Family and Friends

Yesterday, my almost-ex-wife invited me for lunch at her place in Sanur, and the table topic happened to fall upon absent family members—and by “absent”, I don’t mean those who have passed to the sweet hereafter, but those who have made themselves absent for whatever reason of their own.

We talked about our son (her son, my stepson) who has apparently decided to speak to us as seldom as possible. Whether this actually has anything to do with us in particular, or whether he’s just busy with school and videogames and TV, we don’t know. But two things had happened in close concert. One was that Sant Louis, his mother, had asked if we could call and visit with him (and been basically shunned) and the other was that he had failed to call or even send an online message on my birthday.

One remembers raising the boy. One remembers entertaining him and teaching him the things he would need to know, and paying for his food and home, and cooking the food, and taxiing him here and there and seeing to his school and paying for his private school in Bali and caring for him when he was sick and teaching him to ride a bike, and so on and so forth ad infinitum—but one cannot think for the life of him what he has done to be shunned.

Nor did I receive any birthday greetings from the four children from my previous marriages. How odd it seems. And how hurtful. It is a lonely, crestfallen feeling.

It was at this point that Sant Louis mused that I was the only real family she has. I who am no longer even married to her. And this made me think of a brief episode from the Book of Matthew. Jesus is speaking to the multitudes, when one of his disciples informs him that his mother and brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to him. “Who is my mother?” Jesus asks in reply. “Who are my brothers and sisters?” He then stretches out his hand to those who are with him. “These are my mother, and my brothers, and my sisters”.

Who was it that did greet me on my birthday? Not my children, no, but my friends—here in Indonesia, and back home in America—the very same friends, in fact, who do not need a birthday or any other reason to show their kindness, but show the same as a matter of course and on a regular basis, because I am important to them, and they are important to me. Is blood really thicker than water, or is this quenching water of friendship richer, after all, than blood?  Is not the true measure of relation to be found in caring?

Of course it is painful to be forgotten by our children. One feels inclined to protect his or herself—to be angry, for instance, or to withdraw his own love, or to complain and remonstrate. But it is better for us simply to have a broken heart, for only the heart that is broken can honor the love that is freely given. Only a broken heart can remind us of the enduring, unconditional fullness of our affection.