Thoughts or Seven Generations

I just added a double curtain to my porch door between the storm window and the old wooden door for added insulation. I do this every year when it's so cold at my desk that my right hip joint aches. At the moment my dog is farting under my desk in the most polite way. It's time for his walk.

My dog and I delivered KN95 masks to my neighbor who refuses the vaccine even with multiple underlying health conditions (asthma, blindness, and deafness). I vacillate between being helpful and being furious. "I don't want to lose you to a preventable disease!"

My brother's head was a pink grapefruit when he was born. He was two months early which was terrifying in 1965. He lived in an incubator for weeks and we were told he could die. That was his beginning. Then he became the prince and the pawn in my parents marriage. They were both newly divorced from their first marriages. Were these rebound marriages?

After decades of abusive narcissism towards their children and each other, our parents have finally died. Will my siblings recover or will they become their parents? 

You have to pick up a shovel and work on your shit otherwise nothing changes and things slowly get worse. I have seen this with most people I know. You become your worst nightmare, the parents you despised. Or you duplicate them to redeem them rather than face the abandonment and grief over your childhood.

What I am curious about is the next generation. From what I can tell all of the niblings have run as far away as they could from their parents; the abused adult children of the miserable King and Queen. Running away is a good first step but distance doesn't guarantee growth or courage.

Time will tell. I suspect it might take three more generations to heal the damages inflicted on this family, maybe seven. Who will develop the courage to look under the boulders and behind the forbidden doors because that's what it will take to make real progress. I have my doubts about the siblings and hopes for the niblings some of whom are parents now. With any luck it won't take seven generations.