About this theme of estrangement, one of the things I have been most thankful for in recent years is reuniting with my family. It took tragedy to do it, but we have reconnected to some extent. My parents were rabid anti COG, and believed every bit of the bad stuff brought out in the press about the group, so there wasn't much of a relationship to speak of at all for many years. When my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer 6 years ago, I came home after an absence of 17 years, and brought 3 of my 8 children with me. Right before I was scheduled to leave, I got an email from my parents, something to the effect that, "Well don't expect us to just welcome you back with open arms after all this time you've been out of our lives...." It almost scared me into not coming back. But I did and mom was still able to make it for 4 years after in fairly good health after that initial diagnosis, so I visited 3 other times, sometimes staying for extended periods, and pretty much being there fulltime for her as her condition worsened, and was with her at her side when she passed. There are 6 siblings in my family, and we became very close during those times, all rallying around mom, and sharing in her care, and that of my dad, who was also ailing. I'll always be grateful to the folks in the Homes I was in for caring for my kids during those times, thus allowing me to be with my mom, dad, and family during those critical periods. We became close again, and even though the situation at our house was one of great sadness especially toward the end of mom's life, our family has alwas been the type to joke around at even the worst of situtations, and so there was alot of happiness and comeraderie as well.
Still, there are things that will we will never be able to discuss and I know my siblings will never broach the subject with me. Being a single mom and having 8 kids, and very obviously from several different dads, they're just too polite to get in there and dig and say "Hey what's the deal?" but I'm sure it gets talked about plenty when I'm not around, and so that makes a breach that just can't be closed.
I was home for a year during the time the infamous Time magazine article came out, and I was confronted by my whole family about it. The magazine was shoved in my face and I was grilled pretty heavily by my parents, and grandparents. I was at that time a young mom with a 1 year old daughter, and married, but my husband and I were separated at the time. I fought back with all the usual arguments, but of course they could see what was really going on. How in the world do you explain FFing to your parents and have it make the least little bit of sense? My mom had talked with one of her best friends and told her about her fears of me raising my daughter to become a whore. I hit the ceiling about that, and after being away from TF for a year, I decided to go back. This led to the 17 years of estrangement between my family and I, with the occasional letter talking about the weather, etc., pictures, Christmas cards. There were years and years I missed with all my sisters and brothers, watching them marry, have kids, raising our little ones together, having my kids get to know their cousins, etc....years I'll always regret, but it was a wonderful experience for us to reunite through difficult times and become a family and accept each other finally.
Still, like I said, there are things that we will probably never discuss, and that they couldn't possibly expect to understand. I grope to understand them myself about all my years of involvement with TF and all.
I guess every person's experience is different. And there is only so much we can do to mend the bridges we blew up years ago. And now, as a grandmother myself, I can only imagine the hurt I inflicted on my parents and family all those years I was away and not allowing them to be part of their grandkids' lives. My parents have always been real family oriented and were crazy about all their grandkids, and I know I would be so grief stricken in any of my kids did the same thing to me and cut me out of theirs' and their childrens' lives.
It'll never be completely "normal" between us like it is with the rest of my sibs, but I'm thankful that it turned out to be as good as it is at this point.
There's hope for even the worst of situations. I never thought reconciliation was even the least bit possible with my family.