When It Comes to Family, There’s No Right Way

I’ve been reminding myself of the headline over the last few weeks. You see, about a month ago, my father fell extremely ill and was hospitalized. I chose not to travel across the country to see him because I had other commitments, including work and dental surgery. However, I stayed in touch with my family and kept up with what was happening. As it turned out, he passed away the same night that I was on a flight to Sydney, Australia. I found out hours later and had to choose. I had to decide whether to go to the ticket counter and see if I could turn around and go home, then come back a few days after the service, or stay and get on with the work I was sent there to do and go home in a couple of weeks.

Frankly, both choices sucked. I chose to stay, and now I’ll go back to Columbus, Ohio, next week instead. On one hand, I’ll get to visit with my family after the initial rush of people in for the service has left; on the other hand, I missed my own father’s memorial. Regardless of what type of relationship I did, or didn’t, have with him, that seems like a harsh phrase. I get the feeling not everyone agreed with my decision, but that’s the thing. In the end, I decided.

Sometimes, as survivors, we do everything we can to “keep the peace” within our families. All too often, we put others’ well-being before our own to keep everyone else happy. The truth is, though, that no one else needs to be pleased with the choices we make when it comes to our own families; only we do.

I’ve known plenty of survivors who have no relationship with their families any longer. I’ve known others who felt supported and had healed relationships with their parents and families, and I’ve known more, including myself, who fall somewhere in between. In that in-between state, you have to make some tough calls. A long time ago, a brilliant therapist told me that I was the only one who could decide what kind of relationship I had with my parents and other family members, and that I didn’t have to answer to anyone once I figured it out.

I’m not sure I ever figured it out exactly. I think it’s always been a constant stream of decisions: how much interaction to have, what was too much, how much I wanted to be involved in family drama, and when it was better to stay out of it. Once we moved away, and especially once I started traveling so much for work, I think limited contact just became normal for everyone. It also became an easy excuse. I wasn’t distant from family because of any decision I made, but because work kept me away. It was a convenient reason until something like this happened, and then we all had to confront the fact that I stayed in Australia. I made that decision. I had plenty of reasons for making that decision, not least the physical toll of flying back and forth between the US and Australia multiple times a week, but it was my decision. No one else had to make that same decision. No one else has the same relationship with the man that I did; no one else has to live with my story and my reality. They have theirs, and I have mine, and it’s okay if they made a different decision.

Survivor or not, we each get to choose how we grieve. Other people can’t do it for you or decide it for you. I’ve always said that about healing, and it’s true here, too. How I healed, how I grieve, and how I interact with various family members doesn’t have to match how everyone else does it, and how others do it doesn’t have to match how I do it.

What matters is that I make my own decision and accept whatever comes from it. For me, I had to make my choice and own it, regardless of whether someone else would have made the same one. That’s the only “right” choice.