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Do You Find a Deep Connection Scary?
Somewhere within a five-hour long conversation with my sister, she lamented about our dad and his inability to connect with us when we were younger and his inappropriate or underwhelming ways of trying to connect now that we’re adults.
I said to her that the reason he couldn’t is because he never had a good example of that growing up.
She retorted by saying that our aunt would always talk about how she (our aunt) and my dad would go places with our grandfather and how caring grandpa was. My mother has sung my grandpa’s praises quite a bit too.
So naturally, my sister was perplexed at our dad’s conduct over the years. She has some pretty negative experiences with him that to anyone would look like he was sabotaging their relationship. I have my stories as well. The only reason I have less is because I chose to distance myself from an early age.
It was a coping strategy, so ultimately I had to learn to give it up or I would run the risk of becoming him. But that’s exactly the point of all of this.
My sister made all the right observations but she missed some vital points of information.
For starters, my grandfather didn’t have a father. He wasn’t in his life. And as far as I’m aware he didn’t have a mentor. Also, my aunt is his adopted daughter. He…
