The Damage Done...

I think I may have mentioned earlier that 2 of Clem's 5 siblings have had a relationship break up since his death almost 18 months ago. For myself it is directly related to his death. Two months before his death was the last time we were planning to see each other. He was taking his kids to our alma mater, the University of Iowa. He wanted his oldest child to attend college there, as he had. I was to meet him there since things were rather hairy on the home front. Dad was goading Mom, as usual, but now she had begun to retaliate physically...the tables were turned. But we were concerned for other reasons as well. She was receiving many different prescriptions from 3 different doctors in order to treat her MS. She is irrational and alienates people in positions of authority. We always called it selective reality. This time she became angered at her neurologist and was no longer seeing her. She was passing out on an almost daily basis and falling down a lot. She has osteoporosis, as well, so falls are even more serious for her.
Clem and I, along with our youngest sister were sharing e-mails back and forth during this time about their well-being. The sister who is directly in front of me in birth order tries to stay out of the fray. She was helping in a different way. A PhD in nutrition and immunology, she was trying to persuade dad to send her a list of the medications mom was on. He read some of them over the phone to her and she said that some of them were uppers, some downers, and some used to treat some of her symptoms also are used to treat high blood pressure. My family has a history of low b.p. No wonder she was fainting, or nearly fainting every time she went from a laying or sitting position.
My younger sister, Jem, stayed out of the fray due to her 'changeling' status in the family. She recognizes the dysfunction and resents being delivered to the parents who bore her and, at times, the family in which she was born. My younger brother, the youngest of the family, and his wife live too close to the situation to deal with it. I tend to take the role of rescuer/peacemaker in many situations to the point where I will sacrifice my own happiness for that of others in my family. I am trying to change this, to be assertive and stand up for myself ever since seeing this behavior manifest itself in my older boy. My youngest sister, I think I have called her Cepe before is compulsively controlling. She has always wanted our family to 'just be normal'. In turns, she has been judgmental of and embarrassed by the two 'middle' children, Jem and me. In this situation, as in many, Clem listened to Cepe, as he normally did. After Cepe started working for a republican senator, Clem grew closer to her. Clem and my younger brother Spec became closest when Spec divorced his abusive first wife. I think Spec always respected Clem, this was the time, as adults that they really bonded.
Many e-mails went back and forth among the sibs about Mom and Dad. At one point I mentioned that I would love to meet Clem in Iowa City (IC). It had been a LONG time since I'd been back and I really like spending time with Clem and his family. The last two attempts I had made to visit the state where they lived had been thwarted, the first due to a kids' party and the second, in July 2007 because they would be in El Salvador working on the mission Clem and his wife had started with the help of their church. I was REALLY bummed about this one b/c Jaybe, Brick and I were going to be en route from WI to Cape cod, by car. I was at the beginning stages of my pregnancy with Puddles. I wanted to make the announcement in person. We ended up driving pretty much straight through, with 2-4 hour driving stints and trades and naps. One of the worst trips I have ever taken. And I have taken a lot.
The trip to IC, for my family, fell apart. To this day, that is my biggest regret in life. Coming up: "A Close Call" 10/18-10/19/08

Oh Clem...

Last night was the first night in about a week that I got tired on my own and had to fight to stay awake. So what do I do? I became obsessed with finding a particular picture of you. I still haven't found it, though I found a sweet pic of you and Austin when he was a baby. It was taken at aunt Jeri's one Easter. You are both wearing stripes. God, how you love those kids. and Heather. I'm fairly sure I know how you died, Clem. The question that my heart longs to answer is "Why??" Why did the God to whom you were devoted take you so early. Why did evil win out in this case, Clem? You could have done so much more good alive than dead. You would have had your chance to confess your sins and be cleansed of them. What went wrong? At first I blamed Grandma Julia. I love her so much. She was like a surrogate mother to us--you and me. I think God took Uncle Dick the year before as a sort of way to get us our family prepared for G.Julia's death. And to protect her from Grandpa, if by some chance he actually made it into heaven, now that the Roman Catholic church does not have a limbo. When I went to the grocery store the other night, I asked you to send me some songs on the channel of my radio station. You sent 'whole lotta love' and 'the Rose'. I thank you for that.

Keeping the Peace

Keeping the peace was, primarily, I believed, my job, as a child. My mother called me the little peacemaker. To this day, I cower at confrontation and will work hard to smooth things over between warring friends or family members. Maybe I should be some kind of mediator when I grow up.

We each had our labels and role in our parent's world. Clem was a hell-raiser. Camp was a perfect child who loved to keep house (her way and just so). I was the peace maker and social butterfly. Jem was the quiet, artistic one. Cepe was the prim and proper one. And Spec well, Spec was the baby, Mom's cherished one. Mom liked to have us pigeon-holed so she could understand us in her own delusional way. Mom's childhood was emotionally and psychologically disastrous. Dad's was physically, emotionally, and psychologically complicated. To make matters worse...Mom has MS and Dad is an alcoholic. Both are abusive in their own special ways. I won't go into those, as the depth of the abuse is irrelevant to my story.

Which will be continued...some day. I am going to try to do better...writing REALLY helps and it is something that Clem encouraged me to do.

A Part of Me...Apart from me.

There's a part of me irretrievably missing. The only thing I can do about it at this moment is cry. When Clem died, our lives were intertwined enough that my loss is, indeed, physical, psychological, emotional, physiological, permanent, and real.

Saying that our childhood was dysfunctional is like saying that ice cream tastes good. Dysfunctional does not even begin to describe the family dynamics in our house when I was young. Clem and I were close; closer than brother and sister. I don't know how to explain the 'specialness' of our relationship to someone who is not a part of my family. He was more than my older brother, my best friend, my protector, and, occasionally, my tormentor. Researchers describe how children attribute 'god-like' qualities to their parents. This didn't happen so much in the household where I lived. I had that kind of admiration for my older brother and sister. Us siblings (there are 6 total) became our own little family, as our parents drank, fought, fornicated, and focused on each other. We were neglected, to say the least. We were raised in isolation. Neither parent had much in the department of social skills.

The treasures that kept us kids together and remarkably well-adjusted for our upbringing are our intelligence and our senses of humor. Every last one of the children in my f.o.o. are incredibly smart and extremely quick-witted.

The fact that we raised each other, while being the offspring in an 'intact' household, is, I believe uncommon. When I say we raised each other, I mean that I was changing diapers at age 4, cooking family meals and doing laundry by age 7, doing yard work, gardening, and helping with mechanical repairs ever since I can remember. As soon as another sibling came along, we were, in turn, made to feel responsible for that sibling. The six children were only 10 years apart in age--Clem being 10 years old when Spec, mom's long awaited youngest son was born. The four girls make up the filling of the sibling pie. I am #3. Clem was 27 months older than me. Camp, my older sis, is 13 months my senior. We were close babies, Irish triplets, who grew up in a hurry in our loud, confusing, chaotic, Roman Catholic household.