A Long Story Grows Even Longer...

...OR, "A Tale From the Tragically Bizarre."



My family didn't used to have such a flair for drama, but we certainly have developed it in recent years, leading up to this past weekend's fiasco. Dave had to work in North Carolina all day Friday and again on Saturday morning, and since he needed a hotel room anyway, he secured one in Rock Hill so that we could all come up early for my parents' vow renewal on Sunday. He worked late Friday night, so the kids and I spent the evening with my mom and my sister Erica who had just recently returned from a six-week stint in Cambodia. My dad was also working, but arrived home just before I was ready to take the kids over to the hotel. It was strange to see him back at the apartment, but in a good way - I hoped silently that this renewal of committment would indeed be genuine and enduring.



Saturday morning took Dave to work, and the kids and I relaxed at the hotel until they grew restless, and then I took them to a nearby park until lunchtime. We then drove back over to my mom's, where we found that my aunt and uncle, along with my grandmother, had just arrived from Tennessee. We enjoyed visiting with them, although I noted silently that my dad seemed a little less than enthused about everything, and Erica said the same thing out loud to me later. We hoped he was just tired. But not too long after lunch, my mom took a long phone call from another sister, who was apparently disgruntled about something, then my dad went outside to make a long call to the same person. He came back in, then he and my mom went out to talk.



"We'll be right back," my mom said, with forced cheerfulness as they walked out the door.

"Well, we'll be back," my dad amended, with his own wan smile.





I didn't say anything, but felt like throwing something at the door they closed behind them. I hoped they were really just "discussing" whatever problem it was my sister was having with the upcoming event - a strange wish, given some of the interesting episodes on this score we've seen at major family events years past. (So I guess we've always had a little dramatic flair, at least in one corner of the family - but that's all I'll say about that.) But just about anything would be better than the kind of outdoor discussions my parents have had in the past year and a half. I took a deep breath, anyway, and put tried to put it on a shelf in the back of my mind while Erica and I took the kids to the pool.



Dave arrived a little while later, and we went almost straight from the pool to the car, heading for his parents' house in York. I was concerned about what was going on back at my mom's, so I was probably a bit of a downer at the Meester's gathering - which, by the way, had elements of the strange and disconcerting as well. My sister-in-law, just a few months fresh off her own separation, brought a "friend," really a nice guy, I must admit, and I'm not trying to be judgemental, but she certainly seems to be dealing with things in a pretty cool and calculating manner, especially given the fact that she has twin daughters who are at a rather delicate, pre-adolescent age. The rest of the family seems a little concerned on this point as well, but my mother-in-law commented that as far as the girls were concerned, they only knew the new man in their mom's life to be just a friend. I don't think the girls are stupid - I believe they probably know better, and I wonder if they are really taking their father's complete departure and all the subsequent and upcoming changes as casually as everyone would like to think. BUT... it's not my life, and they are not my children, and I do not wish to presume and speculate - too much, anyway! - about someone else's life. Things are interesting enough in my own corner of the world, and indeed, things were brewing back on the Rock Hill end.



