isolation

One thing that occurs to me more and more (when I talk to friends about their growing-up, and when I read about people's memories) is the isolation that my parents created for themselves and their kids. I think it is a reason why I, genetically prone to depression, succumbed to it so early. There were no cousins around, no grandparents. We did not have the sense of family that most people do, that one is part of a group that encompasses generations and cousins and aunts and uncles. My father's parents lived in New York and we saw them rarely. They did not really know either my brother or sister or me. My father has one sister, and her family lived on Long Island. We would visit them once a year, twice at most. My much-older cousins came to stay with us in Pennsylvania once, but we certainly were not close, although I always enjoyed seeing them. But there is no sense of shared history. I don't think I could sit with any of my cousins and share some mundane memory.

My mother's father died before we were born, and my grandmother too lived several hours away, and she and my mother had a bad relationship, so we saw her rarely and when we did it was not always pleasant, although she clearly did love us. We saw them about once a year. My mother had one sister, and they fought a lot. She has two kids, adults now, but they grew up in Florida and I barely know them. My other cousins on my mother's side are close with one another, and grew up together, but my family was so far from them that we have no shared memories. We are like an island, and this, I think, is not good for kids. That is why I try to see my nephews a lot, and kick myself for not spending more time with them. But I have no children, so there are no cousins for them to play with. My brother had better get busy and have a kid or two before it's too late.