The Remnants

...of aftermaths

May 08, 2024

Preface: I am writing this for anyone who has felt or is feeling a deep sense of estrangement from a family member or from family. It’s hard to manifest how it swirls around our very being, like a swarm of bees, desiring to sting the core of our “keep calm and carry on” daily lives. There has been progress in my family. I ache to know how many families in the world are broken apart. It is the Devil’s largest battle with God and we must know this in order to combat what has the potential to be so beautiful. The family in whatever context it’s meant to be. We must place it in God’s hands in order to keep going forward.

For many people it’s extreme childhood trauma, domestic abuse, an act of terrorism. A death caused at the hands of a murderer. An accident. Bad health. Poverty. Addiction. War/Conflict. It can be a first responder experiencing never ending death or answering 911 calls. The list goes on.

Death. Loss leaves remnants.

The trauma of remnants remain. We are human.

Every single day is a battle to wash the remnants, the aftermath away.

Most of us can’t compare ourselves with many people who have suffered the unthinkable or who work with unthinkable trauma.

Lately, my sweet mom and I have spoken about her lack of sleep over what is happening in the world. She tries to tell me she lays down, closes her eyes and hears the sirens. The air raids are upon them. The sound of bombs, glass shattering are terrorizing her mind. There is no more school to go to. It’s gone. She is six, seven, eight and nine. Remnants of broken concrete, blown out windows. Her childhood diminishing, surviving. A dog left to her, for protection, as her father left. Abandoned. The vulnerability of sitting in an air-raid shelter as a child with grownups capable of doing evil.

For every living person there is a remnant of something left behind that we carry, whether conscious or subconscious. It can creep into the day at hand.

A path not taken, a path diverted, a large or seemingly small event that changed the course of everything.

For me, it is a deep remnant of family estrangement. It didn’t begin in 2020, as I have expressed here in my writing and bio.

This remnant is as common as the stars in the sky and as sweeping as all the oceans put together. We are always on the move.

Today, while writing this, I read a piece of beautiful poetry called “An Empty Stack,” by

Jamie Millard

asking “why do I write?” at the end.

Why do I write? Why am I here on Substack? Why do I care? I thought. What is this all about? Jamie’s piece really touched my heart. I answered to myself, well, I am writing my way out of 2020 and grief.” Yes, that’s why I’m here. The end.

Then it hit me like a freight train as my car lay idling on the tracks.

I have been grieving my entire life. I am a remnant of immigration. Of waving goodbye to a gathering of family at the airport in England. I was three. There were tears. The visits home to England were “one” by the time I was 15 and it took a lot of money and planning. My paternal granddad wrote to me and came to see us on a few occasions.

I remember rejecting phone calls because I could not hug him, see him, or feel a connection. I remember the Christmas parcels,“brown paper packages tied up with string” (“these are a few of my favorite things”). I smelled him. But I wanted more. I’ve always wanted more.

From 1963 to now there are lifetimes without my granddads, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Without “perceived” examples, tangible love, lessons, laughter and rejection I guess.

I am here because I’ve always been here.

The aftermath of immigration, especially for a child, is a disconnect, a pulling away, a slow falling out of the sky, watching the clouds gather, as you grow up, pour their love down onto others. I have sat on the outside of this my entire life trying to find some kind of connection in my own world.

From getting married to creating a family I have cried on the inside to be wanted by family. I am deeply independent by nature, respecting the independence gene of the immigrant. It might sound like I whined out loud for my family. No, I just “expected” us to want to be a close family, like the one I came here with.

When family turns away it hurts so deeply that any amount of reaching out is a lesson in ineffable humility. You must be deeply confident and outgoing to put up with family rejection. I do my best to crawl over it and through it, always an inner voice saying “it’s not about me,” and come out the other side strong. It can dangerously mess with every other aspect, like with friends or here on social media. I can automatically take it personally inside. Is it about me? We all go there.

I do not fit into the traumas and tragedies explained above or the witnessing of any.

I have found though that I am weary. I guard my heart a lot now. I struggle to cook, bake, take pictures, arrange a get-together. All of these things are reminders of rejection when I didn’t think that could be possible. They are reminders of struggle, throughout my entire marriage, with an in-law family that struggled to be a family. They are reminders of doing what I taught myself to do as a wife and mom. I watched my mom navigate her new world like a pro with strangers. Her life in America offered her a second chance at being. At not being rejected by family. Same for my dad. It is unnaturally natural it seems for families to reject each other. Our home was always full of “family friends.” I, instead, waited on family. Now I desire more friends. I no longer fear I will miss out on family by waiting around.

This is what I have learned in no particular order:

“Keep going, be grateful and gracious.” Grow, learn, improve, forgive yourself (and them) and carry on.

Be you and know that “most of people’s problems” aren’t all yours.

The most grateful and gracious have suffered severe trauma. You can do this because they can.

It takes a lot of rejection to be found by the most rejected, embracing, unchanging God.

Many of “the rejected.. reject” or guard their hearts deeply. It’s best to love and embrace them but not carry their rejection or inherited personalities as your own. Clean your own house.

Rejection can potentially grow a great desire and purpose to create or do something that is all yours. “Discover you on the road of life.”

Time is something we cannot buy. Paying to play is hollow. “Value time with people, even if it’s not as much as you’d like.”

Heaven’s eternal time awaits.

There is comfort in knowing this.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

We remnants
of undisciplined
minds
separated
sounds of
sirens
screaming
YOU ARE
NO GOOD
redeeming
bombs
of freedom
crushing hearts
scarred with
glass
fragments
leftover
from history
pointing
travelers
fleeing
casual
casualties of
estrangement
disliking
war
of words
tearing
us apart
from a
torn land
to gain
a refrain
from power
ful
aftermaths
of lifelong
family
brokenness.

- The Remnants of Aftermaths.

THE FAMILY WE KEEP

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