Who Stayed Became Home

How does the saying go? Out of Sight, Out of Mind, right!?

Don’t mind me this morning. I just needed somewhere to put this so I can come back and reflect on it later.

I woke up feeling lonely. Not lonely in the sense that I have nobody. I have my wife. I have my children. I have people who love me. I know that. This is a different kind of lonely. It is the loneliness of realizing you don’t have much blood family left. And some of the family who are still here feel like people I used to know.

Since Pops died nearly four years ago, I’ve thought about this more than I care to admit. My father was the glue. The family was far from perfect. There were problems long before he died. Some of them were caused by him. At one point, I even had an opportunity to expand my family a little. I chose not to.

I couldn’t do it. There was too much fuckery, deception, dysfunction and confusion surrounding it. Some real Maury Povich type shit. I already had enough family trauma. I wasn’t volunteering for the sequel.

But when Pops died, something else died with him. Whatever small thread was keeping certain people connected seemed to disappear. Doors closed. Windows shut. People went back to their lives. And slowly, I became out of sight and out of mind.

I think this hurts because family has always meant something to me. Maybe more than I realized. When there were fewer people carrying my last name beside me, I started creating family differently. A brother who wasn’t born my brother. A sister who wasn’t born my sister. Uncles and cousins created through love, friendship and years instead of blood. Maybe that was my way of filling empty seats.

Sometimes I even think about my last name and everything attached to it. A cousin lost his wife. An uncle died from COVID. My sister died from AIDS. My brother suffered a stroke and never fully recovered. Then Pops. A man who seemed to have nine lives eventually ran out of them. Then there is me. Multiple sclerosis.

When you line everything up like that, your mind starts creating stories. You start wondering whether something follows your family. Whether your bloodline carries more pain than it should. I know better than to call it a curse. But grief does strange math. It takes unrelated losses, puts them next to each other and asks you to explain why so much happened to the people carrying the same name.

There is no answer.

What I do know is that my father’s funeral was the last time I saw or heard from some people I once considered family. That stays with me. Not because I am bitter. I’m not. I think I finally understand that some relationships survive only because one person keeps everyone connected. When that person dies, you find out whether there was actually a relationship underneath it all.

Sometimes there isn’t.

Then MS entered my life and taught me another uncomfortable lesson. Sickness changes the room. Some people move closer. Some people become uncomfortable. Some disappear quietly. Some love you but don’t know how to exist around the version of you who needs help. And some simply continue living their lives without thinking much about yours.

I used to take that personally. Some days I still do.

There are moments when I wish I had a brother, sister, cousin or uncle who would call and say, “What do you need?” Not because I am helpless. Because sometimes I am tired of being the one who figures it out.

There is a difference.

My upbringing taught me early that nobody was coming to save me. Trauma reinforced it. MS put it to the test. So I learned how to handle things. I make the calls. I figure out transportation. I deal with doctors. I deal with work. I deal with the wheelchair. I deal with whatever problem is sitting in front of me. Then I go home to the family I built, and somehow we keep moving.

But strength has a strange downside. When people see you constantly figuring things out, they start believing you don’t need anybody. Sometimes the strongest person in the room is strong because nobody gave them another option.

That is where the loneliness lives for me.

Not in being unloved. In being unremembered.

There is a spiritual lesson somewhere in all of this that I am still working through. Maybe family was never supposed to mean only blood. Maybe some people belong to one chapter of your life and not the entire book. Maybe losing people does not always mean someone did something wrong.

And maybe illness doesn’t only take things from us. Sometimes it reveals things.

It shows you who checks in when there is nothing exciting happening. Who remembers you when you are not standing directly in front of them. Who makes room for the wheelchair without making you feel like a burden. Who asks how you are doing and stays long enough to hear the real answer.

Who remains.

I don’t hate the people who disappeared. I don’t even blame them anymore. But sometimes I miss the idea of having them.

There is a difference between missing someone and missing what you wished they had been.

I think I am finally learning that.

So this morning I am allowing myself to feel lonely without turning loneliness into a story that says I am alone. Because I am not.

I have a family. Some share my blood. Some share my history. Some share my home. Some simply chose me, and I chose them back.

Maybe the family I kept waiting for was already being built around me.

And maybe my last name isn’t cursed.

Maybe it has simply carried a lot.

Including me.

And I’m still here.