giving up on my one promise

Multiple generations, grandparents, siblings, cousins, spending long weeks doing everything together.

Is that your idea of heaven or hell?

To some this is the makings of a nightmare. But, for my parents it was the best.

Every summer I’ve been bringing my 3 kids for a 2 week long vacation to stay with my parents.

When they were small, we went to California where my parents lived at the time.

Fun Times

I have a vivid memory of my daughter wearing leopard print stretch pants and cowboy boots to Disneyland with her cousin when she was two years old. 

Those boots were her favorite and mine. They were the smallest and cutest cowboy boots you’ve ever seen. I still have them on the shelf of my house today.

When my kids got older, my parents moved back to Hawaii.

That’s where they were originally from and always wanted to retire.

My kids loved this new place for all different reasons. All 3 of them were on swim team, so every time we visited Hawaii they couldn’t wait to get out on the waves with their boogie boards. 

The Promise

Every night we would have BBQs with my siblings, their kids, and my parents. My kids' favorite was spam and rice. If you go to Hawaii or live in Hawaii, you have to eat spam. There’s practically no way around it. It’s served in every restaurant and fast food joint, just like eating a hamburger anywhere else.

The after dinner talk my dad had with me every time I visited was the same.

You’re in charge of keeping the family together, my dad would tell me.

Yep, I know dad, would always be my reply.

By the family, he meant my sister and her family and my brother and his family.

He wanted us siblings to stay close.

He wanted our children, the cousins, to rely on each other.

He had a beautiful picture in his mind.

And, I, as the oldest child and the oldest daughter, was in charge of making this dream of his come true.

Why The Promise Was So Important

Family was very important for my father.

He had 4 older siblings, but they were so much older that they never did anything with my dad.

He spent most of his younger years being raised by his grandma, while the rest of the family worked in their restaurant downstairs.

My father’s parents only ever took off one day a year.

That was New Year’s Day.

That’s the only day we did something as a family, he would say.

My father said to me every year for over a decade. 

You’re in charge of keeping the family together, ok?

Ok dad.

And, the sicker my parents became, the more I visited, and the more my dad would remind me.

The Obstacle

What my dad and I didn’t actually think about all these years is that You can’t make other people do what you want them to do. 

And, my brother and parents were setting up a dynamic to make it impossible for me to keep my promise.

My parents bought a house for my brother and his family with the expectation that my brother would assume the loan and pay the mortgage.

My brother moved in, but didn’t pay.

So, my parents would meet with him every month and ask him to pay. 

Eventually, they asked him to pay or move out and they would pay his rent in another place.

16 years later, he hadn’t paid or moved.

The End of The Promise

Eventually, my parents made me their trustee.

And, as I mentioned in post 6, You Don’t Have to Take Care of Your Parents,

I sold that house with my brother still living in it.

And, That was the end of the dream of keeping the family together.

Nobody has seen or spoken to my brother in the two years since,

even though I have texted him to come see our parents while they are still alive.

After selling the house, even my father gave up his idea.

It was a good dream while it lasted.

Many of us make promises, like

Yes, you can stay in your house your whole life. 

No you don’t have to go to assisted living. 

But, we can’t always keep those promises.

And, that’s ok.

Circumstances change, people change. 

We can’t be held to ideas that we made when we were in a different situation.

And, that’s ok if we’re sad about it too.

Take care, bye

xoxo Lani