When I was a child, our family seemed unbreakable, like a single unit moving together. Holidays were large affairs, crammed with laughter, and there was an unspoken certainty that everyone would always be around the table. I can’t quite place when it all started to change; maybe the cracks were always there, but I was just too young to notice. Looking back, I guess it all began with the arguments that bled into every gathering. It was the summer birthdays, the long Thanksgiving tables, and eventually, even during Christmas mornings. I’d hear the raised voices from behind closed doors, the grumble of adults clashing while I tried to focus on unwrapping another gift in the next room.
When my parents finally decided to separate, I could almost say I saw it coming. The decision, when relayed in quiet somber tones at the kitchen table, did not shock me as I imagined it might—though the ripple effect it had on our extended family was something I hadn’t foreseen. My aunts and uncles—people I had believed were steadfast, immovable fixtures in my life—began to drift into factions. Coffee catch-ups turned into whispered conversations, and family reunions became smaller, fragmented.
It hit home on what was supposed to be an ordinary day. I remember my aunt picking me up from school, her eyes darting nervously between me and the road, trying to bridge the silence with questions about my favorite subjects. We pulled up to my grandparents’ house, but the air was tense. My aunts were there, seated around the same table that used to be a symbol of warmth, now heavy with unease. They spoke in hushed voices when they thought I wasn’t listening, words like ambivalence, choosing sides, and loyalty dripped with a sharpness usually absent from familial ties.
That’s when she told me—the family had chosen sides and we never recovered. My mother came to pick me up later, her face a portrait of carefully constructed neutrality, but beneath it lay something else, something I had never noticed before: wariness. She asked how the day was, and I managed a weak smile, averting my eyes to avoid the truth unraveling in front of us both.
In the months that followed, the phone never rang with the frequent chime of weekend invitations we’d once been accustomed to. Visits became perfunctory, more like obligations rather than the joy-filled reunions they once were. On some nights, I’d hear my mother over the phone in the room next to mine, her voice husky with grief, speaking to what felt like ghosts of a past life.
My father’s side of the family was more insidious in its silence. Somehow, the quiet cut deeper—no theatrical confrontations, just an absence that filled the room with an echoing void. During dinners with him, any mention of family met a quick diversion or a tight-lipped nod. The silence between us stretched like a chasm, and I found myself struggling to reach across. As these changes unfolded, I searched for a way back to how things used to be, for that feeling of inclusivity and safety which had evaporated, leaving only spectral memories of happier times.
I tried to reconcile the two worlds, hoping to stitch something fractured back together, but my attempts were futile. I tried inviting both sides for a birthday celebration one year, a futile endeavor that ended with strained exchanges and a stony silence that wrapped the room. I felt the weight of their unresolved issues landing squarely on my young shoulders.
In high school, life filled with its routines—homework, extracurriculars, and teenage escapades—served as distractions. But holidays and special occasions stubbornly remained a reminder. Each year brought with it the need to decide which half of my family to awkwardly appease. The expectation to choose one over the other was far from spoken yet deeply felt. Nothing was quite right anymore. It seemed the version of us, who we were as an extended family, was frozen in time, unreachable and perhaps romanticized by the innocence of youth.
The turning point came when I received the news of my grandmother’s passing. She was the silent matriarch, the anchor amidst the turbulent waters of our family discord. The funeral was the first time both sides were forced into the same cramped space in years. But even then, the gathering was orchestrated with military precision to keep interaction to a minimum. It was then the finality of the situation dawned on me. Not the death—though that grief was its own creature—but the acceptance that the dream of cohesive family unity was gone.
Leaving the reception, my heart felt split. I walked away when the polite pleasantries fizzled out, stepping into the fresh air with a sense of clarity bittersweet on my tongue. I now understood I couldn’t hold together something that didn’t want to be held. I couldn’t rebuild what others steadfastly refused to see as broken. I felt a certain release, different from the initial pain but no less impactful. It was the release that came with acceptance.
Through this, I learned a lesson that perhaps only time and experience can teach. People sometimes choose paths based on perspectives that I cannot influence. It wasn’t that they didn’t love me, but their own needs and histories colored their actions in unavoidable ways. The distance they created wasn’t out of malice but as a coping strategy for their own conflicts. In a strange twist, understanding this brought a sense of peace.
Life moved on, as it inevitably does. As I grew older, as I started a family of my own, I resolved to do things differently. I built around me a family that, while imperfect, prioritized togetherness and communication, lessons hard-learned from years of walking in the middle ground. Each gathering is an effort to say aloud the things left unsaid in my own childhood, reminders of the fragility of bonds and the importance of never taking those ties for granted.
Now, when I think back on those days, there’s a sadness wrapped in gratitude. Sadness for what was lost, yes, but gratitude for what was learned. The family chose sides, we never fully recovered, but in many ways, it made me resilient. In the end, maybe that’s the rhythm of life, the cycle of loss and renewal, that shapes who we are as much as our unfulfilled dreams.
