Healing

                This week, I went to see my uncle, my late father’s brother. Dad died last year, and a great big- and stupid- family rift opened. My wife and I, and my uncle and his family, sat around his kitchen table. All of us bemused and reeling from the events of last year, all of us trying to comfort each other.

          My uncle reminded me of my dad. They shared a lot of the same mannerisms. My uncle told me a lot of family history, things Dad never told me. A lot of his past- and mine- suddenly made sense. We came away feeling better, but again, astonished at what actually happened last year. It seemed to happen instantly, like the first scene of King Lear: a few words in a short time, and suddenly a whole family was torn apart.

          I felt slightly jealous, too, at seeing how normal families interact. It was the same when I first met my wife’s family. The warmth was so different to the tension at my house.

          I wonder if that made me a writer. As a way of channelling the tension.