Family Ties

by Hans M Hirschi

  Whenever one of the boys was sad, crying, or had buried his little body in Sascha’s arms, that’s when it became almost unbearable for him. That’s when he vowed, for an instant, to never let the boy go again, to always keep him safe, right there in his arms.

  If Pascal or Shane instead opted to find their refuge in Dan’s arms, he felt a twinge of jealousy for his husband, even the slightest urge to tear the boy from Dan’s arms. He never did, of course. Instead, he directed his emotional energies toward the peaceful image of his husband hugging their son. He focused on the love between them rather than giving in to his own negative emotions, however fleeting they might have been.

  Sascha’s life was one emotion after the other, one feeling after the other. He sometimes felt like a bee, flying from flower to flower, gathering nectar. Only his flowers were humans, and he collected feelings, emotions.

  It made him the perfect counselor, a great psychologist, and his patients loved him for it. They respected the subtlety with which he approached their issues, never prying, just hinting at issues he felt they hadn’t been able to verbalize quite yet. At work, Sascha’s empathic abilities were perfect.

  In his personal life, they had often been a hindrance. When he moved too quickly, when he was in tune with people’s emotions before they had a chance to get to the point where he was, when he shared his love for them too soon, too quickly, he often scared others away. Taking things slowly had never been Sascha’s strong suit. No sir, he always knew how he felt. He rarely doubted his feelings. All that confused him was which emotion to go with first.

  Sascha was his emotions. They made him who he was, and his life was a journey of learning to handle them, as well as handling his reactions to other people’s emotions.

  * * * * *

  The Twins

  They had fought, at least for a while, Sascha, Aunt Clara and Mike, about the religious aspects of the service. Sascha had felt uncomfortable with prayers, knowing that Mike didn’t care. He only prayed to bank accounts, and Aunt Clara was only worried about what the rest of the village would think if they had a civil funeral rather than a church one. Unacceptable!

  “What would people think?” Aunt Clara asked.

  Sascha shook his head. Why were people so concerned what others thought? It seemed the only thing people really enjoyed doing these days was frowning upon the choices and decisions others made. His mind drifted back to the many comments, glares, and head-turns they had caused when they had come back from India with the twins.

  Five years already? It seemed as if we had them just yesterday, Sascha thought.

  The twins, best decision he had ever made. It had taken him years to convince Dan to become a father. As a teacher, Dan felt, for the longest time, that he had enough brats to deal with during his working days, and he really didn’t need kids of his own. Eventually, he had understood Sascha’s need, realizing just how large Sascha’s heart was, the love it held, the urge he felt to procreate, to start a real family. Once Dan had agreed to the procedure, and they started to look for suitable egg donors for their surrogate in India, he was completely engaged in the process, understanding that he, too, needed this.

  They had discussed it with friends and mentioned it in passing to Sascha’s parents. His mother had been upset about the prospect of raising another child, the onset of her dementia keeping her from seeing things clearly. Mike had definitely not been the right person to ask for his opinion.

  “Your kids? Do you know what that’ll do to them? You’re damning them to bullying from their first day in pre-school. But that is so you, Sascha. You’ve always been so needy, always having to be center stage. Don’t you think it’s time to take some fucking responsibility? A kid needs a mom and a dad, period.”

  That was the last time they spoke, until the twins had been born, and Sascha felt the need to make sure they would eventually meet their uncle, aunt, and cousins.

  They did reconcile eventually. Even Mike had to acknowledge that his brother and Dan made excellent parents, but Sascha never quite forgot the hateful words spoken to him some ten months earlier.

  ***

  A change in tone in the minister’s rumbling roused Sascha from his daydreaming. With a song book in hand, they sang a couple of his mom’s favorite psalms. Not again. Sascha fought memories and tears. He helped Pascal open the psalm book, and although the boy didn’t read German, or musical notes, he insisted on holding his own psalm book, just as his brother did, assisted by Dan.

  My boys, Sascha thought and fought down more tears. Can we be done with this soon?

  * * * * *

  Anna Meyer

  Anna was an only child, born to a farming family near the outskirts of Zurich. She had an upbringing much like most of her generation, but being on a farm, at least, there was always food on the table. Anna’s father was a hot head, bipolar, and things were often tense at the house. He wasn’t very religious, leaving it to his wife to take Anna to church on Sundays and raise her to be a good Catholic. He believed in God, but he had his disputes with the Church and the priesthood. His faith was his, but he feared the severe and unforgiving Catholic God enough to make sure his daughter would be brought up to specifications.

  Anna didn’t want to work the farm, and after she had married Joseph, her parents eventually sold the farm and moved into the city, where they lived in a small apartment until their deaths.

  Instead, Anna became a decorator, working for a large department store in Zurich, decorating their displays and windows for various campaigns and holidays. Anna loved her job. She had friends and enjoyed being away from the countryside and the watchful eyes of her parents.

  She met Joseph at a party at a friend’s house on a Friday evening in the mid-sixties, and they hit it off immediately. Joseph had come to Zurich from his hometown, where his father had a tiny construction company, with two employees. Joseph had gone to business school in Zurich to learn and eventually take over his father’s company.

