A Little More Personal Info: Ponderable?

Discussion in 'Family & Relationships' started by Frank Sanoica, Feb 12, 2017.

  1. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    At 5, I became an uncle, my sister gave birth to my nephew Dan, two years after WW-II ended. She married a young and persoinable Sailor, over my Parents' wishes. She was 16. After a rapidly deteriorating family relationship in our household, Dan's father returned to PA, and my Mother took over raising Dan & I, basically, as my sister went to work. So, Dan and I grew up more like brothers than uncle and nephew; we were very close. Three years hence, my sister remarried, the new guy, also a Sailor, adopted Dan, and raised him under his own name.

    A lifetime of events intervened. Dan married a nice girl while in the Marine Corps, mustered out, he and I entered into a business together taking over a service station. Within months, his new wife balked, missing being with her Mother, and he pulled out.

    They subsequently had 3 sons, while Dan & I had never been together at all, during the interim. They wound up in KS, I in AZ. The year of their 25th. pending anniversary, his wife Marge left him. He came to visit us in PHX, bringing his youngest son, Danny, and broke the news to us. Danny quit high school, morose, confused, not accepting the breakup. Shortening the story, he went on to join the Marine Corps. also, and is now of rank, an officer. He is the epitome of a young man lost, brought tro "life" by military commitment.

    His father, Dan, has unfortunately gone the other way. Seriously mentally-affected (I think) by the divorce from his wife, he met a lady via an ad she had placed, married her, about 17 years ago. When they met, he described her to me as "dirt poor". Meeting her, my wife, supremely intuitive, revealed her belief the woman was "no good". Today, "dirt poor" has gone to supreme spendthrift, Dan doing a complete character turn around from years back, catering to her every whim, they have filed personal bankruptcy in the mid-2000s and are now forced to sell their house unable to continue huge mortgage payments.

    Bottom line here is the emphasis on how people change: Dan was like a brother to me throughout our lifetime. Now, reduced to subservience by his 2nd. wife, his character has done a complete reversal. We have today gotten him to agree to fly out to visit in March from Kansas, alone, other nephew Mike will come here from Flagstaff, 180 miles, and the 3 of us will once again hash and re-hash the familial shortcomings which have over a lifetime intervened amongst our former close-knit relationship as 2 brothers and their uncle. Strangely, Mike and I have over the past decade or so, become much closer while Dan and I, after a lifetime of closeness, have become irretrievably driven apart.

    I look forward vigorously to our meeting up next month, while having trepidation regarding the deeper secrets Dan might bring from Kansas. Thanks for hanging in here with this; I know it's personal junk, of interest to maybe few. For me, though, it may be our last fist-pounding, bashing of relatives, chance to resolve years-back tensions before I croak. Frank
     
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  2. Patsy Faye

    Patsy Faye Supreme Member
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    Hi Frank, be careful won't you when re-hashing family shortcomings and rely more on this being a joyous reunion
    Hope all goes well :)
     
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  3. Terry Page

    Terry Page Supreme Member
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    I wish you well @Frank Sanoica ........ going back is very difficult from my experience, we all change with time and our memories often get re-written as well, I always remember the quote at the beginning of the L P Hartley novel "The Go Between" “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
     
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  4. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    My five sisters and I used to rent a condo in Florida (before most of them lived there) and spend a four day weekend together "catching up" on our lives. We all are different in many ways, but we are family and so we focus on the things we do have in common instead of those differences. This is your chance @Frank Sanoica to focus on the good things about family and I hope y'all will all do that at your reunion and have a wonderful time together. :)
     
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  5. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    My 2 sisters and my brother are different than me in many ways but we all get along when together.

    I don't expect them to be like me or even think like I do. We all have one thing in common and that is a sense of family.
     
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  6. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Was going to say something about my family and my wife's family, we don't get along with them very well and visa-versa. "Oh well" is all we can say. At least we have each other.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 14, 2017
  7. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    My full brothers and I agree on most things, although I'm not certain of my next older brother, three years older than me, largely because he doesn't discuss things that there might be disagreement on. If there are wide differences there, I would blame the fact that he majored in social work. Among my half brothers and sisters and their families, there are a bunch of liberals, but I'm not sure if that is due to their younger ages or the fact that they grew up mostly in Kentucky. Probably the former, because there are more areas of agreement with the older ones, although they are all well into adulthood a this point. Nevertheless, most of my life, I have lived thousands of miles away so we tend to get along pretty well.
     
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  8. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    Maybe that's why we get along too...live far apart plus big age differences. My brother the university professor is VERY liberal...my middle sister is moderate but leans right and my baby sister who is married to the doctor is moderate but leans more to the left.

    We were all raised Catholic but by parents who weren't very religious...my brother and baby sister are atheists, my middle sister isn't religious but not catholic anymore I don't think, maybe an agnostic but we never talk religion so I don't know.

    I'm not an atheist but I'm not religious either...but if I had to choose a religion the only one I could choose is catholic, seems to be in my blood.

    We seldom discuss religion or politics.
     
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  9. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Ken Anderson Distance does have it's good points, I guess. For us right now, it's not so, though, as my wife's two sisters both live within easy walking distance of their 91 year old mother, in IN, while my wife is of course 2000 miles away. Guess which of the 3 sisters does the most, cares the most, worries the most, and can in fact accomplish the least for their mother? Yep!
    Frank
     
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