As you read this column, the traditional holiday gathering at my mother’s house, with the never-dry-always-juicy turkey, has taken place. For the first time in 41 years, I wasn’t there… because I was sick. You will understand that I wanted to mention it, so as not to have this text raise doubts about my absence.
But it may well be that, in certain families, absentees had other reasons for staying at home, even though they too had “called in sick”. And I wanted to start thinking about this subject, even though it is perilous.
Our fixed position in front of the “sacred”
A month before Christmas, an acquaintance told me he had a stomach ache just thinking about the traditional evening with grandparents and cousins. Not because the gifts cost too much, or because the preparations cause him stress when he already has his tongue on the ground, but because he doesn’t feel good there, not to say unhappy. , year after year.
From the outset, it would be important to remember that Christmas is not obligatory, and therefore that Christmas with family is even less so, but I know that it is a sacred holiday for the majority of people (unlike at 1is January, for example), and that it involves spouses, children and other blood relations.
” What ? For five-six hours of freedom, would you create all this discomfort? Breaking the magic for children?! Why not just tough it out for a few hours… I promise we’ll leave early,” his girlfriend suggested.
Ouch. What would you do?
Realizing the complexity of the situation, I suggested the idea of “calling in sick” the same day. Question of not preventing the members of your little family from having fun. Question of not causing a storm for which he perhaps does not yet have enough tools. Above all, a question of respecting oneself.
And to see, even just once, the strength that this action could bring him?
When the children get involved
Over the past few days, a few people have been willing to tell me their stories. Sébastien’s testimony particularly struck me, because, if we often put on a mask for our children, it is possible that the children themselves decide to remove this mask. At 16, it was he who, with his 15-year-old sister, suggested to their father that they no longer go to the family Christmas. Everything weighed on them: the snobbish rich uncle who made degrading remarks about the profession more ” working class » from their father, the comments about the teenager’s weight, the meanness towards Sébastien, who was a bit annoying and not very good at school, etc.
“With hindsight, I believe that our father, who had not gotten back into a relationship, unlike our mother a few months after the separation, wanted to maintain a feeling family for my brother and me. He wanted to do well…”
Any regrets? “It saddened us, especially for our grandparents. It made us miss moments with them. But at the same time, everyone was so fake… We knew that our threesome moment — old teenagers-young adults with their father — was real. »
Everything for mom
Alexandra was raised by a single mother of whom she has very powerful, touching memories. “We were poor, but she had the biggest heart, and she did everything so that I didn’t lack anything,” she says, remembering the Holidays, which were, despite everything, magical and generous. Six months after the death of her mother, whom she cared for until her last breath, the first Christmas took place without her.
That evening, a disgraceful, disrespectful gesture towards her and her mother, who had died of devastating cancer, was the turning point that made her cut ties. Even if it means no longer having a family. It was more than ten years ago.
The power of the gesture
Among the testimonies received, none included a concrete step of explanations and resolutions. If the majority of people don’t have the strength to say why they closed the door, we shouldn’t blame them. Their movement may have gained from trauma, or, sometimes, it is trauma that results. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the book was suggested to me Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties & How to Heal The Conflictby psychology doctor Joshua Coleman. I’m posting the suggestion here, in case it helps anyone. Because sometimes, even twenty years later, it can also be beneficial to communicate.