  Anna fell for Joseph’s strength, his convictions, and his unwavering belief he could conquer the world, never once a doubt in his mind that he’d be successful, that he’d get anything he set his mind to. Joseph, on the other hand, fell for Anna’s beauty and her kindness. He had never met a girl like Anna before, always putting other people’s needs before her own, always sacrificing the last sandwich for someone else, always making sure someone else was helped before her. Needless to say, Joseph knew that she would be the perfect complement to him, to his needs, his plans.

  They had become inseparable after that night.

  The only thing that stood in their way to a blissful marriage was her Catholic religion. The still ongoing confessional struggles in Northern Ireland and the hundreds of years of religious fights between the two Churches only amplified their struggles.

  While Anna’s parents welcomed Joseph into their family, happy that their daughter wouldn’t become a burden to them, Joseph’s family, already of some wealth and influence, saw things differently, and Anna was rejected. No way would their son marry one of “those.”

  Such was the general consensus across both Churches as well as the other faiths that existed in Switzerland at the time, like the Jewish or Jehovah’s Witnesses. You just didn’t marry outside the Church, period.

  But Joseph had his own will, and because there were no legal grounds, he insisted on marrying Anna, and they finally found a minister in a Protestant Church willing to perform the service. Oddly, they could’ve just stopped after the legal ceremony required by Swiss law, but Joseph was stubborn, not much unlike Anna’s father.

  She had told this story to Sascha many times, how Joseph had demanded of her that she raise the boys “Protestant,” although she had no idea what that meant, and Joseph had been too busy working in the company to devote any time to instill religious thoughts or dogmas in his sons. Quite frankly, he didn’t care. He had never been a man of faith other than the money he made, and the only reason he didn’t leave the Church was becau
se he feared that he’d lose more money in his business than the church taxes cost him. Therefore, he made sure that they attended a service once or twice a year, much to Sascha’s chagrin, and he forced both Sascha and Mike through confirmation.

  Sascha vividly remembered the fights with his parents. He remembered the hatred he had felt because they made him attend so many services. The truth was, he had already lost all faith in any religion that relied on force. He had lost faith in any religion that was mandatory. Besides, by that time, it had already been fairly clear to Sascha that he was different, that he didn’t quite fit the norm. What he was told in church and Sunday school only reinforced his sense of awkwardness. He was the outsider, the black sheep.

  No, Sascha was a scientist, a rational being, at least when it came to matters of religion. The only faith he had was in love, and that was all he ever needed.

  Sascha momentarily snapped out of his reveries, as the minister spoke of his mother. Yet here I am again… At least I had plenty of stories to provide him with. Sascha had a hunch that this would be the last time he ever set foot in a church, now that he was laying his mother to rest, his last surviving parent. Well, knowing Aunt Clara, there might be one more time.

  It wasn’t that Sascha didn’t appreciate spirituality. Heck, I believe in aliens, and there’s no proof for them, either… He was aware of all the good things that had come to humanity from religion as well. He just didn’t like the organizational aspect of it, the inevitable corruption, the hatred, the judgment of others, the inherent belief of each faith that they were better than all the others, the wars, the killing, and all the other negative consequences of organized religious fervor.

  Once again, Sascha snapped back, as the minister told a story from his mother’s life.

  “We specifically remember Anna’s big heart, her giving nature, and we illustrate her giving with the story of the Lobsang family, whose house had burned down. Some of you may remember them, immigrants from Tibet, refugees, living in a small home set aside by the town for them. The electrical fire had taken that home in a matter of minutes, and they stood freezing outside, barely clothed.

  “When Anna learned of the fire, she immediately set off to fetch them, put them up in her house, and took them in as if they were family. And she then convinced her husband to rebuild the house. The Lobsangs stayed with the Meyers until their house was rebuilt, Anna organizing fundraising events to collect money for clothing, toys, and household items and furniture. All in all, the Lobsangs spent almost a year with the Meyers.

  “We thank Anna today, for her charitable work, her big heart. She always put the welfare of others before her own, until the day when her illness took that gift away from her.”

  Sascha had to wipe a tear from his eye, and squeezed his son’s hand ever so lightly at the thought of the Lobsang family. They had only lived in their village for a short time when their house had burned to the ground. Officially, it had been labeled as an electric fire, but there had been rumors. A Tibetan family in a small town was quite the oddity. They looked different, smelled different, acted different. Not everyone liked that. But there was no proof, ever.

  Sascha had found a friend in their son, Anil, at least for a while, when they lived in his house. He was only seven or eight at the time, and Anil was almost twelve, but the boys got along famously, playing together, spending all of their free time around the house.

  It would all change eventually, as the Lobsangs moved into their rebuilt house, and Anil fell to the pressure of his school peers. An immigrant, fighting the war of solitude on two fronts became too much, and so he sided with the other boys in school who bullied Sascha. In the hierarchy of school bullying, sissy boys and faggots were always cannon fodder first. It didn’t matter what culture or religion the bully had. He had always been certain that he was higher up on the food chain.

