Anatomy of a Family
I came up with this idea a few weeks ago: the story of a family is in its details. I kept coming back to that sentence. The story of a family - of mine, at least - is in its details. I like to think that the details become memories of the senses, flashing really clearly for just a second. The tough thing is, even though they're brief, they persist; and in every effort not to remember, they refuse to let you forget. I sometimes think that somewhere in me, they settle and become an inseparable part of my breathing. With a steady in and out, in and out, they hit each heartbeat. That's how I picture it, anyhow. And to me, in the end, it's the details that count and pound the most. It's been over a year since my parents split up, and even though everyone says it gets easier, I'm not sure it does. In some ways, I think you just adjust to the new reality. I really don't know about any of it, though. The one thing I know for sure is that no matter how much you adjust, the details of the old family stay behind.
My father had the same routine every night. When he came home from work, he placed his briefcase at the base of the stairs, so that it leaned lazily on its side, and he hung his coat in the hall closet. In the winter, he smelled like the cold air, and some nights, he smelled faintly of wine if he had met with clients or friends before coming home. He would always come into the family room and ask my sister, brother, and me if we had noticed his arrival. “I work all day,” he would say, “and I come home, and nobody cares? Nobody wants to say hello to their father?”
“Hi, Dad,” we would give in. But the truth is, I’m not sure any of us felt an obligation to greet him. We took his arrival for granted, because we always expected him to come home.
And if I'm honest, it is only months after his hangers remain bare in the hall closet that I notice the empty space next to the stairs where his briefcase once leaned. Some moments, I can picture my father coming into the house, and I can hear his voice and smell his coat, even sense the soft touch of his briefcase to the floor. I know the shape and worn patches of his briefcase by heart, just like the rest of his evening routine. And the thing that kills me is that each time I think about it, it gets clearer for me, even though everything tells me that it should be fading into the new reality.
The other thing I keep coming back to is our kitchen table, which was pretty much brand-new when my father left. For years, we had a large white oval table in our kitchen, with soft leather chairs on wheels. The chairs were a real hazard. If someone leaned too far back, the chair would flip right over. If someone leaned too far forward, the chair would slide out underneath. My mother hated the kitchen set, and she spent many Saturday afternoons at furniture stores in search of the perfect dining set. My mother wanted a new table because the one we had, with its stark white color, showed every scratch and errant homework scribble. Though she scrubbed it religiously, the faint marks remained like the proud proof of our existence.
Finally, one Saturday, my mother found her perfect kitchen set. The table was rectangular, finished in a black wood. I think my father left before we had a Thanksgiving at our new table. And perhaps it was my mother’s new table runner and constant floral arrangement at its center, but my father left before any of us had done any homework at the new table. It had no marks of initiation, and even though it had looked beautiful and regal in the store, in our house, it has always seemed to me a little aloof and out of place. My father’s seat has also remained vacant. It seems as though nobody wants to touch it, because when guests come for dinner, they avoid sitting there. Whether conscious or not, nobody sets a place at the head of the table. It's been pretty much unspoken among us, like a secret pact, or perhaps a hope that if we leave the memory unsaid, it will make us less likely to remember. I'm not sure.
It’s not funny, but perhaps ironic, that my mother spent years searching for the perfect kitchen table for our family to have family dinners at, and when she finally found it, bought it, and brought it home, we now rarely eat there. It is like a prize piece in a museum: we admire it, but our admiration is from afar; there is no connection, and part of me suspects that she would return the table in a heartbeat if her old table brought back her old family. I think I would.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mope around all the time. And the truth is, I don't really think about the big picture of it all. People tell me all the time that a change in your family structure should be treated like a death, and that always makes me wonder if I should be approaching my life like a mourner and I try out the stages: denial, anger, sadness, acceptance. But when I try it out, it doesn't really fit right, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm too stubborn to just assign myself a phase, or whether these people are just really messed up in their logic. I think it's a pretty depressing way to view it all, but sometimes, I can't help but think my reluctance might be because I won't accept the reality of it all, that I rely too much on those moments of memory, and that somewhere, I'm hoping for some ideal to come through and save everything and put it all back together. And then in the end, I always come back to the most simple but in some ways, most troubling, answer: I just don't know.
