I grew up without a father, who came home every night after work, started eating before the rest of us, finished, and then promptly adjourned to his workshop to get into his hobbies. He never completed a single father-son project with me. He took the family to those places where families go for weekends in the summer, but his heart wasn’t in it. At my bedtime, he began a novel, reading to me a chapter a night for four nights, then stopped those so important nocturnal connections.

He never started a conversation with me or stuck around if I started it. He didn’t enjoy my company, or my sister’s. Dad was all about Dad.

Today he’s senile at 95, but still mentally equipped to treat my mother like he always did – his maid.

NOW loves me, or so he says. NOW he wants my company and attention. NOW I can’t stand him but do the right thing and lie, treating him with pseudo respect and telling him I love him.

When he dies, I won’t care and I’ll be happy on behalf of my mother. He never gave us his love and now no one loves him back.

Irv

Here’s a comment from a family member that was left behind when the other person walked away.

My only sister stopped returning my calls and emails without telling me why. There are times when we occasionally meet or end up talking on the phone. During those encounters my sister pretends nothing changed and that no withdrawing on her side ever occurred. I ask questions. She answers them. I say I love her. She says she loves me back. I say I’ll call her next week. She says fine. I call. She never pick up. I write. She doesn’t answer.

And she got this behavior going with her children, my only niece and nephew in my family. They too are estranged while pretending not to be.

And it’s just not to me. My sister and her kids do this to the entire extended family.

So what’s my point? My point is, if a sibling or cousin or aunt or parent wants to change the family boundaries or even cut it off completely, at least explain why.

Irv