BEL MOONEY:  Even if your family’s broken, now is the time to reach out

Dear Bel,

In my early 20s I moved away from my family to further my career. It was only 40 miles, but it meant I saw them mainly on weekends.

Initially, I’d travel back a few times a month but eventually I’d visit perhaps just the once, as I developed a life in a new place with a great career and new relationship.

In contrast, my parents have visited me about five times in ten years. Over the years, boyfriends have noticed and asked whether my parents are aware that the road goes both ways?

Whenever I ask them to come to see me, there are always excuses, such as: ‘We’ve been busy and want to rest at the weekend, not drive for miles.’ That kind of thing.

They are always very happy to see me, but it makes me feel quite abandoned that they don’t make the effort to maintain any real relationship with me. I’m very surprised even to receive a text message from either of them, let alone a phone call.

I’ve had a great relationship with them all my life and know they’re proud of my achievements. They are just very bad at stepping outside their comfort zone. I used to think it was odd that they had both become estranged from brothers and sisters over the years, but I didn’t think they would allow a situation where their daughter might become estranged too.

I recently had a miscarriage, which devastated me, and I received one text message of condolence. I really feel like giving up now. I have my husband and hope for a baby in the future. Do I really need my old family too?

NAOMI

Here are some words I admire, by Mother Teresa of Calcutta: ‘Let us make one point — that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other within your family.’

This is more vital than ever in these dark times. Regular readers will know how important family is to me.

I always have to remind myself that my own truth is not (sadly) true for others. But I still hold fast to the ideal expressed by Mother Teresa: a family should be there for each other to offer smiles and support when the going gets tough. But she adds that we must ‘make time’ — because, after all, if you don’t make time for the family, how can you expect them to be ready with good cheer and a helping hand?

Surely now the truth of that is clearer than ever? But while I am used to urging younger people to be sure to keep in touch with older relatives (and please do so — even if you haven’t phoned for years, phone now), this letter is a reminder that, as you say, the traffic has to go both ways.

Blessed with parents who would cross the earth to help me, and feeling the same way about my own children, I was quite shocked by your letter. How could they allow their daughter to feel ‘abandoned’? How could they write her a measly text after the sadness of a miscarriage? Is this really a ‘great’ relationship?

Forgive me; it’s not for me to criticise people I don’t know. Have you ever told them how you feel?

Sometimes I think we make ourselves suffer more because of dignified silence and that a wail of ‘For heaven’s sake — look at me!’ is needed to break down the barriers people erect between each other.

I’m assuming both your parents were brought up with little emotional support. That they lost touch with siblings underlines this.

You don’t say how old they are. But if you abandon them now, as you have felt abandoned, what will happen when one of them dies? Who will be there with a smile and support? This — surely — is one of the big questions for our times. The scourge of coronavirus shouts to us that everybody needs to think hard about priorities.

You ask whether you need your old family. Only you can find the answer within your heart — although I suspect it will be: ‘Yes.’

But my point is that they need you. They may not realise it, but I don’t think the blindness of others should ever make us put on blinkers ourselves. I repeat — it’s time for all families to reach out to each other.

So please don’t give up on them. And don’t any of you let old estrangements continue. Be the one to smash the frozen sea.

And finally…I will be lighting a candle at home – and waiting to help you

This morning I got up, showered, dressed in attractive clothes (that means jeans/leggings and a lovely jumper — but never the same as yesterday), then put on make-up and jewellery.

I’ve always believed working at home shouldn’t turn you into a scruff; morale is important. Like so many of you, I am self-isolating; at 73 and with a lifelong history of breathing problems, there is no choice. But I also have to take care of my nonagenarian parents, so it’s . . . well, you know, don’t you? Damn difficult, depressing and scary.

But my dressing ritual is part of my survival instinct. I made my decision to self-isolate before government advice was issued.

I often tell you that you can take control of your own life — although right now that might sound daft. But it’s not. Showing responsibility (a) to yourself and (b) to others stops you feeling like a hapless victim. We may not have control over circumstances but we can focus hearts and minds on the way we deal with those circumstances. So I need to keep myself safe — and think positively, too.