A year ago, my friend gave me this grainy picture of my family. I'm pretty certain it's the last family picture we have. It's a pretty pathetically bad picture, if I'm honest. There's someone else taking a picture in the picture, and the thing's completely off-kilter, and even though it's candid, it's not candid in any artsy-way. My point is, it's not a great moment or anything, but still, it's a moment just the same. And it's not that I look at the picture every second or that I keep it in some special place and make a huge deal of it - I don't - but every once in a while, I admit that I look at it and I can't help it, I see the whole life of my family right in it. In a way, that stupid picture is really representative of us. I'm not sure if I say that because it's true or if it's just something tangible I can accept, but it is what it is, and if that's all I can come up with, I'll have to take it.
My father had the same routine every night. When he came home from work, he placed his briefcase at the base of the stairs, so that it leaned lazily on its side, and he hung his coat in the hall closet. In the winter, he smelled like the cold air, and some nights, he smelled faintly of wine if he had met with clients or friends before coming home. He would always come into the family room and ask my sister, brother, and me if we had noticed his arrival. “I work all day,” he would say, “and I come home, and nobody cares? Nobody wants to say hello to their father?”
“Hi, Dad,” we would give in. But the truth is, I’m not sure any of us felt an obligation to greet him. We took his arrival for granted, because we always expected him to come home.
And if I'm honest, it is only months after his hangers remain bare in the hall closet that I notice the empty space next to the stairs where his briefcase once leaned. Some moments, I can picture my father coming into the house, and I can hear his voice and smell his coat, even sense the soft touch of his briefcase to the floor. I know the shape and worn patches of his briefcase by heart, just like the rest of his evening routine. And the thing that kills me is that each time I think about it, it gets clearer for me, even though everything tells me that it should be fading into the new reality.
The other thing I keep coming back to is our kitchen table, which was pretty much brand-new when my father left. For years, we had a large white oval table in our kitchen, with soft leather chairs on wheels. The chairs were a real hazard. If someone leaned too far back, the chair would flip right over. If someone leaned too far forward, the chair would slide out underneath. My mother hated the kitchen set, and she spent many Saturday afternoons at furniture stores in search of the perfect dining set. My mother wanted a new table because the one we had, with its stark white color, showed every scratch and errant homework scribble. Though she scrubbed it religiously, the faint marks remained like the proud proof of our existence.
Finally, one Saturday, my mother found her perfect kitchen set. The table was rectangular, finished in a black wood. I think my father left before we had a Thanksgiving at our new table. And perhaps it was my mother’s new table runner and constant floral arrangement at its center, but my father left before any of us had done any homework at the new table. It had no marks of initiation, and even though it had looked beautiful and regal in the store, in our house, it has always seemed to me a little aloof and out of place. My father’s seat has also remained vacant. It seems as though nobody wants to touch it, because when guests come for dinner, they avoid sitting there. Whether conscious or not, nobody sets a place at the head of the table. It's been pretty much unspoken among us, like a secret pact, or perhaps a hope that if we leave the memory unsaid, it will make us less likely to remember. I'm not sure.
It’s not funny, but perhaps ironic, that my mother spent years searching for the perfect kitchen table for our family to have family dinners at, and when she finally found it, bought it, and brought it home, we now rarely eat there. It is like a prize piece in a museum: we admire it, but our admiration is from afar; there is no connection, and part of me suspects that she would return the table in a heartbeat if her old table brought back her old family. I think I would.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mope around all the time. And the truth is, I don't really think about the big picture of it all. People tell me all the time that a change in your family structure should be treated like a death, and that always makes me wonder if I should be approaching my life like a mourner and I try out the stages: denial, anger, sadness, acceptance. But when I try it out, it doesn't really fit right, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm too stubborn to just assign myself a phase, or whether these people are just really messed up in their logic. I think it's a pretty depressing way to view it all, but sometimes, I can't help but think my reluctance might be because I won't accept the reality of it all, that I rely too much on those moments of memory, and that somewhere, I'm hoping for some ideal to come through and save everything and put it all back together. And then in the end, I always come back to the most simple but in some ways, most troubling, answer: I just don't know.
A year ago, my friend gave me this grainy picture of my family. I'm pretty certain it's the last family picture we have. It's a pretty pathetically bad picture, if I'm honest. There's someone else taking a picture in the picture, and the thing's completely off-kilter, and even though it's candid, it's not candid in any artsy-way. My point is, it's not a great moment or anything, but still, it's a moment just the same. And it's not that I look at the picture every second or that I keep it in some special place and make a huge deal of it - I don't - but every once in a while, I admit that I look at it and I can't help it, I see the whole life of my family right in it. In a way, that stupid picture is really representative of us. I'm not sure if I say that because it's true or if it's just something tangible I can accept, but it is what it is, and if that's all I can come up with, I'll have to take it.
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