On Family and Whether Love is Selfish.

Today I am nearing then end of a book I have been reading for class about a woman whose mother died because of cancer. The story is from the daughter's perspective, but it focuses on the mother's slow death and her family's struggle to accept this reality.

Whenever I read anything about death, I think about my father.

The two stories are nothing alike, my father died suddenly.

There is, however, one simularity: in both situations the family gathered.

When my dad died, my mom's large family gathered around us. At the time we still had my grandmother's farm. She had recently moved into a nursing home and we were still figuring out what to do with the farm. My uncle and aunt from a distant province (who later moved to our province permanately) just happened to be visiting when dad died. They were staying in the empty farmhouse. In the weeks after my Dad's death, we often gathered at the farmhouse to have campfires, eat food, and just be together.

I was a teenager in the middle of my high school career.

Selfish and shocked, my family annoyed me.

See, they are Dutch and I don't want to perpetuate stereotypes, but it is common for the Dutch to live in their minds, they don't discuss feelings, they don't hug, and they don't cry in front of eachother.

This culture makes death difficult to deal with, because death is not a private business that can be dealt with on your own. The death of one person affects many.

I have the analytical brain of my mother's clan, but it is mixed with the expressive heart of my father's people.

When I am sad, I cry. When something is funny, I laugh. When I am angry, I yell. When I am Happy, I sing. When I am scared, I talk. And no matter what I feel, I express it loudly.

I feel deeply. Every small joy or fear is felt in an exagerated way inside of my heart. I then express those feelings. However, when something really big happens, like the death  of my father, I don't know how to feel about it, so I don't. I just think about it for a few months or years until I am familiar with it well enough to feel it.

When this first happened I was scared. I wasn't used to this emotional disconnect. I wanted more than anything to grieve wildly. My family seemed to want me to accept it and understand it: that death is natural and the living keep living without the dead, that death is ok because it isn't the end and that the living are ok because they aren't alone.

They didn't understand my need to feel and I didn't understand their quiet greif and quiet love.

I rejected their practical love because I thought that love needed to take the form of words and hugs.

It was only when I moved away from home that I realized how much they love me, in their own way, and I was able to give it back.

When I came to university I started to build a new family without even really thinking about it. I depended on other people and asked them for help because it was the only way I knew to survive.

People said I wasn't very independant but it didn't bother me much because I don't want to be independant. What I do want is to help others as much as they help me.

This sounds selfish, like I only want to help others so they can help me and we'll form a circle where everyone takes care of eachother instead of just taking care of others as well as taking care of my self.

It might be selfish, it might be wrong, but its the only way I know to live.

I think of my littlest cousin who was only a baby when my dad died.

The day we burried my dad I felt like I was adrift, I didn't know what to think or feel or do, I searched for somewhere to land my heart and mind, and my eyes landed on the safest person in the grave yard: my little baby cousin perched in his mother's arms. I walked over to him and goo goo talked to him all the while thinking of the Jack Johnson song that says "new life makes losing life easier to understand" and I felt comforted somehow in a way my brain couldn't grasp.

Then something happened.

This little baby reached his arms out to me and I picked him up.

A simple little moment, but his mother was excited! "That's only the second time he's ever done that, the first time was to me, just this morning when I went to get him out of bed."

He was a baby.

When he pooped or peed, he needed someone to clean it up. He needed to be fed, burped, rocked, and held. He was completely dependant in a selfish sort of way. When he reached out to me it was probably just because I was interesting or familar or safe seeming and in that moment he felt like a change of scenery from his mama's arms to mine. Selfish reasons really, but he gave me something, in all his selfish dependance, he made me feel loved, he made me feel better as I stood beside my father's grave.

Just a coincidance right? He was a baby, he couldn't have comforted me on purpose because he didn't understand! That may or may not be, we will never know, but even if you assume it is true: think about this - in a way, his reaching was his way of showing that he deemed me safe, and he deemed me safe because I was good to him, and he wanted to be with me because I was good to him. Maybe he even loved me - for selfish reasons, but that love wasn't really selfish, it was more like a way of saying thanks, and when he said thanks in his baby way I felt appreciated and loved and my love for him grew.

Now the baby is growing every day and getting closer to his sixth birthday.

He is getting better at showing his love for me.

He is five and thinks that girls (even his sisters, cousins, aunts, and maybe even his mother) are gross and its either his dutch blood or his toddler stubborness, but he doesn't give hugs.

However, whenever I visit he sits beside me and pokes me and tickles me and begs for piggy back rides.

I can see the love behind the funny games.

When I'm not around he asks about me, where is she and when is she coming back? and when I do come back he asks if I'm done school yet.

Even today he is reaching out because he likes being with me.

I understand this child language, I used to speak it too.

He's getting better at helping, as kids grow they can do more for the people who held up their heads when they were babies.

Today when I go grocery shopping with mother I insist on carrying the heavier bags "You carried me for 9 months and more" I say "Its my turn to do the carrying."

Is this selfishness? To love the ones who help me and to help them back, and to help others because I know what its like to need and recieve help and because I hope one day they will help me?

It might be, and there might be a greater love that has nothing to do with being loved in return. If there is I would like to experience it, from the giving end, but for now this is all I know and it makes me feel safe, all these families, biological or not, taking their place recieving and giving help and love and just doing life together.

ARagTagHooligan