A-Z of Family Estrangement | By Mairi Campbell-Jack

By Mairi Campbell-Jack

Image by Samuel Zeller via Unsplash

A is for anchor.  

The thin reedy voices of the spares congregation echoed round the empty freezing space of the church.

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life…

It was a hymn sung in a rhythm far slower than the one it was meant to be played at, as the ancient organist laboured to keep the peddles going throughout the length of verse and chorus.

When the strong tides life, and the cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain.

The song asked the questions every Sunday.  Week on week, year on year, and for at least a portion of those who asked the question – of the congregations, the choir, themselves the answer turned out to be “no,” that they are wandering their way anchorless, with nothing to cling to.  Like a piece of jetsom they float on seafoam, always missing the promise of what they don’t have.

 

B is for…

“But what if they die?”

 

C is for celebrations.

Birthday’s, Christmas, Easter, New Year, Dwali, Eid, Hannukka, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, exam passes, promotions, holidays there’s a space in all of them.  A brief but awkward pause when someone asks

“Are you seeing your family for…?”

 

D is for depression.

You do not always know when it will visit,

how it will present itself.

 

For some it is like a plunge into freezing water –

a looney dook.

 

For others creeping, slow, familiar.

 

E is for emergency contact.

My pen hovers above the form as I wonder what to put on the dotted line after the words “Emergency Contact/Next of Kin” and “Relationship to you.”

 

F is for freedom.

It does not rest on you,

it was always there,

waiting, secretly willing you to find it.

 

You only knew it

whether a soaring presence,

a deep joy and calm,

once you lift from it

what smoothers.

 

G is for gas lighting.

The torch flickers in his hand, casting long shadows against the rough hewn walls of the labyrinth.  The string wound round his fingers to make sure he could not accidentally let go and get lost was thin.  It is rough, fibres bite into him and were rubbing his skin so it was becoming raw.

 

He kept thinking he could see things in the shadows, a hoof print, dark coarse hair that had been caught on the wall, but the light was poor.

 

He had thought the tales he heard were true.  He was beginning to doubt he would ever find and slay this monster.

 

H is for honour.

You call it honour, but it is something else.  

 

Something weak, and easily broken.  

 

You have been mistaken all these years in what you thought you had.  It was mis-sold to you long ago, by a cheap man, in a fake suit.

 

I is for igneous.

Igneous rock used to be magma.  It used to be hot, and it would flow into all the cracks.  Now it is cold, hard, solid.

 

You cannot open it, or smooth it away.  It only chips, as small sharp pieces break off and fly into your face.

 

J is for jokes.

Q:  When is a joke not a joke?

A:  No one knows.  For some people everything is a joke, including you.  For others it is not a joke when it is mean, or nasty, exposing something you said in private, winkling its fingers into old wounds, grinning as fresh blood bubbles up and begins to slow.

 

It is you who is wrong for not getting it, not laughing, you who is wrong for feeling hurt, or upset, or crying.  You are wrong for having feelings not like mine. You.

 

K is for kindred.

It is a twist hidden deep in the cells that links us together – and despite your wishing, nothing else.

 

L is for love.

Often mislabelled, misunderstood, wielded,

the threat of withdrawal always remains.

No Corinthians here

to remind that it is patient,

it is kind.

 

M is for Mother.

Mother is the formal, a show of distance, aloofness.  An indication of relation, but not affection, not warmth, not love.

 

Never have I ever…

• Played with razors
• Starved my body
• Felt compelled to drink
• Stayed where I shouldn’t
• Put up with treatment beneath me
• Desperately wanted you to notice
• Cried myself to sleep
• Felt my arm twisted behind my back
• Said no but had it ignored
• Felt afraid

 

O is for open doors.

Your door is open you say, but the cost of walking through is to leave my skin behind.  Strip away all that protects me, hair, nails, and muscle, all that keeps me going, tongue, lungs, and intestine.  I will have to make myself skeleton, and when I walk through, I will only be able to clatter.

 

P is for phoenix.

Does the ash still stick to your feathers, even as you fly?

 

Q is for questions.

Q:  But they are your parents?

A:  What would it take you to cut yours out your life?

 

Q:  Don’t you miss them?

A:  So much my heart has not mended, only closes over.

 

Q:  I don’t understand, how can you do that?

A:  You are very, very lucky.

 

R is for revenge.

It clings and scratches at you.  It begs for your attention, sometimes with a low whine, at other points a rough bark.

 

S is for Spector.

I felt I was a ghost, a Spector, a haunting thing.  I was mist, air and water shaped into an approximation of a human.

Slowly they came to me, a blood vessel, a flap of skin, a sliver of tissue.

 

I started to coalesce, become solid.  Real.

 

T is for trust.

I have to remember each day that I can trusts you.  I forget all the time. I take it away from myself before anyone else can, and leave you standing alone while I prepare myself for your onslaught.  It never comes.

 

Slowly, slowly, imperceptibly, I begin to uncoil.

 

U is for ugly.

You are amazed, astonished, flabbergasted at how ugly these people who claim they love you can be.  The spite, vindictiveness, hate that spews from their mouths into you so they can point and shout,

 

“No, it’s you.  You are ugly. Not me.  Not me. Not me.”

 

V is for voices.

When you have physically left, their voices still echo through your ear, a commentary you hardly hear, but which whispers all day, cutting you down, chipping away – making sure your mind never really leaves, even though your body walked away.

 

W is for waking up.

It is slow, so slow, like the earth turning itself to the sun.  One day your eyes will open and you’ll be amazed at how much you slept through, how zombie you had become.

 

X is for xplination.

It is like peanut butter in my mouth,

Claggy.

Sticking everywhere, it stops my parts moving to manipulate air

into sound.

 

I do not know what to say.

How do I tell the truth

without receiving pitying looks or

shocked expressions of disbelief?

 

How do I answer without having to manage the response of my interrogator?

 

Y is for yarn.

They tell tales about you, they spin them so you would not recognise yourself.  So clothed are you as the wolf with blood rounds its mouth. So like a sheep they are covered in wool.  It is only you who has looked close enough to see that under the wool lies a pelt, under the bleat a scarlet snout.

 

Z is for zugswang

Noun.  Chess. An obligation to move, even when it is to one’s disadvantage.