Family

In many respects, despite being one of five children, I grew up as an only child. My closest sibling is eight years older and I was eight when all four left home. The five of us have gone our own ways, done our own things, and our lives have seldom intersected in the last forty years, with the exception of my sister with whom I’ve always been close.

As an adult I have experienced a much more tangible sense of family with those I have drawn into my circle and whose circles I have been drawn into. These are good, safe, satisfying, challenging, nurturing circles. I thank God for them. St. Mark’s has been one of these family circles. It is a respectful place and an honourable place. It is a good place, good people.

These last two months in Australia with my brother, Barry, has restored to me the family of my birth, that family I was last a part of in 1966. These have been good days, and nights. We’ve reminisced, shared stories, and forged relationships, with each other and with our siblings.

There are the little things. I’ve discovered that all of us used to crawl behind the wood stove in Mom’s kitchen to get warm on cold winter mornings. I thought I had imagined this because who could crawl behind a hot stove? We did! Barry’s description of Dad’s smell of sawdust and sweat when he came home from work sent shivers through my body. Dad died 25 years ago. It is 30 years since I lived in his house. Yet the aroma filled my nostrils as fresh and safe as when I was five.

After Dad died I found his work overalls hanging in the closet. I brought them to Toronto where for the last 17 years they have been forgotten in the back of a cupboard. Seeing Barry come home from his handyman jobs, covered in dust and looking like Dad, I knew they deserved a more respectful home. I emailed Art to pack them in his suitcase. When he brought them out we were all in the courtyard around the table. The recognition in Barry’s eyes was immediate. The tears said it all: family.

Barry and I have talked a lot about how different we five are, how differently our lives have unfolded and how differently we live than our parents lived. How did we come out of the same household, we ask each night!

What I have come to realize is that as different as our lives and life experiences are, the five of us share much in common: each one of us has a passion for what we do and never shy from hard work; we have a steely determination and strength of will that drives our spouses mad; we relish a challenge and go looking for them when they aren’t waiting for us; we laugh readily and are never far from our private sorrows and anguishes; we all place a priority on engaging people with respect, hearing their stories, and making a place for them at our tables. Ah yes, tables – they are a common feature in all of our lives: tables of plenty; tables for many; tables of friendship.

As Mom’s health deteriorates and she is swept out into an ever deepening sea of confusion and dementia, and we become the "senior" generation, it is good for both Barry and me to know that we are bound by a thread of family woven by our parents that is proven more durable than time and distance.

This has been a blessed time here in Australia with Barry and Kay and with their gaggle of tenants and friends, their family. I am grateful for the privilege of sharing their hospitality and, especially, for meeting again for the first time the family from which I have come, that has nurtured and shaped me, that is still mine to claim and in which I still live.


(Alan photographed with Mom, November, 2005)