the women

I have five aunts - five intense, messy, feuding, passionate aunts - who helped raise me. Two came to visit this weekend. Let me first say, there is something soothing, rewarding, and equalizing about hosting them in my house, the one Jason and I own and have tried to fix up and make into a home. As an adult, I have still been so used to going to them, being in their houses, and something about that dynamic makes me still feel like a kid. But, as we sat in my living room and talked shit about mammograms and mammogram techs and big boobs and small boobs, a sincere equity pervaded the conversation. Sure, they feel protective and want to do some care-taking, but this visit was important for pointing out to them that they don't necessarily need to, not yet at least. Conversations on the couch and lunch all together is the best care-taking right now.

Then, of course, we started talking about my dad. My father is a sad case. He is anxiety-ridden to the point of near total social withdrawal, a recovered alcoholic with a solid history of abuse (some he received, and some he perpetrated), a tenuous grasp on reality, a girlfriend who thinks she was both Marilyn Monroe and Mary Magdalene (or was it that she changed her mind and was only one of them? I forget), a connection to a doctor who has not evaluated him, but who nonetheless gives him prescriptions for mood stabilizers and anti-anxiety medication. My father, who spent a number of our rare visits during my childhood reminding me that I intimidated him. Who sneaks over unannounced to leave trellises and broken rocking chairs in the garage while I am home rather than coming to the door. Who can barely look my husband in the eye. And I have to tell him that I have cancer.

His sister made the astute observation that he will likely have one of two reactions, and that either is a little painful for me: 1) He fails to react at all because he is improperly equipped do deal with his emotions in general, and is especially lacking with regard to me. 2) He reacts too much, tries too desperately to insert himself into the role of dad he has never fulfilled and that is possibly more than I can bear. I have not arrived at my adulthood feeling a fatherly void that he can yet fill. He has not arrived at middle-age with any idea for how to be a part of my life without forcing the dad card, and it is one neither of us know how to play.

I am not angry with him. I just cannot for the life of me figure out what a relationship with a "dad" looks like at 28 and 53, and I am exhausted from having spent a good deal of time and energy being the one to prop him up in his sporadic efforts to play father. He is sick and I am well aware, but I still cannot muster a sense of personal responsibility to him that makes me want to throw myself into the ring and help him fight. It makes me not want to tell him, because I will have to coach him through it. And maybe that makes me selfish or weak. I guess we all have our hurtful shortcomings.

As my aunts and I continued talking, and I explained the genetic test to them, it occurred to me that I have grown up in an overwhelmingly female family (interesting given that my mom's family is made up of mostly men), which may explain why the family I picked (read: my closest friends) is also predominantly female. 

A quick history of the lack of men in my up-bringing: My father was largely absent, and I have only two uncles by marriage - one I grew up with, the other I cannot stand who luckily has not been a huge part of my life. I knew, but did not feel particularly close to my paternal grandfather who died when I was fourteen. I am close to one of my five maternal uncles, another died when I was very young, the others are either reclusive or imprisoned. My mother's father died when she was just a few months old. When all is said and done, I have been raised with three men, and by at least ten women. We are a fierce crew.

And it was here that I found some solace, which I think I will probably explain poorly. I have spent at least a little of my time since The Diagnosis feeling vulnerable because of my anatomy (yes, I know about 1% of breast cancer diagnoses are men and I don't mean to diminish that experience; I'm sure it's chock-full of difficulties because 1. it's cancer, and 2. it's a typically female cancer and that seems like a weird trespass on masculinity) and at present, I am feeling like this funny family with its deluge of every variety of womanhood is exactly why I managed to find some mental stability, to emerge free of serious addiction problems, when all the odds were stacked high against me. It is why I am a feminist and a fighter and lover and why I try to be generous and patient and why I worry too much and don't deal well with real fears and am prone to bouts of lazy depression and why I know (even if it's hard) that they'll last about as long as I let them. It is why I am strong enough for this.

It is also one source of my crazy appreciation of my husband. Not many men could (or have!) so deservingly win the hearts of such a tough crowd, but when I can sit with my aunts in our living room, laughing his supportive praises and see the gratitude in their eyes, it reaffirms that we've got a good thing.