Moving forward with life.

 Today I was in a conversation about helping people and what some people do, while others dont. 

For me, I am very much about helping family and being helped by family. And I suppose, your very closest friends. I believe in that, and my family and close friends always know if they need me, or need some money from me, I will be there for them. Not everyone is like that. My sister and I are somewhat similar in that regard, but we have slight differences.

If you have read my blogs before, or just know me and/or my story, you will know my early years, especially with my father and the things he did which hurt the family, and of course himself in the short and long run, were troubling in many ways. We moved a few times because we had to to get away from his troubles, and partly to make new starts, and there was always that idea that at any point, he could get in and start trouble again. Which he did, almost up until he died. It was just who he was. I accepted that many years before and never held it against him. Nor did I forget what he did and what he was capable of. My sister, she held a grudge, or more accurately, as she grew up and had her own family, she wanted nothing to do with him and basically pretended he didnt exist. 

That was easy enough, as for about 10 years, he was gone. Basically didnt exist to us. If he was alive or dead, we didnt know and nobody made the effort to find out. Until one day he contacted me, about 1995 or so. On some levels, we patched things up, or made peace with the water that was now under the bridge. However, I told him flat out that if he brought any trouble my way, to my family, he was going to be shut out, on the spot, and for good this time. Mostly, while he continued his shady ways, he kept me out of it and it was his business. When he did get in trouble, and reached out for help, I would not help or be any part of it. He was okay with that and we were fine. In the last year or two of his life, we actually were going out to dinner and I would see him every now and then. 

Then my mother got gravely sick, and it was apparent she was going to die within a year or so. My father had a whole host of his own physical problems at that stage, and the biggest two were a heart condition which required a very strict regimen of pills to keep him viable, and a failing kidney which required extreme dialysis twice a week for hours at the same hospital that my mother ended up in when her illness was so bad she needed to be in the hospital 24/7. He began visiting her, and suddenly he was back in the family picture. As always, he treated my mother very well, in his own way. Within a few months, her time had come and she died. He was there every day at the Shiva, which is what Jewish people hold for 7 days or more after a person dies. That was held at my sisters house, and she was not entirely happy that he was there. But she tolerated it. After that was done, she basically ignored him again. She just couldnt get over the trauma he had caused all of us as childen. I understand that. Some cant. I always could, because I never personalized the things he had done as something he was trying to do to us. It was just him being him. It never reflected on me as it wasnt me doing it. My friends and I used to talk about that a lot growing up, and I always said it was his life, not mine, and I did my thing. Not that it didnt effect me. Having the police show up at your house many times, or having your father be good friends with mobsters will effect your everyday life. I just rolled with it though. 

A couple of months after my mother died, my father had a fatal stroke, which happened according to the doctors because a clot from his heart travelled to his brain because he didnt take his pills. Which was true. He didnt. That was him. Stubborn. That was me, is me, was me, is still sometimes me, so I get how he can be that way. He died within a few days, although in reality he was dead by the time he got to the hospital. 

In the meantime, my mothers estate had been settled, my sister and I both received a healthy sum as an inheritance. My mother planned everything, and all her assets were well handled, her funeral paid for, her will in good order. My parents were, at their core, both very good people, but just like my sister and I, they were different in ways like that. 

My father did none of that. In spite of making millions over his life, he had basically nothing when he died. Not even any plans or money to have him buried. It became up to my sister and I to pay for the proper burial. I was in favor of paying for it. My sister was not. Dead set against it in fact and was not going to. I insisted that it had to be done, was the right thing to do, and if need be, take the entire cost out of my share of the inheritance. She handled the entire thing from arranging it to paying for it. She had to arrange it as it was a Jewish religion thing and according to her had to be done a certain way, which I accepted. My father was very religious, my sister is as well, and I am not in the least. But I respect those who are. We did it their way and I kept my distance in that way. I did my part, which was make sure it happened properly and he was buried with dignity. 

So, we paid. She changed her mind and paid her half share, which was fair. I guess in the end, she knew what was the right thing to do. Although she didnt want to do it. She couldnt put the past behind her when it came to my father. She just couldnt get over the pain he caused us, and her in particuar. I could. 

Why could I?

I think I learned a long time ago that when it comes to the past, if you want to move forward with life, you have to let it go. Start fresh and see if you can make that work. That doesnt mean you forget the past, just that you dont live the present and  future based on past mistakes or hardships. You learn from them, you remember them, but people make mistakes and you cant hold that against them going forward. If you are to go forward. 

With people you dont really know, or care about, then of course, you arent invested in them and you can easily let them go. Some places you have worked, you just never see those people again, nor do you want to. Casual friends or neighbors, they dont get 2nd chances if you think they have wronged you. But when it comes to close friends, family, anybody that means something to you, I think the best thing to do is deal with it, put your past with them behind you and go forward honorably and hope that it can work. If you hold any part of the past against them, no matter how well it is going now, it cant work. My father actually did that with his father, and when he died, we went to the funeral but was a shade disrespectful and held a grudge that continued a wedge with that side of the family. That was never repaired, and thus, after growing up spending a lot of time with that side of the family, other than that funeral, I never saw or spoke to any of them ever again. Nor did my father. At the end, he seemed to grow out of that attitude as well, but they were all long gone by then. It was too late and the future had become the past. It was gone. I have learned to be less stubborn as I grow older. He really never could conquer that foe. 

I am reminded of this whole thing in the passage from the ending scene of the series The Wonder Years I posted in a blog a couple of weeks ago. I will post the clip and the words here again. In no way am I saying that my relationship with my deviant at times father was in any way as normal as was the case with Kevin and Jack Arnold, but the concept is the same. To go forward, you must not live with the past mistakes like roadblocks to the future relationship. If you do, the relationship is basically already over. 

I can say I am happy we sorted out all the things and at least had a good relationship for the last couple of years. That was probably the only good thing I can relate from watching my mother die a slow and painful death, then watch my father turned into a vegetable within a few hours. 

At least bygones had become bygones and it became viable and ended on a more positive note on the personal level.

The only way to have a future is let go of the past that gets in the way. If you cant do that, and that is every persons choice, and some cant, there is no possibility of a future. You have to move forward with life. You cant move forward with life while looking backward at the same time. Try running forward some time and look backward while you do it. If you dont get hit by a car, you will still at some point trip and fall down. That is not going forward. Not for long anyway. 

The next day, Winnie and I came home; back to where we'd started. It was the fourth of July in that little suburban town. Somehow, though, things were different. Our past was here, but our future was somewhere else; and we both knew, sooner or later, we had to go. It was the last July I ever spent in that town. The next year, after graduation, I was on my way. So was Paul. He went to Harvard, of course. He graduated with honors and became a lawyer; he's still allergic to everything.

As for my father, well, we patched things up. Hey, we were family -- for better or worse, one for all, and all for one. Karen's son was born that September. I got to say, I think he looks like me; poor kid. Mom? She did well -- business woman, board chairman, grandmother, cooker of mashed potatoes. The Wayner stayed on in furniture. Wood seemed to suit him; in fact, he took over the factory two years later when dad passed away. Winnie left the next summer to study art history in Paris. Still, we never forgot our promise. We wrote to each other once a week for the next eight years. I was there to meet her when she came home; with my wife and our first son, who was eight months old. Like I said, things never turn out exactly the way you'd planned. Growing up happens in a heartbeat; one day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a town like a lot of other towns, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets... And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back with Wonder.