Family Feud

Next Saturday I will be going back to the hometown, Detroit, to visit my family and friends that I rarely see.  My children don't even know my side of the family, the stbx hates my brothers and sisters, got into a huge feud at my fathers funeral in 1988, and has driven a wedge deep into my relationships.  I chose at that time to support her, my wife, rather than my brother, even though I felt in my heart that he was right and she was wrong.  This was so long ago, yet it hurts to this day.  So during this trip, I purpose family healing.  Wish me luck. My family has a long history of feuds, bitter cantankerous petty stupid silly, yet they drag on and many have been carried to the grave.  My mother fought bitterly with her mother, my grandmother, as well as her brother and sisters.  At times mom and aunt Jo were best friends, at other times they were calling each other whores.  I never understood this - aren't we born of the same blood, aren't we supposed to love our fellow man, aren't we supposed to love our blood relatives?  When I was young I could not understand. To be honest, I still don't.  When I left Detroit in 1977 for California, much of the impetus was my unease with my family - I could not handle the petty feuds between my own brothers and sisters, the ones that I love to this day, each and every one. But don't think I am above this. To my shame I've been involved in a family feud, and had the chance to mend fences so to speak years ago, and didn't.  When my Aunt Jeanette died in 1973, the family gathered at my uncle Izzies house. I was in my early 20s and living (in sin) with my girlfriend at the time.  When she and I showed up at Izzies house, he wouldn't let me in. He did not want his young daughter Miriam to be exposed to this lifestyle - he didn't approve, and wanted to raise his daughter in a moral fashion.  I was hurt, and left, and wrote him and his family off, never saw him, aunt lilian, or Miriam again.  Years later I was visiting Detroit, and Aunt Jo told me that Izzie was in the hospital, end stage, and that she had told him I was in town.  She told me that he asked to see me, he wanted me to visit.  I didn't even think about it, I just said no, I won't.  To my shame, probably the worst thing I have ever done, I turned my back on my uncle, when I am sure all he wanted was to express love, to heal the rift, to go to eternity without that one pain. And I denied him, for why?  Pride, for a long ago felt slam, that was in fact the proper thing for him to do???  So yesterday I started  calling my relatives in Detroit. No one knows Miriam. She lives an orthodox Jewish life, and my family has not seen or talked to her.  I was down to my last contact, Aunt Jo's daughter. She knows Miriam!  She gave me her number, I called, and left a message.  Then, last night, I spoke with this incredible woman, my cousin Miriam, for the first time.  whe's a mother of 6 - her oldest daughter just got married last week.  Miriam remarked that all the guests were from her husband's side of the family, she does not even know me or my sibs.  So we talked for quite a while, and are going to meet.  I will explain why we have not known each other, and ask her forgiveness, in the name of her pather and mother.   So I've planned a party for next Sunday.  It was funny, (well sad really) that I'm staying at my sister's, and she was running down the list of who can be together and who can't, like Debi can be with Missy but not Stefanie, Bev can be with Stefanie but not Missy, blah blah.  So I said enough. I'm throwing a party, a picnic, at the beach.  I am inviting everyone I know in Detroit to attend.  If they want to stay away because they hate other people that I love, so be it, that's their problem. But F that.  I think what is going to happen, I am going to get absolutely everyone I love there, and I'm going to preach.  I am not a preacher by trade training or anything, but the message of love that Jesus taught has got to be spread, and I'm going to pray on this, and I'm going to once again attempt to heal along with my family. Wish me luck, and if it is in your heart, pray for me, pray that I can reach my family's hearts.