I mentioned my in-laws in my last post, and how they don't really understand me.
The feeling is heartily mutual.
They live about a three and a half hour drive from here. Pardon me: the tangent beckons...
Ever notice that in Canada, we measure distance in time? I don't know if that holds true across the entire country, but I know it's not the case south of 49, where they measure distance in...distance. Maybe it's because this land is so vast: if I say my dad's a four and a half hour trip, it sounds slightly better than saying he's 232 miles away--or 374 kilometres, for that matter.
Where was I? Oh yeah, my in-laws live three and a half hours away. That's about right.
Don't misunderstand me. I think my wife's parents are great. They bore and raised Eva...that alone makes them special in my book. That they did so good a job of it--that Eva is so strongly self-reliant, intelligent and empathic--just increases my debt to them.
My in-laws live in something that was once a doublewide trailer. This elicited a predictable snobbish reaction in me, before I saw the place. Truth is, with every addition, it resembles a trailer less and less. In fact, I have come to imagine myself retiring to a place not much different from theirs--only mine will be on water of some kind.
Besides their growing-on-me domicile and the fact they brought up my beloved, there are many things to recommend Anne and John. Anne is the only person I've yet to meet who reads more than her daughter. And since Eva was the first person I met who reads more than I do, that should say something right there.
The adjective that best fits my mother-in-law is fierce. Almost everything about her fairly screams that word. Even when she's being friendly, you get the distinct feeling the claws have merely been retracted, and wait, hidden, ready to rip you a new one if you should step out of line. (Her daughter has inherited that in spades, with one crucial distinction. Anne can sand down her rough edges and imitate Eva, should she choose; Eva can scuff up her sides and imitate Anne, if she wants to.)
Eva's dad is a cipher. In some ways, he's like mine: the same sense of humour; the same manly keep-the-feelings-bottled-up demeanour; the same ethic that shouts "I will protect my family at all costs." But he's even quieter than my father is: it's even harder to guess what he's thinking at any given time.
Talk about strong: his rotator cuffs are essentially destroyed, and you'd never know it to watch him. His muscles have torn lose--he can do a remarkable, and just plain wrong, imitation of Popeye--and while you know he's gotta be in intense pain, he won't show so much as an inkling of it. (Then again, Eva's mom was told she would be in a wheelchair by the age of thirty: they both seem to delight in proving people wrong. Yet another trait my darling has appropriated.)
I'm not at all comfortable going to visit them. It's not that they make me feel uncomfortable, so much. It's that after a few hours I get to musing on existential questions, like "Do I exist?" "Am I really here?" "Have I perhaps donned some sort of fabric that grants me limited invisibility?"
You know, questions like that. It's possible to spend three days with them and exchange fewer than two dozen words.
If Eva's brother is up there with us, then Eva gets some idea of how I feel. My wife is not the black sheep of the family by any means...it's just that Jim is so...god...damned...white that his merest presence eclipses everybody in the room with him. But they don't play favourites. Ask them, they'll tell you so. No, they don't play favourites. They work at it. Hard.
Here's some indication of just how hard: it's now been over a year and a half since we moved--since Daughter bought Her First House. Have they been here? Nope. Do they have any plans to come here? Nope again. Have they gone to see Anne's mom, not to mention Anne's Sainted Son, both of whom reside less than an hour from here (and we're conveniently on the way to either of them)? Oh, yes, several times, in fact.
The last time this happened, we finally managed to get some sort of half-assed explanation out of her. Anne smokes; so does Jim. It's been over three years since Eva left that particular club. So Anne's got a nice Smoking Area whenever she ventures out this way...the fact the Sainted Son lives in the Smoking Area is just co-incidence, I guess. Does she actually expect Eva to take up the cancer sticks again, just so they can come see our fucking house?
Sorry, I got a bit emotional, there. Eva's had a lifetime to get used to carrying this burden around...having to call her mother on her--Eva's--birthday; having to call her mother, period--any time your call display says Anne and John are calling, you know somebody's dead or dying; just generally being ignored. I still don't know how she stands it. As an only child, I was many things, but never ignored.
I try not to let their behaviour bother me, but it rankles nonetheless. It's one of the reasons that back when I wanted kids, I was so adamant about having no more than one. I'd be terrified of perpetrating the same kind of crap on my son or daughter.
No wonder my wife is so self-reliant. She kind of has to be...
1 comment:
Some people, Ken, are just...WEIRD...about male children. That "carrying on the family name," thing is still strong, and not just in places like China.
My biological father was disappointed that P and I were girls. I have the distinct feeling that if one or both of us had been boys, he wouldn't have been as absent as he was from our lives.
Actually, I have some proof, in a similar situation with my Uncle Dennis, his ex Dee, and their kids Justin and Brittany. Justin is treated like a king. My grandparents practically fawn over him, and my father made it a point to see that Justin (and Brit, by association) was transported back and forth for visits. That P and I live within an hour of Justin's mom never seemed to cross his mind, but that's not the point, entirely.
The point is that the older generations are still funny about boys.
Post a Comment