Family Veins
She knew it would happen, eventually. She’d held her breath for years, before and after the telling, waiting for the pillars to crumble. There are families that you might think are too strong, too close, too old. Wrong. It can all be undone. The bonds of blood can bend and break. Perhaps the veins had been leaking for years. It just took one final surge to bust the valve and empty the tank. The compensatory measures taken within families to maintain their bonds often go unnoticed. An overlooking of an insult here, a forgive and forget of an injustice there. There are arguments. Annoyances. Distancing and reconnecting. Posturing. Slighting. Protecting. Lots of eye rolling. But usually, it can be overcome. Unless it can’t. Unless the issue is too big, too glaring, too awful. Unless it forces one’s hand. And then, the commonality, the sense of home, the familiarity, the bond, the “us against them” disappears, and it becomes “us against one another”. Lines are drawn in the sand, words once unsaid are said, and it can’t be undone. It will never be the same. And there is loss and grieving for what once was and will never be again.