All for Family

Each year I make my way cross country for the holidays. There are times when I find this frustrating and a complete inconvenience. There are times when I wonder exactly "why" I drag the Diva and myself through airports and from hotel to house to hotel over hundreds of miles within just about ten days...All the stress, the exhaustion, all the everything... is it worth it?

 

But it is.

 

Because I do this, my grandparents know their only great granddaughter. They are able to share in her life, if only for a short amount of time. Moreover, she knows them.

 

I have a very small family - and we are scattered between here and Down Under. I like to think that it matters that we are together for the holidays. I like to think that it matters to my grandparents - I know that it matters to my parents and to me.

 

This year my uncle is coming from New Zealand. He is finally feeling very healthy after a battle with stomach cancer. He will be with my grandparents for the holidays as will my parents and myself and the Diva. My brother will not be there - he has the 5 boys and the drive (7 hours) is just too much for the family.

 

Or that is what we were told. That is what we thought.

 

Instead, my brother is traveling a greater distance to Texas to rent a house and spend a week on vacation. My mom doesn't seem disappointed. No one is going to tell my grandparents unless they ask - and they probably won't mind as it is my brother. My dad and I are... flabbergasted - not that he is doing it but that no one seems to mind.  My brother seems to have little interest in being a family.  We don't fit his desired lifestyle. 

 

My brother and I are two entirely different people. It is hard to imagine that we were raised in the same house with the same parents as we are almost perfect opposites.

 

Despite my comfort being away from family, I do value it. I believe it is important for the generations to connect - for the Diva to know her great grandparents etc. I value the times when we are all together and recognize just how fragile is the blood that bonds us.

 

My brother, on the other hand, values "his" family meaning his wife and their kids. He will travel hundreds of miles for work or for vacation, but will not do the same to spend time with our family.

 

This is not unusual... or is it?

 

My dad stayed with his family - taking care of his mom and making sure she was a part of our family while his brother and my mom's brother set out to find their fortunes without looking back.

 

I grew up hearing, "A daughter is always a daughter, but a son is only a son until he takes a wife."

 

Seriously? I rejected this idea from the moment I heard it, but... in my family it holds true. It leaves me feeling sad. Why does he behave this way? Is there something about the way the women on both sides of my family have raised their sons...?

 

And now I know a woman who treats her mother and maternal grandmother the same way - no obligation, no effort to see them, no desire to share her children with them...  To her, that connection is just not worth the time and energy.  She will travel to see her husband's family or her dad, but to see her maternal family; it isn't happening. 

 

I wonder what this is teaching their children?  I wonder if they stop to consider how they would/will feel if their children grow up and demonstrate the same behavior?

 

*sigh*  Who knows, perhaps it is me that is weird!!