The Reunion

During all the excitement of buying a cottage and preparing the house for sale Mary received a surprise phone call. Actually, the call was secondary to the earlier development that came. The interesting thing about this was that everything occurred nonchalantly. There was no build up, no planning, and preparation.
One day a few weeks back Mary’s sister, Martha emailed her that she had found their cousins! At the time Mary found it quite amusing. She was in shock. What was happening wasn’t sinking in even though eventually she saw three of her cousins on Face book. The canny resemblance was un-deniable. However, despite this the reality of their existence did not penetrate Mary’s soul until the phone call.
It came as she was preparing for Robins’ dinner. It was as casual as Martha’s news that she had discovered their long lost family. In fact, the person on the other end of the phone was one of them; a cousin named Larry!.
The whole discussion was a blur to Mary. What were not so vague were the emotions the conversation stirred up. Larry was not only very kind but supportive but why? Mary felt a total stranger that shared “if you ever need anything, let us know” must be up to something. She was suspicious initially but the more they talked the more Mary relaxed and laughed. This guy was for real so much so that Mary let her guard down and shared her fears that her cousins might end up being like her father.
Mary shared that her father had been very abusive and frightening. As the conversation continued Mary found herself crying. She became overwhelmed with joy and sadness. Joy that what was lost was now found and sadness at the distance that separated them all. And there were many of them and mostly men! It was funny to feel so many mixed emotions at once.
Mary had to excuse herself and end the conversation as she had to go and pick up Robin but her cousin Larry promised there would be more calls and that though Mary’s father had abandoned them her new family would not.
The drive to Windsor was very tearful for Mary and after much crying she got to the church no worse for the wear but definitely exhausted. Robin who always had insight found this whole new discovery quite mind blowing because Mary had wanted to have a reunion of her family at the beginning of the year. The idea had sort of dissolved because of the lack of enthusiasm and obstacles to everyone getting together. Now here was a reunion that Mary had nothing to do with!
It hit Mary that this was all in God’s hands and his doing. Though God had used Martha, it came to Mary that perhaps this was not only a reunion but another restoration. God was restoring her to a family she never knew. It was yet another avenue God was restoring the years the locust had stolen.
Mary wondered in her heart of hearts if her own father might have ached for his children to know his family. They had never had that opportunity. When he left disgraced and had gone to prison Mary and her siblings were told to share with anyone who asked that their father was dead.
Mary could recall being a young girl and fabricating this imaginary story of her father entailing a heroic death. It became so real to Mary having told it so many times that when she did finally meet her father in her early 30’s she was as overwhelmed as if he had rose from the dead!
As Mary reflected back to that time more tears came to her eyes. Recently, as she was going through her journals to dispose of them, she had found all her father’s letters he had written to her. They dated back to those few years she had corresponded with him and visited him. Unfortunately, there visits grew less and less frequent when his alcoholic thinking became demented. He began believing all kinds of lies about Mary that grew out his addicted brain.
The culmination of these visits came when he began to make Mary sit behind him. She was forced to look at the back of his head while he looked at her through a mirror. It was the most painful and ugly feeling she ever felt. Mary felt so helpless for how could you defend yourself against such crazy thinking? When Mary’s father died she got a call in the night from the hospital. She felt nothing, nothing at all. The next few days during the funeral and mass held in his honour Mary shed not a tear although she could hear her siblings beside her silently weeping.
She never cried for her father.
His death had ended a torturous period for her; a failure on her part to reconcile, as she saw it. You see, Mary had made the attempt to go and see him after discovering where he lived in downtown Toronto. At that time Mary wasn’t use to too many failures, until later. Perhaps she had gone for all the wrong reasons wanting to do the “good Christian” thing. She was curious though. But curiosity killed the cat.
It had dealt a mortal blow to Mary’s soul. Mary had not allowed herself to feel – at least about her father. Though she had tried to remain indifferent at the end of the call from her cousin Mary’s soul had been awakened to the grief that had been left undealt with.
Vivid memories of her father’s alcoholic outbursts, his verbal diatribes, and physical abuses upon her mother all came to bear on Mary’s heart at that moment. Eventually, this unfinished business with her father led Mary to marry a man much like her father in many ways. Mary’s mother said so. Ironically, momma was very fond of Mary’s husband.
Now as Mary sat reflecting she realized she had to get control of herself and focus. Why, you might ask? The agent had phoned and said an offer for the house was coming tonight. Arrangements had been made to meet at 8pm; that was only an hour away. Mary had so many emotions going on at this point between what entailed excitement over the potential sale of the house, joy at hearing from family and fear at what could happen.
All these questions began to come at her: what if the cousins are like their father and want to hurt them? What if they want to steal from them? So many questions came with no answers that Mary had to stop herself. She needed to cast down these imaginations and remind herself of the promise that every good gift came from the father of the heavenly luminaries as it said in scripture. As well, if this was a promise of restoration by God then she must trust Him. Wasn’t trust what God had been asking of Mary lately? Yes, she knew this in her heart. She would take one step at a time. For now she would prepare for the agent coming with his offer. She made a silent prayer for wisdom as to how to proceed and left thoughts of her father and his family to a later time. This moment’s troubles were enough for now. She wouldn’t worry but trust because every good and perfect gift came down from her true Father in heaven. And so she would trust, and trust she did.