Family Secrets

On July 9th, my brother-in-law passed into his next chapter after a long and painful struggle with pancreatic cancer.  He and my sister started dating in high school and I had known him for better than 50 years. He was more of a brother to me than my own brother and his absence will leave a very large hole in my heart.

I drove down a day before the funeral to help with preparations.  Beaner also drove down and Peachie flew in, 8 months pregnant, from Florida.  As she said “when your family is only 5 people, you come.”  

My BIL was Jewish and the funeral service was a beautiful combination of Hebrew and English prayers and traditions.  His best friend gave the eulogy, a combination of BIL’s love of his family and stories of his great sense of humor - One of my favorites -BIL was at a company buffet and noticing the offerings said  “Free ham.  The Jewish dilemma.”  The folks gathered all laughed.  The rabbi? Not so much.  

One story was about a boy who had gotten caught through a balcony grate and was dangling.  My BIL saved his life.  How had I never heard that story before?  

At the gravesite my BIL was buried next to his brother, who was a friend and classmate of mine.  He died in High School from what the family called a rare blood disease. Turns out that he died of a drug overdose.  I found this out only a few years ago.  WTF?

When I mentioned this to my sister she told me that with the death of his young brother, my BIL’s mother had a total psychic break and was in an institution for quite a while.  In fact, she had to get a day pass to be able to come to my sister and BIL’s wedding.  Again, I was left wondering about where I was through all of this.  Away at college probably.  But I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know the woman.  We lived only a few blocks apart and after my sister’s marriage, our two families got together often.  How did I not know this?

Later that night I slept in bed with my sister.  “One good thing that has come out of this”, she said, was that her son promised his father before he died that he would quit smoking.  I made a comment that our parents never smoked and she laughed, “Dad smoked.  Don’t you remember - after he killed that guy he started smoking.”  I was beginning to think I had entered The Twilight Zone.  “Dad killed a guy?” She then told me the story that some guy had stepped out between two cars, directly into our father’s driving lane.  Although not our father’s fault, our dad was deeply affected by it and took up smoking.  And yet again, I knew nothing of this.

Lastly, she said “but you know about dad’s dad, right?”  Actually all I knew about my paternal grandfather was that he had died long before I was born.  Funny that I had never thought to ask how he died, even though those questions show up on many of the health questionnaires I am constantly filling out.  Well, it seems that my grandfather, who was a butler for the very wealthy Rothchild family in NYC, was caught having an affair with a maid and was fired.  It was during the depression and now, having lost his job and the trust of his wife, he committed suicide.  

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve learned all these stories about my family and I’m still quite shaken by it.  Was I lied to?  Considered the “baby” of the family and kept from the hard facts?  Perhaps I had been told but my brain refused to register it.  It all feels very weird - so much unknown history.

But it has also made me think of things in my past that I have never told my children - some wild, stupid and some so traumatic it still impacts my life.  I wonder if they would even want to know or if they would be surprised or possibly hurt to hear these stories from someone else in the future. 

Anyone have any experience with this?  

Anyway, my sister will be coming to visit me next week and I wonder what other skeletons will be falling out of our family closet.   I’m afraid to ask.