Butchblog

Families can be tricky. Mine sure was. I get it, you’re supposed to love and honor your birth family. But my mother made that hard. She was the oldest of four siblings – three sisters and the youngest, the baby, Jacob. It was a close-knit group, presided over by my grandfather, a refugee from Russia, a poet, and a stern but loving gentleman. My grandmother was originally from Hungary and, among other virtues, was a great cook. I still yearn for her stuffed cabbage rolls. All our many family gatherings occurred at my grandparents’ home, and the four siblings were always in attendance with their growing broods. As I remember, we were a happy group. That is until Jake made a big mistake.

            Now I should say that Uncle Jake was my favorite relative. He paid attention to me, told me jokes and played catch with me. He called me and my brother, Paul, Trebor and Luap, our names reversed. Jacob was a psychiatrist and helped me out when I was going through a dark time as a teenager. But that’s not what this story is about.

            The story is about the feud between my mom and Uncle Jake. My mother was a formidable woman, both in body and temperament. Some would even say she was mean. I’ll not go that far. After all, she was my mother and I loved her and knew she loved me, though those words were never spoken. When Mom made her mind up about something it stayed that way. So, when Jake announced to his sisters that he was divorcing his wife and that he had fallen in love with a new person, Mom shut him out of her life – and ours. She didn’t want to hear any of Jacob’s explanations, nor would she allow her sisters to persuade her otherwise. Neither divorce nor abandonment were acceptable in Mom’s world. From that moment on, Jake was banned, despite the fact that up until that time they were extremely close, the oldest and the youngest. Mom treated Jake like one of her sons. No, even better than that. She was immensely proud of him.  But for the next 30 years Mom and her brother had no communication. Nothing. When on her death-bed, my mother motioned me to bend down, then whispered in my ear, “Jacob cannot come to my funeral.”

            But without my mother’s knowledge, Jake and I had stayed in touch throughout those years of feuding. He became a mentor for me and a friend, though I never told my mother about our ongoing connection. She would have taken it as a betrayal. I, of course, did invite Jake to the funeral, where he sat in the back, shrouded in sadness.