Emotional pain

I suddenly understand my ancestors better. In the past most families did not tell their children everything that happened. In some cases entire children and branches of the family did not find out each other’s existence, ever. We find them in doing genealogy, but otherwise the relationships they could have had never happened, because someone decided not to tell anyone.

I grew up believing that learning more is almost always a good thing. My father studied things and did them. My mother studied even more, plus I saw her learning constantly; she was home during the day. There were rare occasions when my mom would say, “We’re going to visit so-and-so; she’s divorced, but we’re not going to talk about that because it may hurt her feelings.” I went with my mom who made polite conversation and I sat, sort of listening, mostly looking around at their stuff. My mother did not gossip; what I gathered was that people’s feelings are important. We want to show love.

In school I saw other motivations for talking about people. Sometimes people give information so you can help them help someone. Sometimes people give information meaning to hurt someone. That hurts! I feel emotional pain intensely, like physical pain but worse. It’s cathartic to process it, let it out and let it go away. Emotional injuries heal, somewhat, but not as well as physical injuries.

Does there ever come a good time to say, “By the way, when you were very small, my brother left the family entirely”, or “Your grandma gave this child for adoption; she already had six children and couldn’t care for another”. The emotional pain of it… why relive if you don’t have to? There’s no way to explain all the choices people make, and there is pain either way.