The second reason for my premature decision to self-isolate is equally important. If I manage to avoid getting sick, I will make no demands on the NHS. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Then why on earth was there a rebellious chorus from people my age saying nobody will boss us around, life will go on, etc?

On social media there was a spluttering of righteous indignation, cries of ‘Ridiculous!’ and ‘Overreaction!’ and so on.

What’s wrong with people? And don’t even start me on those stripping supermarkets. I noticed that when my lovely daughter-in-law got a shopping list from Mum two days ago, it was very, very small. Mum’s generation know about making do and putting up — and can be a lesson to the young.

Yet the positives are coming in all the time. I read reports of the way volunteers are coming forward and communities are helping each other and say, ‘Yes, that’s what’s right about people.

Before it became a ‘thing’, my daughter decided to put a note through neighbours’ doors, offering to go shopping. The first call came from a 90-year-old living alone, who cried on the phone with gratitude and relief. Then there were others. And Kitty (who is unwell, suffering with the recurrence of a congenital bowel problem) strode out to do her duty, feeling less scared and gloomy.

Something in my heart gives a strange leap of joy when I hear about fellow feeling and kindness. Even though we all know the worst of human nature, there is always the evidence of goodness, too.

And it’s all around — as pervasive as the horrible virus, but (thank God) more visible. It is vital for our communal wellbeing to cling to that knowledge in these dark times, because even when we are afraid (and I am) we can keep ourselves going with faith, hope and love.

Tomorrow is Mothering Sunday — always special for Kitty and me. But we won’t see each other, for the first time for 40 years.

Yet I am glad to think she might put some flowers on the doorstep of that elderly lady, because I’m lucky enough to be able to walk out into our huge garden and pick my own. But my husband will collect my parents (calculating that if they are self-isolating and we are too, then a car ride from their place to ours is OK) and Sunday lunch will happen, as it does each week.

And I can talk to my son (who lives next door) through the window and wave at his lovely sons and look forward to the golden days ahead when all this will be over. Yes, it will!

For 13 years (lucky 13!) this column has been dealing with ordinary problems — and, of course, they will continue. Poor relationships are made worse by isolation and/or boredom, which is why many couples decide to split after unhappy Christmases.

Family squabbles are increased by close proximity. Selfish sulks become impossible when people can’t do exactly as they please. Depression will increase with a feeling of doom. Despair and fear will probably increase within the souls of those who just don’t feel they can cope.

In other words, all the ‘ordinary’ problems that are the stock-in-trade of these pages will carry on in spite of the dreaded virus — but also because of it.

So do please go on writing the usual letters to me, and this column will go on from my (rather cosy) bunker as long as (God willing) I am healthy. But if you have big worries about life and death — stirred up by coronavirus — please share them and I will do my best to answer. A few weeks ago, I printed a letter from a man called Mo about going to church and reader responses to my reply made me realise that many people long for the solace of faith, even if they don’t realise it.

It is a good time to remind everybody that there is one Golden Rule that is shared by many faiths: do as you would be done by. Or, do not do to others that which you would not have done to you.

Think about that — and how you can shift the profound ethical truth into your own life — whether it takes the shape of not panic-buying, or seeing whether you can help a neighbour, or just picking up the phone to the mother-in-law who gets on your nerves and putting the grandchildren on to speak to her. Please.

On Tuesday, I was deeply moved by the uplifting piece the Mail printed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, which was headlined: ‘In this time of dread we must all be good Samaritans.’ It ended: ‘Along with our fellow bishops and other church leaders, we call for a National Day of Prayer and Action this coming Mothering Sunday.’

The ‘action’ there includes reaching out to the needy, neighbours, the lonely, the poor. The ‘prayer’ is up to you — and many of those who say they are ‘not religious’ whisper a fervent ‘Oh please’ when a child is ill or a parent is dying. That ‘please’ is a prayer.

And at 7pm tomorrow (as the Archbishops request), I shall put a lighted candle in a lantern on our gatepost, to remind anybody who passes in the country lane that we are all in this together.