Skip to main content

Road Trip - Part Three

 


The journey home to Shropshire - because that is where my heart is at home now, not Kent - was smooth and uneventful. A slight hold up at the Dartford Tunnel, but that's par for the course these days; you just have to accept it and go with the stop-start flow. But that was all. We arrived home at 7.30 in the evening and dinner was provided by the boxes of left-over pub food which my cousin was keen we should take because he didn't want to be eating it himself for the next two weeks. 

As we travelled, Lord Malarkey and I chatted, mostly about books and conspiracy theories. We ate biscuits and Werther's Originals, and we were blessed with calm and clear weather. In between our bursts of scintillating conversation, I sat thinking about family, because things like funerals make you mull over those kinds of topics. You begin to realise that family isn't a constant energy. It is a fluxing, abstract concept that is governed by inconsistency. Sometimes the changes are good. And sometimes they are bad, or sad, or beyond your control. Family isn't a concept that sits still. Not in my experience, any way. People come and go. It's just life.

Just because you share genetic information with someone, doesn't make them family. No - family is the group of people gathered in your life that you think, yes, these are the okay crowd. I can invest in these people because they invest in me. A friend who is more like a sister. First cousins once removed who regard you with sweet affection as their auntie. The people you just connect with on some deep and inexplicable level. I think you make your own family from that starting point. 

I realised as we travelled home that I am more wary of the idea of family than I used to be. And that is my issue to deal with, no one else's. I do know that I won't stand for drama and nonsense any more. Maybe that's part of growing older, too. At the pub after the funeral, a family member was insistent that we should organise a family reunion. Aaah, that lovely passive-aggressive modal verb - should. My dear, I thought, I don't do 'should' any more. I don't do 'must' either. A family reunion? Good luck with that. I already know several of 'the family' who wouldn't be the slightest bit interested. Why be in a room with people you hold no genuine affinity with, just because their father happened to be your mother's brother, or whatever, and a not very nice one at that? I have seventeen living first cousins. I keep in touch with two of them. Two. Because they are my kind of people and I am theirs. We laugh together. We 'get' each other. We click. That's family.

Anyway, I have one less in my family, now that Auntie Pollie has gone onwards on her beautiful journey. She is part of my spirit family, though, and I know I'll meet her again one day. Meanwhile, there will be some jiggling and adjustments to manage as I get used to an earthly life without her. More changes are ahead involving other family, too. I think I shall just let life unfold and see what happens.   




Comments

Anonymous said…
Sometimes the elasticity that holds a family together is stretched beyond capacity and breaks and you discover the freedom you get choosing your own set up of what family means and what brings value. Sadness comes with those breaks too of course. It wasn’t what you thought it was. Speaking generally here.
KJ
29 January 2025 at 16:59
Denise said…
I like the ‘elastic’ metaphor, KJ. Auntie Pollie’s ‘elastic’ never changed during my life - a steadfast and strong constant. I suppose that’s why I feel her passing so deeply. And yes, I agree wholeheartedly - you can’t, and probably shouldn’t, rely on expectations.
30 January 2025 at 07:35
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for ...
2 comments
Read more

Sun Puddles

A few weeks ago, I met up with a dear friend for a meditation and healing afternoon, both of us being light workers on the spirit pathway. It did me good to re-engage in a bit of focused energy channelling (because I have let my practice slip somewhat) and during the afternoon the words ‘sun puddles’ popped into my head.  Now, I know this wasn’t my human brain thinking these words because I have never heard the phrase before; when I arrived home, I looked it up and said to myself, ‘Aaah, you mean sun spots!’ This is a sun puddle... ...there! That thing that Flora is lying on. No, not the sofa - the warm patch of sunshine on the sofa. Here are Flora and Bambino sharing a sun puddle... This proves that no matter how much they scrap with each other and try to denude each other of fur all over my rugs, they secretly share a mutual and fond admiration. I think. And here is Bambino on a sun puddle that has come to rest on my legs... It’s his casual, ‘I’m so cool’ pose. Metaphorically coo...
3 comments
Read more

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast...
8 comments
Read more