Edward, now in his 70’s, confessed his failing memory, then he disclosed his identity-transforming secret to his daughter Jean. His disclosure was born from careful calculus. He’d thoughtfully weighed the benefits and risks: the benefits of helping his family help him through decline, the risks of self disclosure that had silenced him for over 60 years. Jean, her mother and sister, have been reprocessing their identities ever since.
Jean’s foundational family story, one she’d co-nurtured with her mother and sister for 40-plus years, was floating in vertigo. Jean was stunned by the presence of her habitual self condemnation, and her condemnation of her father. She had been blind to her pain from self hatred and blame, now visible in contrast with its growing absence.
We create our stories within a story ecosystem, within the web of living stories grown, inherited, and tended by family, community, and culture.
We create our stories from what we’re able to see at the time of their creation. All of our stories are unfinished and incomplete, constructed with our limited understanding in a world of unseen influences. We mature from our past through story revision, through updating and reintegrating past stories with our new eyes. Sometimes our revision is mercifully fomented by what others reveal.
Edward was a laconic father, a laconic husband; a common complaint about fathers and husbands of his era. However, Edward’s reticence to speak had been particularly disjointed, confusing.
Edward was a retired Immunologist. At work, he was known to kibitz with colleagues and medical students, kibitz within his area of expertise, and quiz medical students about his pet topic: his state’s history. He was known to be verbal, even cleverly comical, with an almost rehearsed clarity. Edward’s economy of words at home painted a painful contrast for Jean, for his family.
Jean’s childhood mind created unfortunate beliefs to explain her father’s resistance to communicate, his reticence to interact. Jean doubted her worthiness. She questioned her father’s concern, love, and regard for the family. She believed she lacked intelligence and was an uninteresting burden to her father. Her beliefs were supported by meticulously accumulated and assembled accounts of her childhood.
Jean told me about when her teen aged boyfriend took his own life. She said that her father never spoke of it: “never addressed it in any manner.” He seemed unwilling, unable, to acknowledge Jeans emotional stress and her need for connection. Jean described the many times she’d expressed her views, needed his acknowledgment, feedback or help, and how hurt she was in the void of his support.
Jean’s stories fit together like a puzzle, or perhaps a stone wall built from selected shapes. Her story conflicted with parts of her father’s nature, it conflicted with kindness and forethought she saw in many of his actions. Her story conflicted with his clear verbal thoughtfulness when he did speak; free of sarcasm and ill will. His views were reliable and cogent and broadly inclusive of a range of considerations.
Our unrevised formative stories freeze us in time. They unwittingly confine us in our relationships. Our parent’s unrevised formative story genes find expression in us.
Edward’s disclosure to Jean was a rare gift, a request for help, and an opportunity to disassemble her painful puzzle to create a new, more complete, picture.
Edward said to Jean: “When I was about 10 years old, I was thrown off of a tractor; I hit my head, and suffered a concussion. As I recovered, I noticed changes that I later learned were a form of aphasia. I experienced difficulty in spontaneous speech, in forming impromptu sentences. I noticed changes in my personality and in my perception. The fall brought me shyness and introversion.”
Then he told Jean: “I still remember my outgoing, garrulous, and popular personality from before the accident.” He told her that he was relieved when he recognized that, after the accident, he was still capable learning, that he’d retained his written comprehension, his verbal comprehension, and his strong memory.
Edward told Jean he’d hidden his condition. Jean imagined her father’s likely fear of potential stigma from his mental changes, the life limiting labels, the potential shame from disappointing his father. Edward grew up in a small conservative town, complete with the social roles, and values, common to the 1940’s and 1950’s. Edward’s father was a difficult man to disappoint, especially for his children. Edward’s father was the town’s stern high-school science teacher, a loquacious, opinionated, strong willed pillar of social activity, harsh in his judgments.
Edward said he’d learned to work around his limitation. He memorized speeches, social responses, memorized verbal responses to technical questions, he learned to carefully construct, and mentally rehearse, verbal responses before speaking. It worked for him, he succeeded in school, made it through graduate school, he learned to operate in controlled social contexts. However, he was less capable in uncontrolled social contexts, at home, where spontaneous and quick verbal connection was required. Though Edward had never disclosed his aphasia to his wife, he had deliberately relinquished parenting to her. He told Jean that he was grateful for her mother’s social and parenting capabilities. He had never directly expressed this gratitude to Jean’s mother.
Jean had an insight. She asked him: “Was your communication difficulty, your social discomfort, particularly difficult around emotions? Do you have trouble in recognizing other people’s emotions?” Her father hesitated, a hesitation seen near the core of long held shame and regret. In an apologetic tone he said: “Yes. I saw my limited emotional perception confuse, and hurt, you and your sister.”
