Thoughts on our children, and what they bring.
Part 2: Welcome, Matthew
In the last installment, I mentioned Matthew’s arrival into our family. Here’s the condensed version of how it happened and what it meant to us:
In 1974, our father left the house for good, and our family was shattered. Within just a few years, an older brother had turned to drugs, another had decided to forego college, as had an older sister, and two younger sisters had dropped out of high school. What had been a bright future for all of us was now looking very bleak indeed. Certainly, our parents’ split cannot be blamed for all of that, but there is no doubt that it contributed, just as there is no doubt that there were a very many less visible and less dramatic ill effects, from uncertain and awkward moments, hours, and afternoons to divisions within the family, particularly along gender lines. Then, as often happens in troubled times, it was tragedy that pulled us together: In the spring of 1977, a beloved uncle, our mother’s only brother and one of our father’s best friends, was tragically killed by a drunk driver. There were many, many tears; there was an Irish wake; there was a huge hole in our extended family that could never be refilled. As one would expect, our parents reached out to each other for consolation and support. I can only imagine how desperately they must have needed it, and I can’t imagine that there could be anyone else, for either of them, who could truly understand the depth of their loss. From my teen-age viewpoint, the main thing I saw was that my father was present again.
A few months passed and there was a family meeting, which turned out to be a bit of a shock: instead of a reconciliation, which some of us had expected, our parents announced that our mother, 44 years old, was 3 months pregnant. That baby, of course, was Matthew, who came to us in the summer of 1978, four years after my father had left the house, and within months, as I understand it, from when our parents finalized their divorce.At the Man Shower, I tried to describe all this, but was emotionally overcome and only able to say, “It was broken, and he fixed it,” pointing to my now 31-year-old baby brother. What I would have said if I could have was that our family was, as I’ve said, shattered. Our common purpose was beleaguered, and our common love was in disarray, and this beautiful, feather-light, completely vulnerable little baby forced us all to remember who we were, that we were a family, that we had not only a shared existence, but shared aspirations as well. Despite the fact that I didn’t say all this, Kai—who knows Matthew as well as anyone—seemed to divine it somehow, which led him to bestow on me a small gift.
Next: “Children of Men”
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