There is what we know, what others know, and then what is true. For the most part, we get pieces of the life we are leading. We base a lot of what we believe on assumptions regarding our relationships, the person we are, and who others are around us. Others do the same thing about us and depending on how close we are, they may know things we haven't faced about ourselves. Our shadow side is often something we prefer not delving into.Some say evaluating the meaning of such things is not relevant because there is no ultimate truth anyway. They say the truth is whatever we believe it to be. I don't buy that. Although I cannot explain what life is, why it is, I believe it is real, and there is an ultimate truth that we can discern-- just not always. It works for me to think that way based on observation. I believe, for instance, when there is a car wreck there is one truth about what happened even if everybody there thought it was something different.
What has triggered this post is something a family member told me last week that I didn't know about my childhood and our broader family. It changed my view of my growing up years and who my people were. There were many of us who got together on all holidays, and we cousins had a lot of fun during those times. I lived those years on a level that was innocent and childlike, but now I know there was another level I didn't have any idea existed that wasn't innocent or childlike.
What the person told me was a shock and grew more upsetting as I thought about it because for me to integrate it means reinterpreting my childhood. The family, as I had believed, didn't exist for everybody in it. The childhood I knew wasn't the same for all my cousins. I am 63. How could I get this old before I find that out and even then revealed with a casual comment!
After a few tears, some real sadness, I found peace about it because by my age, it's not my first time to be forced to reinterpret what I thought I knew. Maybe I was lucky to not know there was more going on when I was a child. If I had, I'd have felt compelled to try and do something about it. I know myself well enough, that even as a child, I would have tried to intervene. Part of me is now asking-- if I had been more observative, might I have seen it? I honestly don't think so, but I will never know. As a child it was beyond me to imagine such things.
The main thing, this shadow side of my family has done, was to make me think about the shadow side of all our lives including my own. There are things about me that are not known by my family today, that they have no reason to know. Likewise, things about them I don't know. Sometimes we should know; but often it's not our business-- even if it would lead to our reinterpreting what kind of relationships we all really had.
Since learning this, I will feel compelled to find the right time to talk to my grown children about what happened. This is not because the events back then could impact them. They don't even know the people, but they are raising small children. My parents were pretty protective. I was pretty protective as a parent, and yet it is often the ones we trust who end up, as in the fairy tale, pricking the finger of our children with knowledge of evil that they should not have had to know that early.
What I learned has made me even more aware how alert parents need to be. This was back before anybody could blame media for a dark side that was hidden in the shadow of what appeared to be a nice, safe family. It's not the first time I have come up against such information, but the first time it was my childhood that it reinterpreted.
When I was a little girl, there was a radio program called The Shadow. My family would gather around the radio, turn off the lights, and let ourselves get scared. The dark music would start and then the voice-- The shadow knows. It is where those less than pleasant truths, about ourselves or others, are often hidden.
(Photograph of shadow taken on a family hunting trip in Eastern Oregon-- 2004)
6 comments:
It is so interesting how many families have "family secrets" and how often those secrets protect someone who probably shouldn't be protected. I think we all have a shadow side, but not all shadow sides wreck havoc in other people's lives. Those shadows need to be brought straight out into the light, so they can't do more damage.
A good title for a subject that I am guessing does not conjure up too many fond memories for some of your family members. I am "presuming" I might know what you are talking about, if right, I still don't understand how anyone could do such a thing, I highly doubt that I ever will. As you said, childhood innocence in your case and for me, I would have beent the same. Unless someone told me, and I know for a fact I would have been unbelieving at first and then more than shocked, know that I would have tried to have done something but to what end? Very sad.
Wow, Rain. I can only assume what the family secret might have been that would surprise you so and I will write to you privately about my own family secrets that I didn't find out about until i was an adult--and have never told my own adult children about. Thanks for sharing. We listened to the Shadow, too. Is that who had the decoder rings?
The Shadow Side...How true that there are these things that exist in all of our family's, and as you said, in us, too....To find out something that so changes your entire perception of one's family...that has to be very painful on so very many levels.
I understand the emotions of learning new family history. Have you already explained it away by holding the view that we all have a shadow side? Maybe I am very simple but I don't believe in evil. There may be no excuses for the bad behavior but there is a reason for the bad things your relative or relatives did. If they did them.
For example my grandmother died after giving birth according to my mother. And my mother, then a toddler, said she attempted an abortion with wire and died three days later. The obituaries said she died from the flu with no mention of the dead child born at home on an Iowa farm.
I have two points to make. I don't consider my mother to be a reliable source since this happened when she was so young. Second, if grandmother did attempt an abortion it was not because she was evil. She didn't have medical help. She was in bad health and she had very lovingly nurtured my mother, a tiny premie in her wood stove. I believe my grandmother had some undiagnosed disease. Celiac or something that drains all your energy. She tried to get her sister to come back from suny California to help her and failed. I have her last letter.
I did grow up knowing many family secrets. My mom was extremely protective of me and in order to explain why to a child of 10 or 11, she revealed precisely WHY. So I guess I've never found family secrets to be shocking. Many times, sad. But I'm now thinking perhaps this is why as an adult, I understand that most people DO have a "darker" side. Those things, as you said, that family and close friends aren't aware of.
And I know that this is why "I" was SO protective and alert and aware as I raised my own children. Basically, I trusted nobody except my parents.
As far as passing these secrets on....I've always asked this question first, "What purpose would it serve?" Many times, it would serve NO purpose whatsoever. And I guess that's what I'd term as just plain "gossip."
Post a Comment