Jean’s iconic childhood experience jumped to her mind, an experience packed with confusion and pain, an experience she’d carried since she was six:
Jean was reading a book when her father showed up and said: “Come with me to the barn”. Her father wanted her company while he was fixing a tractor. Jean expressed her desire to keep reading her book. Then, her father repeated his request in his even and emotionless tone. It sounded to Jean like a demand. Jean felt sad. She wanted her desires to be acknowledged, and she felt hurt for lost autonomy. As they walked to the barn she quietly began cry. She believed her father had once again shown that he: “Didn’t care what I wanted, what I felt”. When Jean’s father noticed her sniffling, he looked at her and said in his usual even tone: “Oh, you’re having feelings”. With her six year old mind, this is what she heard: “Oh, you’re having feelings, a childish habit that you need to learn to control”. Jean’s emotional awareness was intact; it was unthinkable that her intelligent adult father’s emotional vision was blurred.
Jean’s heart was arrested in sadness. Her story had been her emblematic example of her father’s “blatant disregard for her feelings”. She was arrested by the weight of their shared tragedy, by their mutual confinement. Her father had recognized his lack of emotional skills. His strategy was to withdraw in attempt to minimize harm.
Jean shared her father’s disclosure with her mother and sister. She knew of iconic stories that each had nurtured; stories of Edward’s narcissism, of his attempt to exemplify the stoic patriarch, and stories of their personal inadequacy formed in the void of his attentiveness, in the shadow of his intelligence.
We embody our long held stories: physically, emotionally, mentally, and within the structure of our lives. Deep story revision comes slowly as we embody our new story.
Over the following months, Jean felt withdraw symptoms from habitual emotions, from her previously unquestioned beliefs. Her empathy for her father’s tragic loss and confinement in his secret, and her desire to be free of her childhood story, gave her the motivation to forgive them both.
Jean wrote her father a love letter. She disclosed her regretted old story and her sadness, she told him she: “was letting go of her part in their confinement”. Her father responded with a love letter of his own. He expressed gratitude for being seen, appreciation for Jean’s courage to reach out, and acknowledgment of their mutual pain. He welcomed their future relationship.
Edward’s disclosure reminds us of our continuous ignorance of the unseen. With humility, with grieving and forgiveness, we can bring our matured eyes and hearts to revise our relationships, revise our formative stories. Who are we now, when we re-vision our past?
Thank you to Jean.
Edward, now in his 70’s, confessed his failing memory, then he disclosed his identity transforming secret to his daughter Jean. His disclosure was born from careful calculus. He’d carefully weighed the benefits and risks; the benefits of helping his family to help him through decline, the risks of self disclosure that had silenced him for over 60 years. Jean, her mother, and her sister, have been reprocessing their identity ever since.
Jean’s foundational family story, one she’d co-nurtured with her mother and sister for 40 plus years, was floating in vertigo. Jean was stunned by the presence of her habitual condemnation, for herself, and for her father. She had been blind to her pain from self hatred and blame, now visible in contrast with its growing absence.
We create our stories within a story ecosystem, within the web of living stories grown, inherited, and tended, by family, community, and culture.
We create our stories, from what we’re able to see, when we create them. All of our stories are unfinished and incomplete, constructed with our limited understanding, in a world of unseen influences. We mature from our past through story revision, through updating and reintegrating past stories with our new eyes. Sometimes our revision is mercifully fomented by what others reveal.
Edward was a laconic father, a laconic husband; a common complaint about fathers and husbands of his era. However, Edward’s reticence to speak had been particularly disjointed, confusing.
Edward was a retired Immunologist. At work, he was known to kibitz with colleagues and medical students, kibitz within his area of expertise, and quiz medical students about his pet topic, his state’s history. He was known to be verbal, even cleverly comical, with an almost rehearsed clarity. Edward’s economy of words at home painted a painful contrast for Jean, for his family.
Jean’s childhood mind created unfortunate beliefs, explanations for her father’s resistance to communicate, his reticence to interact. Jean doubted her worthiness, questioned her father’s concern, his love, his regard for the family. She believed she lacked intelligence, was uninteresting, a burden to her father. Her beliefs were supported by carefully accumulated and assembled accounts of her childhood.
Jean told me about when her teen aged boyfriend took his own life, that her father never spoke of it, “never addressed it in any manner”. He seemed unwilling, unable, to acknowledge Jeans emotional stress, her need for connection. Jean described the many times she’d expressed her views, needed his acknowledgment, his feedback or help, and how hurt she was in the void of his support.
Jean’s stories fit together like a puzzle, or perhaps a stone wall built from selected shapes. Her story conflicted with parts of her father’s nature, conflicted with kindness and forethought in many of his actions. Her story conflicted with his, though infrequent, clear verbal thoughtfulness, free of sarcasm and ill will. His views, when expressed, were reliable and cogent, broadly inclusive of a range of considerations.
