Family Can Break Your Heart

Wanda stood at the front of her cousin’s house dialing her cell phone. “Hi! I’m in the neighborhood, can I come in?”

“What? What are you doing in my neighborhood? No, no, no. I can’t see anyone today.”

Wanda looked at her phone and then at the house to be sure she had called the right person and was at the correct address. “Okay, well I’ll see you next time then.”

Click. Marsha had hung up.

I wonder what that was about. I don’t see anything going on here and there are no noises or anything. Oh, well, next time I’ll call ahead.

Wanda went home, stopping at the grocery store on the way. The next day she got a call from Marsha who said, “I haven’t heard from you for a while. I need to tell you about our trip to Ireland in October.”

Wanda answered, “I was just at your house yesterday and you said not to come in, and sort of said I should go away. What’s going on? And the trip to Ireland was scheduled for November, not October.”

Marsha paused and said, “Yeah, well that’s all changed. Be ready to go in October. Sean wants us to be there in October because his lodge is booked for November.”

Thanks for letting me know, cuz.

She asked, “So, are you really thinking of marrying this guy? You are so off and on about it.”

“What? NO! I would NEVER marry that dufus.”

“Why? What’s happened, and why would we want to visit him then?”

“Well, my friend Laura wants to go with us, and it would be a great opportunity to have her meet the family over there.”

But Laura is not family, and this is supposed to be a trip for me to meet my relatives and see some ancestral homes. What’s wrong with Marsha?

As the time got closer to October, Marsha called fewer and fewer times and Wanda wondered what was going on. She had been told that Marsha, who worked in the entertainment business, did not want people to call her. She would call them. So, Wanda kept her phone calls infrequent.

The phone rang and it was Marsha calling to chat. She was in her car running an errand for her daughter who had just had a baby and only had a few minutes to talk. She wanted Wanda to know that she had indeed included Laura in their plans but would now be leaving on September 15th for Ireland due to Laura’s work schedule. She and Laura would be meeting up with another cousin of Wanda and Marsha, and she hoped that Wanda could meet them in London so they could all go to Ireland together.

Wanda was stunned. This trip had been planned by Marsha for the two of them, not the other two. Now what would she do? Did she want to travel alone and meet up with them or should she cancel?

It turned out that it didn’t matter because the three amigos all left California early on September 10th and Marsha sent her a text message when they were enroute to London. Wanda’s husband, Doug, happened to be on Marsha’s Facebook page when he saw a picture of the three of them at the Chicago airport.

Wanda cried. How could she do this to me after all the discussions and planning we’ve done. What is going on?

Wanda had contacted her cousin three years prior after a 30-year separation.

In one of their conversations, Marsha had said, out of the blue, “I’m so glad you contacted me after all these years. You are the only one who understands me, and we had such a good time playing together when we were kids. Thank you for being in my life now.”

Wanda was surprised at the warmth of her tone. Maybe I should have contacted her before. But I did ask her to my wedding ten years ago, and she didn’t come, with the flimsy excuse of having stubbed her toe and it was too painful to travel with.

Wanda decided not to make the trip and didn’t contact Marsha at all. How dare she do this to me? It feels like abandonment, and she knows I have an issue with that from my childhood. My mother abandoned me when I was six, and Marsha knows that. I can handle anything now that I’m an adult, but abandonment hurts a lot.

When Marsha was finally in Ireland, she made sure she did not see her fiancé because, for some reason, it was all over with him. Then unexpectedly, she suffered a massive stroke in her hotel room while the other two were out sightseeing, and she had to be flown back to California.

No one from Marsha’s family contacted Wanda. There was no information on Facebook about what happened and how or when Marsha was found or who arranged for her to return to California.

“Doug, I had to find out on Facebook that she was in bad shape.”

Her husband replied, “Maybe you put too much stock into an old family relationship that went sour. I hate to say it, but she might have been using you, just like when you were young. You know I did listen to all those stories about how she would set you up and then pull the rug out from under you. And how your mother gave her your things.”

“Yeah, you might be right, I’m sorry to say. Sometimes family just isn’t family anymore.”

Wanda was left off Marsha’s family Facebook page, but one of Marsha’s sons kept her on his family page. Wanda checked it from time to time looking for information about her cousin. She sent flowers to Marsha’s house, but they were never acknowledged. She decided not to call anyone and ask about them. They had made it clear to many other of Marsha’s contacts that they were very private people and wanted to be left alone to deal with their private family issues by themselves.

This was a big disappointment to Wanda. She had stories and pictures of Marsha in her youth that she wanted to share with them but felt disheartened and somewhat intimidated at the thought of contacting any of them directly.

Kenneth put out a message about his mother having had a stroke in Ireland and when she arrived home in California, they also found out she had a tumor behind her left ear. In addition to the devastating news, they saw that she had aphasia and couldn’t speak.

Wanda felt bad that her cousin had experienced all that. It must have been a confusing and upsetting trip back home. Her medical condition probably explains Marsha’s recent odd decision making. She must have known something was wrong before she made new arrangements to take her trip a month early.

Upon her return, the family placed Marsha in a care home and restricted who could see her or write to her. They reviewed all her messages and mail. Wanda did not send any messages or mail since she knew they would all be reviewed before Marsha would be allowed to see them. Wanda was not able to travel to see her and wasn’t sure she even wanted to due to the behavior of the family.

Marsha passed away about a year later.

Wanda read about it on Facebook and felt remorse about not seeing Marsha before her passing. But why would I travel to see someone who clearly dissed me in favor of her friend who couldn’t care less about family ties?

“I’m devastated, Doug. I wanted to go on that trip with her, and I can tell you that I would NEVER have left her in a hotel room by herself while I went sightseeing, like the other two did.”

“I know you wouldn’t have, Wanda. I’m sorry you weren’t there, but none of it was your doing. Marsha made a bad decision to go without you, and you went along with her decision. I know you could have gone and met them there anyway, and I would have supported that, but sometimes it's not in the cards to trust or follow someone.”

Doug walked over to her and gave her a squeeze. “It’s not your fault, Babe. It just wasn’t in the cards.”