  Sascha had been saddened by Anil’s changed behavior, not understanding why his friend would suddenly ignore him, curse him, and kick him in school. At least, he didn’t understand it back then. It would take years of professional training for Sascha to see through the bullying, see beyond his boyhood emotions, and understand why Anil had acted the way he did.

  It didn’t save Anil, though. Before long, others started picking on him, and eventually on his family. They moved away less than a year after having moved back into their own house, leaving Sascha’s mother devastated for a long time, her pet project shattered into a million pieces. That had been quite a blow to her self-esteem.

  Not that it stopped her from continuing to help, selfless as always…

  The minister finished recounting some of the highlights of Anna’s life, once again calling Sascha back to the land of the awake and present.

  It would be his turn now, to say a few words to say goodbye to his mother, on behalf of the family.

  * * * * *

  Goodbye, Mom

  “Dear Mom,

  “This is so hard. It is so difficult to stand here, in this place, having to say goodbye to you. You and I are cut from the same cloth, we are alike in so many aspects, and I always felt close to you, felt that I was the one who understood you better than anyone.

  “This is the third time I’m losing you, and it kills me.

  “I first lost you to the horrible accident when I was in Australia. Part of you was gone forever when I came back, replaced by a side of your personality that no one really had wanted to meet. The onset of paranoia made your life a living hell, and it made ours very difficult.

  “I lost you again to the disease, slowly, and mercilessly. Piece by piece, you were taken from us, deconstructed until only your shell remained, a shell that had been weak and sickly for as long as I had known you.

  “Four days ago, a phone call woke us in the middle of the night, informing us that you had left us, yet again, this time permanently, a stroke finally dealing your body that blow from which it would never recover. I hope your end was swift and painless. You deserved as much after all the pain you’ve endured in your life!

  “I choose to ignore the losses past, I choose to allow you to continue to live on within me, within all of us who knew you as you once were. We all remember the strong woman you were, the loving mother, the dedicated wife, the committed citizen, always there for others. This is how I choose to remember you, Mom. As time passes, all of us will forget those other times, the times you never could remember yourself.

  “You live on in your grandchildren as well. I watch your five grandkids, see some gesture, a facial expression, a glance or movement, and see you in it, if only for a fleeting second.

  “You may have passed away four days ago, but in our hearts and minds, you will keep on living forever.

  “I love you.”

  ***

  The funeral service came to an end after the minister’s blessing, causing Sascha to wonder if he and his rainbow family really were included, or if the minister was just pretending. Oh what the hell, I’ve got better things to worry about.

  At the minister’s signal, Mike got up and picked up the urn and walked out to the hearse. Time to get this over with! Dan, Shane, Pascal, and Sascha fell in behind Mike, and followed him out the church. Aunt Clara and the minister took up the rear under the watchful gaze of the three onlookers.

  I wonder if the three widows will join us for the walk to the cemetery, Sascha wondered. He didn’t have to. They already had enough material to keep them gossiping until the next funeral. It was just them behind the hearse, a horse-drawn carriage, which looked like something out of a horror movie. Sascha had never been very comfortable with death.

  Well, not death per se, but the human rituals surrounding it—whether it was the obsession by the Abrahamic religions to dig holes to drop their dead into, or the Hindu tradition of burning people over an open fire or other funeral traditions that seemed even more far out for Sascha’s tastes. In his eyes, once dead, the empty shell could’ve been discarded the easiest and most convenient way and then tossed t
o the garbage.

  People lived forever as long as anyone cared to remember them. That was Sascha’s philosophy. He didn’t care much for cemeteries, but alas, society disagreed with him on that point, as on so many other issues.

  * * * * *

  The Twins

  Sascha thought about the battles that he and Dan had to fight over custody of their own children. It had been a long and arduous process. After long discussions, they had decided that Dan should be the one to donate his semen, being the taller and better-looking one. That had made total sense to Sascha. Neither of them really ever cared much about biology in the sense that they felt they needed to carry on their legacy by means of DNA. Sascha was perfectly content to let his beautiful husband make sure that their kids would be just as beautiful.

  After rummaging through various catalogs, they finally settled on an egg donor from India, a smart and beautiful young woman who would match Dan’s blondness and physique perfectly (or so they thought). As it turned out, the dark hair and brown eyes were the dominating genes, and the boys had no trace of Dan’s blue eyes or his beautiful blond hair. That didn’t matter, though, because they were the most beautiful babies ever.

  Sascha and Dan learned a lot during that pregnancy, about things they never thought they needed to know, about cervixes, pregnancy diabetes, about placentas not being where they were supposed to be, and a gazillion other things that were making the nine months waiting for their boys a living hell for them, straining their relationship to the brink of falling apart.

  * * * * *

  Mitch

  Typical, Sascha thought, as he remembered the guy who almost ended his relationship with Dan a few months before. He had met Mitch one day as he visited one of the local gay saunas in Singapore. Sascha had felt the need to get out, get away, and get off. The boys had been particularly heavy duty recently, causing a lot of strain in their lives and leaving their sex life as much as dead.