30 Day Creative Post Challenge - Day 22 “Life is family, but family can surely mess up your life”

Introduction

I ran into this challenge started by @bkdbkd , it is a challenge where you are 'challenged' to post every day for a period of 30 days with a pre-defined subject in a rule-sheet. I first saw the challenge in a post from @s3rg3 . I thought it was nice idea, first for writing about different stuff everydat, but second to be part a chainreaction on steemit :)
The Original post you can find at 30 Day creative post challenge

So let’s start with day 22

How often do you see your parents? How far do you live from them? What do you miss most about living with your family…. ?

How often do you see your parents?

This question has a bit of emotional load for me, not emotional (anymore) that it moves me at this moment, but a lot has happened frankly from my 18th birthday really up to now.

To answer the question, I never see my parents . And there are several reasons for that. But the main reason is that I have chosen for my own family, living by our own norms and values in life. If I have to write down the whole story, I’ll probably will be writing for some time. But I really thought about it, to write my own story about this matter so it reliefs me from a lot and tell my own story… Life isn’t always easy, and everybody has his own history. But sometimes it is good to write about it it, so it gets of of your shoulders..

From my 18th year there was always an hate/love relationship with my parents. They weren’t crazy about my girlfriend at that time (which is still my lovely and dearest wife at this moment) so that wrenched. We had a lot of difficulties in our own family (me, my parents and my brothers). Which brought a lot of tension in the house. So through the years I developed a harness for the pain my parents caused to us.. which finally resulted in a break. I remember when we were planning to marry, we didn’t had any contact with my parents at that time. Of course that hurts me cause you want to have your parents with you on your most precious day. So Esther (my wife) and I decided to bury the hatchet and asked them if they would come to our wedding. It felt good, we were in touch again and to be honest…that’s the way how is supposed to be isn’t it…

Things were going well for a while, my parents did there best and so did we, but tension was noticeable. Finally when our oldest son was born things were going bad again. My mother had (almost all of our lives) a drinking problem which resulted in a lot of pain and grief with us because as a kid and even adult you want a normal healthy family life. So we decided (my wife and I) to stop seeing my parents because we wanted to save Senna from all this, didn’t want to get him disappointed when my parents aren’t going to be the grandma and granddad Senna deserves… For me as a father (and a son) it hurts like hell that your parents aren’t involved in the life of your kid, your most valuable and precious in life, your pride… But it felt (and was) the best decision for him and for us.. We wanted peace in the house.

So my kids only had 1 grandfather and 1 grandmother which I had difficulties with for some moments, but is was for the best. (and they are great).

My mother passed away 3 years ago, we knew that moment was coming sometime but I never thought about it what to do etc. At that time I worked together with my youngest brother, we drove home every day together. I dropped him off at his house and drove home. Several minutes later he called and said that they were resuscitating her and he was on his way to our parents. I drove to my parents house and felt really strange. Haven’t been there for many years, seeing my brothers in pain, my father crying deeply and finally seeing my mother passed away in bed….That was one of the most difficult moments in my life for me… and not even because my mother just died , but because I couldn’t relate to the pain my brothers and father felt, it was different for me… If I had already said goodbye when we broke up….

With the funeral it was the same, I did say goodbye to my mother but alone, together with Esther. I have discussed this with my brothers and they supported me completely , that helped me a lot.. Also I didn’t participated in the funeral procession, I was ‘just’ a visitor at my mother’s funeral… This was one of the hardest things to do, seeing your brothers sitting in front and yourself within the ‘audience’ but I had to, for my own feeling and emotion… This was something Esther and I go trough together…. It bonded us even more….

How far do you live from them?

We live in the same town, so it’s not far.

What do you miss most about living with your family…. ?

considering the circumstances, I have missed just being a family a lot. With Christmas for example being with my brothers and their kids and my parents…It wasn’t meant to be, but it has hurt a lot.

If you like to join the 30-days contest, please follow these rules

1. Use the hashtag #creativepostchallenge, so @bkdbkd can find your blog!
2. Share the link & the rules of this post and challenge in the end of your post so other users can find it too.
3. Have fun!

For my other posts in this serie:

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17 | Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Day 21

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Live isn’t always as easy