Our unrevised formative stories freeze us in time; they unwittingly confine us in our relationships.Our parent’s unrevised formative story genes find expression in us.
Edward’s disclosure to Jean was a rare gift, a request for help, and an opportunity to dissemble her painful puzzle to create a new, more complete, picture.
Edward said to Jean: “When I was about 10 years old, I was thrown off of a tractor; I hit my head, and suffered a concussion. As I recovered, I noticed changes that I later learned were a form of aphasia. I experienced difficulty in spontaneous speech, in forming impromptu sentences. I noticed changes in my personality, in my perception. The fall brought shyness and introversion.”
Then he told Jean: “I still remember my outgoing, garrulous, and popular personality from before the accident.” He told her that he was relieved when he recognized that, after the accident, he was still capable learning, that he’d retained his written comprehension, his verbal comprehension, and his strong memory.
Edward told Jean he’d hid his condition. Jean imagined her father’s likely fear of potential stigma from his mental changes, the life limiting labels, the potential shame from disappointing his father. Edward grew up in a small conservative town, complete with the social roles, and values, common to the 1940’s and 1950’s. Edward’s father was a difficult man to disappoint, especially for his children. Edward’s father was the town’s stern high-school science teacher, a loquacious, opinionated, strong willed pillar of social activity, harsh in his judgments.
Edward said he’d learned to work around his limitation. He memorized speeches, social responses, memorized verbal responses to technical questions, he learned to carefully construct, and mentally rehearse, verbal responses before speaking. It worked for him, he succeeded in school, made it through graduate school, he learned to operate in controlled social contexts. However, he was less capable in uncontrolled social contexts, at home, where spontaneous and quick verbal connection was required. Though Edward had never disclosed his aphasia to his wife, he had deliberately relinquished parenting to her. He told Jean that he was grateful for her mother’s social and parenting capabilities. He had never directly expressed this gratitude to Jean’s mother.
Jean had an insight. She asked him: “Was your communication difficulty, your social discomfort, particularly difficult around emotions? Do you have trouble in recognizing other people’s emotions?” Her father hesitated, a hesitation seen near the core of long held shame and regret. In an apologetic tone he said: “Yes. I saw my limited emotional perception confuse, and hurt, you and your sister.”
Jean’s iconic childhood experience jumped to her mind, an experience packed with confusion and pain, an experience she’d carried since she was six:
Jean was reading a book when her father showed up and said: “Come with me to the barn”. Her father wanted her company while he was fixing a tractor. Jean expressed her desire to keep reading her book. Then, her father repeated his request, spoken in his even emotionless tone, and sounded to Jean like a demand. Jean felt sad. She wanted to be acknowledged in her desire, for her loss of autonomy. As they walked to the barn she began to quietly cry. She believed that her father, once again, “Didn’t care what she wanted, what she felt”. When Jean’s father noticed her sniffling, he looked at her and said in his usual even tone: “Oh, you’re having feelings”. With her six year old mind, this is what she heard: “Oh, you’re having feelings, a childish habit that you need to learn to control”. Jean’s emotional awareness was intact; it was unthinkable that her adult father’s emotional vision was blurred.
Jean’s heart was arrested in sadness. Her story had been her emblematic example of her father’s “blatant disregard for her feelings”. She was arrested by the weight of their shared tragedy, by their mutual confinement. Her father had recognized his lack of emotional skills. His strategy was to withdraw in attempt to minimize harm.
Jean shared her father’s disclosure with her mother and sister. She knew of iconic stories that each had nurtured; stories of Edward’s narcissism, of his attempt to exemplify the stoic patriarch, and stories of their personal inadequacy formed in the void of his attentiveness, in the shadow of his intelligence.
We embody our long held stories: physically, emotionally, mentally, and within the structure of our lives. Deep story revision comes slowly as we embody our new story.
Over the following months, Jean felt withdraw symptoms from habitual emotions, from her previously unquestioned beliefs. Her empathy for her father’s tragic loss, for his confinement in his secret, and her desire to be free of her childhood story, gave her the motivation to forgive them both.
Jean wrote her father a love letter. She disclosed her regretted old story, disclosed her sadness, she was letting go of her part in their confinement. Her father responded with a love letter of his own. He expressed gratitude for being seen, appreciation for Jean’s courage to reach out, and acknowledgment of their mutual pain. He welcomed their future relationship.
Edward’s disclosure reminds us of our continuous ignorance of the unseen. With humility, with grieving and forgiveness, we can bring our matured eyes and hearts to revise our relationships, revise our formative stories. Who are we now, when we re-vision our past?
Thank you to Jean.
(Names changed for privacy)