We had a family dinner tonight with my parents, aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin’s wife, and a random JW friend of my mother’s. It was filled with as many uncomfortable moments and silences as I originally imagined, along with some tense exchanges of looks. My dad, who never sees his brother unless I am home (my uncle likes to see me, just not his brother or his wife), barely made eye contact when he said hi to my uncle, and my uncle gave him an awkward pat on the back to greet him. They proceeded to barely speak to each other throughout the meal until health-related topics came up, like who has what level of HDL vs LDL, what so and so’s blood glucose level was, and how someone else is cutting back on their meat intake. There were times when my uncle would say something, then my dad would loudly announce to my mother sitting next to him what my uncle just said as though she weren’t at the table with the rest of us. Uncomfortable and annoying. Then there were so many moments that I can’t even count where my dad would make know-it-all remarks back to my cousin or my uncle where the conversations would just end because no one ever wants to respond to someone who thinks he is a know-it-all, especially when everyone at the table knows he isn’t.

Every time we have one of these family meals, I always kind of sit back and just observe the awkwardness. I notice when my dad decides to tune in and tune out. I can see when my mom is trying to suck up or seem impressive to my aunt, or when she is babying my father by dumping food on his plate because he cannot seem to serve himself. I also notice when she decides she doesn’t want to listen to what anyone is saying and just start her own random, boring topics, or when she forces everyone to get up and leave when everyone is not quite ready.

But what really annoys me at these meals is the interaction between my dad and my uncle. They are two adult brothers who can’t seem to act like adults with each other; in fact, maybe neither of them has really become a true adult in the most genuine sense of that word (that begs the question, which of us is really an adult and why? But that is another tangent). They’ve held grudges against each other since their teen years, which is so embarrassing now considering they are in their mid to late 60s. They don’t even have a relationship with each other period, and are only forced to see each other to have some superficial guise of normalcy because of my existence. They have shared their intense criticisms about each other with me, and yes, much truth lies in both sides. It is just so sad to me because they are missing out on sibling love. They are so blinded by their grudges and hate and anger and hostility that they can’t see what they are lacking and giving up. That is just so pathetic.