister”. The should went into the future, “You should stay away if you know what’s good for you”. The sheer volume of words dominated, overwhelmed. Why did I read them? Barb had activated all sorts of thoughts and emotions in me, mostly hurt and confusion. When would she ever see me as I am, as Jaqueline and I were? You know the answer, when I see an elephant fly.
I was upset and couldn’t settle myself down, so I had a long conversation with Cousin Wyona. When Jaqueline was alive, the three of us talked weekly on the phone, round robin style. Barb was not part of these routine of calls that harkened back to the days (before Barb was born) when the three of us ran around in the woods with our dog “Wolf”. In these last five years of phone-call-togetherness, we three occasionally talked about Barb’s short fuse. All of us had this trait that extended to gramps and grannies, aunties and uncles, moms and dads, cousins and siblings.
Our Big Family caused a lot of pain. Barb covered up and contained rage with fervent religion and righteousness. Wyona goes to Church, but doesn’t use Scripture to judge non-believers like Jaqueline and me. Some of us became reliably nice, some more than others. My Big Family favorites were always the ones I could count on to be nice.
I routinely tell my clients that while emotions are either painful or pleasurable, they are not good or bad. They are physiological events. Each culture names them. These feelings convey information that can guide choices or produce confusion. Well, the year since Jaqueline’s death has produced a flood of information and confusion for me.
Pain and pleasure are physiologically incompatible in any given moment. We swing back-and-forth, rapidly or slowly. I’ve learned to activate a flow of pleasure when I am in pain (whether momentarily or for too long, too intensely, too often): drink tea, eat an apple, talk with a confidant, do something physical, make art, get into nature, and so on.
Barb’s grief timeline is a few months longer than mine, visiting Jaqueline as she turned the corner towards death. It was obvious that Jaqueline was dying, and yet she willfully focused on recovery. Barb was sworn to secrecy, she couldn’t share her pain. It must have been traumatic.
Recognition of her trauma helped me understand and accept Barb’s hurtful emails. Prior to the trauma explanation, I cycled through my mind’s committee: “Harsh Judge” called her names, “Psychotherapist” thought about her chaotic style, and “Cousin-in-Unrequited-Love” wrote a thoughtful reply. I edited my reply after talking with Wyona and sent it. Surely Barb would give it serious thought, after all she could be nice at times. Aargh! Foiled again. I’m like Charlie Brown and she’s Lucy snatching the football right as I’m about to kick it.
My Better Half reminded me that I sent the email to use my voice, to express my integrity and dignity, not to get a result. But, what was the result I wanted? Oh yeah, the Cousin Barb that I had always wanted. Fortunately, I did get the Jaqueline and Wyona I had wished for, we had reconstituted our Little Women solidarity. That allows me to grieve with a lighter load. (Barb had never been a member of the Little Women Club.)
My simpler grief is illustrated by a couple of things. After the initial devastation, I’ve restored my own emotional regularity. At baseline, I am well-tempered (even though I have my moments). One grief response of mine was to create a little shrine and to set out around our home some sweet photographs. Each time I look at these mementos of Jaqueline, I get a warm feeling. On any given day at any moment, out of the thin air or from a reminder of the life we shared, sadness appears. But there’s no deep-end to fall into.
One morning I woke up and thought “Oh, Barb uses words to dominate and control like her Dad, and she’s an emotional geyser like her Mom. The apple does not fall far from the trees. No wonder my own fight-flight reaction is activated.” Great, I figured it out. Ah, but not quite. Clarity came when I read this paragraph from Healing the Traumatized Self *:
“Referring to peritraumatic responses, it is increasingly well established that affective reactions at the time of traumatic events are not typically limited to fear [and anxiety], but also other forms of nonspecific distress, including ‘sadness and grief’, ‘frustration and anger’, ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’… [and also these emotions arise] when exposed to reminders of past traumatic events.”
The glimpse given of Barb’s inner life through her emails confirms all of that. In my mind, I hear the voice of Gabriel García Márquez in the movie Gabo, The Magic of Reality (2015). He says that you can never really fully know another soul because “each human being has a public self, a private self, and a secret self”. I am sad for Barb and for our Big Family.
*Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, Treatment” by Paul Frewen and Ruth Lanius, W. W. Norton & Co., (New York) 2015, p. 239