On leaving Dave's family, we were planning to go visit at my mom's again, but they were just leaving for a late dinner, and even though my dad was at work, the air seemed charged with something. Erica had called me earlier to say that she understood the trouble to be involving just a problem our sister was having, and that everything was still good for Sunday, but I wasn't quite sure. We joined everyone at dinner for a little while, and everyone was smiling, but my mom seemed pensive. As we left, I sent Erica a text asking her, since she was staying in the apartment, to keep my informed of anything she discovered. I didn't hear anything that night, and when I woke on Sunday morning, I lay in bed thinking of how to secure our last-minute gift for the party. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of text messages arriving on my phone - it was Erica, describing how my dad was packing up all of his things. How very, very ghastly. My mom, she said, was gone, and as my dad was gathering the last of things, he had come into see Erica, explaining briefly that "it just wasn't the right time." The rest of my crew woke up shortly after, and I showed Dave what Erica had sent, but we didn't say anything to the kids just yet. We went to breakfast, deflecting comments from excited children about the party, and after we got back to our room, my aunt called to fill in the details - as many as she knew, at any rate. Of course, it was a familiar and ugly story, not surprising but made more horrible because of the wretched timing. She said, anyway, that my mom had gone to see some good friends for some comfort and counsel, and that she would be back that afternoon and hoped everyone would still come to the apartment. If it were me, I would want to be mostly alone, but my mom is quite the opposite and actually finds comfort in people, so we reluctantly agreed to go back over after checking out.We told the children that the party was cancelled, and we fielded questions about when there would be another celebration. We tried to answer delicately, and not squash child-like faith with our grown-up knowledge and cynicsim, but it was hard. Frankly neither Dave nor I could imagine how my parents could even think of attempting another reconciliation after this. When we got to the apartment, at any rate, only my grandmother and my sister were there, and Erica was getting ready to go to a movie with my other sister, Mary K., and her husband. When they left, the apartment was quiet and the air rather oppressive as we just sat and waited for who knew what. I decided to call my dad, and as soon as that long and difficult conversation was out of the way, we went to lunch, my grandmother opting to stay and get some rest. Upon returning, my aunt and uncle had arrived, and my mom appeared shortly thereafter. We went down to the pool, and the kids enjoyed themselves, but my mom, naturally, was very weary, and the mood among the rest of the adults was not terribly heavy, but resigned at the very least. My mom had asked the friends she had seen earlier to come later in the afternoon to oversee a family pow-pow, and shortly after we returned from the pool, they arrived. We were, at the time, cutting into the small wedding cake my mom had purchased for the event - but to redeem it somewhat, we put candles in it and sang Happy Birthday to the people in the family who had to closest birthdays. :-) As we were eating the cake, however, there was a knock on the door. I opened it - to the rest of the invited guests for the cancelled ceremony. My sisters and I nearly sank into the floor as we realized they hadn't been informed of the disasterous changes. They came in, unintenionally jarring the close family atmosphere we were nuturing in the apartment, and for a time some of us felt very awkward. But my mom and Erica rose to the occasion, as usual, and Erica merely showed everyone her pictures from Cambodia, while my mom made the rounds and explained what had happened. The guests, three very kind couples who have been devoted friends of the family for years, stayed for an uncomfortably long time, until they finally decided to redeem their own evening with some dinner elsewhere. Of course we had been glad to see them - in a way - but I think we were all glad to see them go all the same. The kids then watched some television in another room while Erica, my mom, and I (other family members had gracefully left by this point) cleaned up in the kitchen and finally talked about what had happened. My mom also related some things about the past few months that I wished she had told us earlier, as we all certainly would have more strongly suggested caution in pursuing a reconciliation at all, much less a costly dinner and celebration. But that couldn't be changed, so we tried to focus on helping her recover from the weekend that had had gone up in flames - and the fresh bitterness of hurt and dissapointment. I had planned to stay a couple extra days, because Dave had to be out of town Monday and Tuesday, and my mom asked if I would still stay. Again, I like intense privacy in times of great distress, but my mother would rather have family around, so I had agreed to stay. My crew can certainly keep anyone distracted! :-) (And Dave, by the way, had also left by this time.) Anyway, it was a solemn conversation, but as usual, we found ways to lighten the mood, my mom wondering if she could possibly be the first woman ever to be jilted on the day she was supposed to renew her vows - for a 30-plus year marriage, for heaven's sake! - and my sister and I thinking of creative ways to make good use of the leftover cake (we knew where my dad's furniture was being stored, for one thing...).

So my mom is stiil dazed from all this, and although we're doing our best to keep her occupied, she will have to grieve and put the pieces back together - again. As for the rest of us, it was a sad, bewildering, and exhausting weekend, but, unfortunately, not completely unexpected. The only good news from all this is that it may nudge my mom into taking more definite steps toward moving my way, something I would certainly welcome!