Loyalty to the Family Tradition
This is a family tradition that doesn’t even deserve to be named as such. ‘Family tradition’ generally has a positive connotation to it – the one in question? Not so much.
It actually became a friend in the family, or shall I rather say a loyal enemy? Even the kids inherited it without being forced into it, simply because no one in the family dares to challenge it as soon as it appears; no one exposes it early enough.
It's a slow killer, really, because one suffers alone with it until they explode or some consequence comes to light. It's a very loyal enemy I tell you; so loyal that it stays for years, even fifteen years! That's how loyal it was to my mother. She finally challenged this killer, many years later, exposing everything it had hidden, everything she had hidden. She couldn't take it anymore.
With my grandmother, she told me her story in bits and pieces. My mother eventually knit the pieces together for me after Grandma passed on.
With the younger uncle – well, who can hide the existence of children forever? The mother of one of the children involved in this ‘tradition’ had called to inform about her family visiting to claim for damages.
Mr Loyal Enemy also showed signs through my older uncle, by drowning him in a daily dose of alcohol.
My aunt broke this tradition for the first time, at random, during the Covid-19 lockdown. It involved a court case she faced on her own, against multiple men, and she lost.
As for me – well, I’m still contemplating whether or not to break it as well, but it seems like family tradition to not expose this perpetrator. Everybody pretends as though all is well, as though nothing drastic or traumatic happened to them – the I-don't-need-anyone's-help attitude at play. ‘How will they help me anyway? I don’t want to bother anyone. They have problems of their own. What would they think of me?’ All the thoughts of this killer justifying itself in every victim's mind.
As a result, nobody ever knows how the other is doing or what they are going through. In fact, many other traditions stem from it – it’s the mother that births all other traditions. From it stem lack of compassion, lack of openness, no confidant, and a feeling of abandonment.
It has a name. Its name is Silence.