Believing in Wishes Made on Stars

On TV it seems natural that families gather for holiday celebrations. I marvel when I see images of adult children meeting with their parents for coffee or dinner, talking walks together, or sitting on the porch of a family home. TV is such a wonderland. I used to think people had amazing imaginations and wished I could have a TV family like those that seemed to enjoy each other’s company and depended on one another for support or advice.

We don’t gather for holidays anymore, and haven't for decades. When I was a child my parents held traditional Easter basket and egg hunts. My dad set up a grill in the yard and my mother dressed a picnic table for summer cookouts. At Halloween we wore costumes and went trick-or-treating, as well neighborhood kids came to our door for goodies too. For Thanksgiving my mother made a small bird and we ate together, the one for Christmas. Of course, larger holiday celebrations took place at my maternal grandmother’s house, and we gathered with my aunts, uncles, and cousins for the festivities. When my grandmother died, aside from hell breaking loose in my mother's hoard, contact with the extended family ended altogether.

These days, my parents and I don’t gather for coffee or dinner at "home." While I did, years ago, spend time with my father on Saturday mornings, we discontinued that practice when my mother’s mother died and my mother's hoarding escalated. Since then she's made a dead-zone of the kitchen and eliminated the remaining chair available for seating. When we spent time together, my dad sat on that single chair and I sat on the floor. He read the first portion of the newspaper and then handed it to me, all the way through the entire paper. It was "our" time and I enjoyed it immensely. While reading, my father and I sipped coffee, pointing out articles of interest to one another. It was the most wonderful time I can remember having with my dad in recent years. And, by recent… I mean… in the past 10 years. But, again, my mother’s hoard managed to eliminate this father-daughter ritual, and often I wonder if it was intentional that my mother took over the kitchen so we couldn’t continue.

None of us can sit in one room and watch television together, like the families on TV that watch TV together. The original TV room, the “rec” room, is hoarded with clothing and easy-bake boxes of cake. The second TV room, a garage remodeled into a spare room, is hoarded with holiday decorations, “spare furniture”, and an always-assembled Christmas tree. The remaining space, in which my parents watch TV, is the formal living room. It’s newspaper laden and hoarded with “picks” (floral stems), and house “décor”, among other things. The smell of litter and stale air is enough to stifle my breathing, and the thought of sitting in such clutter leaves me feeling claustrophobic. My mother has said, numerous times, that she likes how she feels in the hoard, because it “hugs her.” She’s said the same thing about overstuffed thrift stores and discount-o-ramas that have too much stock and not enough space; her favorite places to spend time away from home.

I can’t bear to be there, in my mother’s house. I don’t want to traverse dead-zones looking for a place to be. I don’t want to deal with piles. And, the last thing from which I want a “hug” is the hoard. I really wish I could spend time visiting with my parents, learning about the adult versions of them and finding ways to appreciate them as we all age. I really wish there were a place for me in their home, even just for visits. I really wish they were the ones giving me hugs. There just aren’t enough stars for all my wishes.

What strikes me as strange is how desperate my mother was for her own mother's attention and affection. My mother made sure we never missed a holiday with her mother, and she--my mother--was at her mother's beck-and-call until the bitter end. By "bitter" I also mean the tenor of the family as my grandmother lay dying. So, the second half of what strikes me as strange is that my mother seems to have absolutely no care for involvement with my sibling's children. There are 5 grandchildren, total, and there's not a single space in the house for me or my sibling to gather with our parents, let alone for the second generation to gather with their grandparents. They'll have no holiday memories and no sense of belonging to my sibling's side of their "family." I feel like a "hoard orphan". I can only imagine what my sibling feels, or how the grandchildren feel about such disenfranchisement.