Brothers & Sisters

Instead of relating all about my trips to Prague, which was awesome - for pictures click here, and Milan, which was delightfully nostalgic and relaxed, visits by Marike, Gerry, Maartje & Edin, Sebas & Lieke, unexpected heat, a surprising number of courses to substitute for and thereby being quite fortunate in the money department this, I would like to address something different. Do not get me wrong, it has all been great and I am enjoying myself remarkably well.

However, I want to tell you guys about my new favourite TV series. It is an American once-a-week soap opera about, you have guessed it, a large number of siblings and their respective and intertwined life. In principle, it is nothing special and the storylines are not that particularly well-thought out, but the quality of the actors makes up for a lot. The show stars big names like Sally Field, Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal), Rob Lowe and Rachel Griffiths, as well as a number of lesser-known actors, most of whom are quite talented and succeed in making their characters very believable and interesting due to their way of portraying them.

It is not the series itself that I would like to discuss, however, but more the effect that two of the current storylines (we are now watching season 4) are having on me, one of them raking up painful memories and the other one putting a future desire into perspective, both of them providing ample food for thought.

At the moment, Kitty, the character portrayed by Calista Flockhart, has just been diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of cancer and has started chemotherapy. The way her family reacts to her disease and suffering, as well as the emphasis on care and the importance of having a support system, rather than focusing on her treatments, has been making me think of people I have lost to this disease in the past. Both my maternal grandparents, my niece Anna, my aunt (Anna's mother) and my father's second wife, all people who were very important to me at different stages in my early life, have succumbed to different variants of this same disease.

The ones that I remember most poignantly are my niece, who died at age five after a sickbed of about three years, and Marlu, my stepmother. The impression that the death of a little girl so young and so innocent made on me as an adolescent is hard to describe. The things that I remember most about her are her smile, her preference for anything pink and princess-like and her obsession with having long hair, which, due to her treatments, almost remained a dream to her. The other thing I still remember with awe, is how much effort was put into her continuing at school while ill and how her illness was integrated in the daily life of her class. There did not seem to be any secrets withheld from these 4-to-5-year-olds who were thereby exposed to the gripping reality of illness and eventual death at a much earlier age than some might deem appropriate. Those same children, even though 8 or so years have passed, seem to have been lastingly influenced by that experience and when they recently did a project on dealing with goodbyes, grief and loss, one of the girls chose to write a poem about Anna, which was forwarded to me by my mother. The poem is in Dutch and I hope the author will not mind my reproducing it here.

"Ik mis Anna, Anna van het Hekke
Jij kreeg kanker en je was heel erg ziek
Ik mis jouw lach, waar iedereen vrolijk van werd
Ik mis Anna, Anna van het Hekke
Ik denk aan jou en je prinsessenjurk
Het geeft troost als ik denk dat je een ster bent
En ik jou zie als die ster
Ik mis Anna, Anna van het Hekke
Jij kreeg kanker en je was heel erg ziek"

(written by Iris de Groot)

My stepmother Marlu, who I was very close to, and loved very much, died when I was 24 after many years of suffering. As a young adult, I was much more acutely aware of her people's perspectives on her disease, including her own, the politics of how to address this difficult situation, choices to make as to how much it should change and affect other people and coming to terms with the inevitability of how it would end as that became gradually more and more clear. One of the topics she was always very adamant about was the importance of life continuing and the other members of her family and her friends not making to many allowances on her account. There were obviously things that were no longer possible and she required a certain amount of care, but no more attention was to be given to her illness than necessary. It was occasionally alluded to and given a place as a freely discussable topic but were not permitted to make any important changes in our lives to accommodate her. Life went on as it had, with family dinners, laughter and everybody doing their share of the work, according to roles we had over the years developed and she very much remained the devoted mother and reliable confidante she had always been. They managed to make it into such a normal topic as much as life, love, school and work that I think they spared us children a lot of the fear, anger and pain they must have been feeling. The topic had been so well integrated in our lives that when the end eventually came, it was so unexpected as to dramatically increase my shock at her to my eyes sudden demise.

In Brothers & Sisters, Kitty expresses exactly the same wish, or rather command, the her loved ones should alter the course of the lives too much for her. Her disease has to be dealt with, discussed, treated, debated, but in no way should it be given more attention than it deserve or come to supersede any of the other concerns. Though I have dealt with my own personal loss of my family members and believe I have found closure, watching this storyline as it develops touches me much more than I thought it would. The very well-though out and well-performed scenes make me smile and cry with remembrance almost at the same time.

Although it is not uncommon for me to be emotionally affected by a good film, book or TV series, the effects of this storyline linger in my mind and are taking me back - in a good way. They are making me relive some episodes of my own life which I have not given enough thought to and deserve to be relived every now and then. I occasionally think of my lost loved ones, I remember them on their birthdays, when I encounter pictures of them, find myself in situations or with people that remind me of them in character or appearance and do, as all do, reminisce about the past - but though I hope they are happy life has gone on and I still remember them, it sometimes shames me to think of how little attention I really devote to them. I am not saying I believe we should dwell on the past too much and make it loom over the present like a dark cloud, I have come to respect to importance of memories and not locking the past away in a back closet of my mind. Even if those memories are not always particularly happy, they are a part of who I am and how my life has me who I am today and are therefore worth remembering, of course besides the obvious facts that these people should not be forgotten merely because they are no longer alive.

The other storyline which I referred to at the beginning of this post, is of a completely different nature. Perhaps one of the reasons I appreciate this show this much is because it brings me both reflection on past grief and a necessary reliving of sad and difficult moments, it also distinctly makes me think about the future. Kevin and Scotty are a gay couple who are married, or rather have a domestic partnership which they refer as a marriage due to the current legal system in California, and are in the process of having a baby through surrogacy. Having children is also very much something that is and has for some time been on my mind and Olaf and I are planning to have children through surrogacy in the future as well. The arguments Kevin and Scotty have, the choices they have to make, the selection of a surrogate mother, the finding of an egg donor, the impact a child will have on their lives and everything else that is part of becoming a parent and/or going through surrogacy, it is helping me shape some opinions on matters that I had either not thought about or had not given enough thought to. Watching their story develop and analysing and criticising the decisions they make, is making me feel more confident in our future and the choices I would like to make. I believe both Olaf and I are learning a lot and it is definitely providing us with topics for discussion and a chance to compare and discuss our own ideas about having children. This moment is still some years in the future for us, but it does not hurt to prepare well, now does it?

In summary, both these storylines are having large, yet widely different, effects on me. I am very glad to have been suggested this series and hope to continue enjoying it. As these effects are very personal, I will refrain from making any general recommendations, but will say it is perfectly watchable and entertaining, possibly better than average. In other words, I am hooked!!