Tales from the dark side.

I had said that I was going to do a serious minded thing on either politics or activism, guess what I am not. Shock horror Lambo says one thing and then does another.

What happened is all to do with family, Yes I know I used the F word but I am not in the least apologetic as out if the disaster area of the Lambo family inter action, has risen a shining spire of hope, and as a by product of the eruptions that lead to this revival of hope I have learned a few lessons.

So who amongst us does not feel the cold fingers of fear when someone announces a family conference has been called. I know I am not alone when I say that my family is as functional as a canoeist with out a paddle. The canoe floats but it does not go anywhere, nor can it get out of the creek filled with smelly stuff, nor can it save it's self from the oncoming tide of smelly stuff. So it's broke, and the many attempts to fix it in the past have only served to rock the canoe filling it up with smelly stuff, rather than adding to anything positive. If this were your family and I know many people have families who are very similar to mine then you may be aware of the near panic that I felt as I entered the room of members of my family, the feeling had something of walking in to the lions den shortly before feeding time about it.

However two things were positive from the outset. The First was that the meeting had been called by my Niece M, she lives along way away so that every one knew that something of importance was to be discussed. This I think was acknowledged because people made the effort to be there. Secondly I have not seen M for many months and as kids I was really rotten to her but that passed and we did for a while in our teens get on quite well. I had not seen her for a long while so it was going to be good to see her no matter what we talked about. Besides as she constantly reminds me she can run faster than me so although apprehensive I was feeling positive.

This was challenged straight away by the news that the status quo would have to change in respect of the arrangements to do with who looks after my dad. At the moment my sister does the care giving which is much more about keeping the house and our father clean and tidy. Now though sis is not well and the stress of "doing" for the old fella is adding to her ill health, and not giving her time to deal with her own situations. On the face of it it would seem a fairly straight foreword discussion. Sis cannot continue how do we organise things now.

That though is where families that have broken down tend to find the issues get complicated.

Was there a shared view of what the problems were?NO

Was there a willingness or an understanding that change needed to happen? NO

Are people ready to see that even simple things like civility to others in the family might achieve something? Again NO.

But then it hit me that these contested areas were now the problem and not who does what, how, or when. M had come in and had to throw out all the crap that me, my other siblings, and our father were carrying around with us.

One huge area was that the old fella like other older folk, is not realistic when it comes to saying what he can or cannot manage. If this is pride or lack of ability to see his faults we could argue till were blue in the face. However from experience he does not do some basic stuff and that needs managed. The other side of that though is his lack of willingness to see any one else doing these things but my sister. Having no stranger in the house is as close to the 11th commandment as it can get from my dad's perspective. Partly it is the old fashioned idea of families looking after there own. When I say families the expectation is that it will be a female member of the family, and since my sis, M's mother is the only one then the expectation is on her. So here we have one of the central knots in this problem. However it strikes me that in this country this is a class based notion, after all the idea of cleaning ladies working for busy professional people, or in large houses has been the norm for years. Working class people though are meant to take pride in managing for themselves, be proud that they can re arrange their own dust or just put up with the dust in the same place if they are not able to clean for themselves.

I say here that I did not share the expectation of my sister taking on the care role, mainly as since I have been disabled since birth, and so mixed with both careers and disabled people I was aware that this is a cultural myth that society keeps telling it's self. This myth that a family member, as said normally a female family member, looks after one or even two other people in the same family saves the state millions in health care as well as social service costs each year. This fact is not lost on governments and as such the women who do this care are normally called heroes but treated like villains, offered prizes for being selfless and conforming to societies wishes. Denied however a decent income, state pension credits, or even a recognised contribution to the running of our communities and our country.

As M was describing and very fairly saying that her mother could no longer provide the care as she was doing, the first of many revelations came to me. Despite having argued that after our fathers last trip in to hospital my sis should not take on the care role, when she did it, it went unchallenged. I could have done that, but did not mainly because of the dysfunctional state of the family.

Then when M started going on to the subject of civility something else clicked into place, and here is the main point of what I am saying in this piece.

As a dysfunctional family we have become adept at dealing with each other, mainly by having as little contact as we possibly can, or by keeping the contact level that we do have to the most basic of levels. As M pointed out though too basic even to say "hi", or to acknowledge that we are moving in to a shared space, like a communal house. In fact we had instituted our own safety barriers so well that we had started to dehumanise other members of our own family. As M was saying this of course it caused more than a little discomfort, like being voted the worlds worst dressed man, it hurts but you know its truth. Also again just like the worst dressed thing you know the solution to the problem is not so much that it is simple to fix nor that it will take so little effort to achieve the fix, but the problem arose because we gave up.

To protect ourselves we said things that had no meaning, we listened with no interest. Worse we passed judgment on others using different standards than those we afford ourselves. Thinking of minimising the damage may have been about protecting ourselves but we forgot that when we did have to share time together it would be harder and more painful because we had forgotten how to even acknowledge each other as humans. All M was saying was that family occasions would be spent with people who at least respected other people, family members would be listened too and disagreed with if necessary but with out resorting to walking out or name calling and or worse. All of these including the worse have been outcomes in my family before now. The change would be brought about just by some common civility and a willingness to use that civility at all times. The implementation of regular contact to pass along information using the civility would at least remind people more often that we are humans not jut tribal members.

Will the change mean that we will turn into a TV family like the Walton's, nope nor will it help fix any of the long term feelings of hurt that members of the family have with each other. It will not fix relationships that are broke and no one wants to fix, although it could open the door to these possibilities, however as M put it that once the old fella dies it will be in all likely hood the last time that we gather as a family. To think it might end in any of the usual ways is pretty bad, what came as more of a surprise though is that no one wanted to think about our own deaths and how they would be not mourned by the family that we have been part of all our lives.

It has been difficult writing this piece as the events and the change in mind set is still a little raw, how it pans out who knows, but M did something that took bravery and nerve. OK it was motivated by self interest but that's not the point, other options were available but she still choose the the most difficult and the one with the least chance of anyone saying thank you. So M thank you. Difficult job pretty well done and something I will not forget.