My former husband's aunt died recently. I loved her from the first moment I met her, forty years ago.
Over the years I was married to "M," we frequently saw this aunt and her husband, watched her children grow to adulthood, and sometimes got together for family events, especially when other "family" showed up from out of town.
When I moved out of this marriage, this aunt of his remained an aunt of mine. I moved to her city, and she included me in events with her friends. When I moved and eventually remarried, we maintained an email correspondence for the next thirteen years. We exchanged cards on birthdays and Christmas via snail mail, sent photos and family news by email, and laughed at each others' forwarded jokes. I realized she was ill when a joke came back from her overloaded and unread email address, and I sensed that she had passed on before her husband called to tell me so.
I visited her at the Hospice twice before she departed, and we tearfully told each other of our love for each other, and I thanked her for being MY aunt all these years. She knew how much it meant to me to have her in my life, especially since my blood-relative aunts had long ago passed on.
What constitutes a "relative?" Do I have to share genetic material in order to be "related" to someone?
In my continually growing wisdom about Life and Truth, I know (and you wise ones also know,) that the answer to this is a resounding "NO!"
I have a real sister and then a few "sisters" who have come into my life by the grace of friendship. I have some real cousins and have found kindred spirits, more "kin" to me than DNA could prove. A wonderful and elderly friend of my mother's stood in as a "grandmother" to me for many years. There is no blood test for love.
A wise counselor once told me that if we could see underground, we would see that the roots of all the trees and plants we see above-ground are intertwined beneath the earth, each connecting one to another and helping to support the whole. He looked at me, waiting for me to "get it," which of course I immediately did: We as people are ALSO all connected underneath the titles, facades, DNA and family trees. I am not going to write a song about this, mind you. I just happen to know that this is a Truth. Maturity has helped to bring this understanding to my reality.
Is my now-husband's ex-wife still related to my sisters and brother-in-law, his mother, his aunt, his nieces and nephews? Absolutely, and she comes to weddings and funerals of those no-longer-legally-related-to-her people without my having to question that. As I know that we are all related, this just is part of learning truths about LIFE. I love her daughter, my stepdaughter.
A divorce is ugly enough without someone contributing to the trauma drama by "stirring the pot" and creating animosity where there is none. I have seen and heard parents blame all of Little Johnny's problems on "the ex." I've heard this said in front of Little Johnny. The message given to that child is that this immature parent, dropping this load of dung on the "ex," cannot figure out how to control her own life, feel self-worth, and take charge of problems on the plate in front of her. Passing the buck, per se, yet screaming jealousy, rage, and acrimony, at the same time making herself look small and petty...........and putting that child in the awful position of being in the middle of two parents.....and that child loves them both.
Maturity and wisdom, if it ever comes to these people, need to teach them that divorce is between two adults, and it does not include the children. Custody means physically housing someone, but no parent can have custody of their child's heart. That has to be earned, and it is earned by acting wisely and lovingly on behalf of that child's feelings.
This summer I will attend a wedding of a beautiful young woman who happens to come from "a broken home." Both parents will host the wedding, both parents will celebrate the joy of their daughter's happy day, both parents will greet friends and relatives, both parents will act like parents, putting this young woman where she belongs: first. Neither of these remarkable parents need to say unkind things about the former spouse. They are grownups, and they behave like grownups.
How pitiful to be a part of a broken family and then to have someone, whether one of the members of the former marriage or an immature, petty, jealous new spouse involve herself in a divorce that they really know nothing about, creating stress and hostility for the children of that divorce.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows what goes on, or doesn't go on, in someone elses marriage.*
We've all heard a version, or a particular "side" of their story, but unless we were sleeping in the same bed with that couple, or hovering over their breakfast table, I guarantee that the paragraph above is true. I've never understood why people feel they have to take sides in someone elses divorce!
Are we still related after a divorce? Of course we are, especially if we have children, young or grown. We are bonded by blood to the former spouse: The blood of our children or child. We owe it to those children to demonstrate maturity, wisdom, and self-confidence, because we love them. Once the papers are signed and the divorce is granted, the children come first, and putting them between ex-spouses for the benefit of making one look better than the other is, in my opinion, one of the lowest forms of child abuse. Only lower is when a new spouse puts herself or himself in the position of abuser, talking trash about the real parent to the children involved, and putting them in the middle of that new spouse's insecurity issues. (*Reread the paragraph above.)
If one of my children marry, or has a crisis, or loses a beloved family member or friend, I would hope that both of her parents could be there to support her in her new marriage, or to help to grieve the loss. With maturity and wisdom this can be achieved.
The roots of trees and plants must be far wiser than mankind. If they grow in different directions, they just do. They don't poison the earth around the ones they leave behind, and they don't seem to need training or lectures to intertwine and support themselves: They just do it.
