Family differences beneficial

By:

Posted: 12/4/08

Every holiday season I split myself in two.

As a child of divorce, I plan Thanksgiving and Christmas day with my families like the Secretary of State might orchestrate meetings with two warring countries.

My younger brother and I put our heads together to plot.

How much time should we spend at our dad's this year? Can we still sneak out in time for turkey with my mom's family?

Despite her denial, we know our mother would deem it nothing short of treason to be late and miss our uncle's sausage stuffing.

This year's Thanksgiving was particularly tricky - our dad's extended family was visiting. Tell me all you want about how families should understand our situation, but you haven't ridden shotgun on one of my aunt's guilt trips before.

"Why are y'all leaving so early? Don't you want to see us? Why don't you visit more? I know UGA ain't that far from Atlanta."

They were still laying it on thick as we bolted for the door with our heads ducked low, dodging cousins like land mines.

It's not that I enjoy one side of the family more than the other, but, during the holidays, I have to please both. To make matters worse, they are different as night and day.

It's to be expected from blended families. My mom's side is full of white southerners by way of the Midwest, most of whom are still nursing their wounds since McCain's tragic Election Day defeat.

It's a culture shock to leave the soulful smells of cornbread and baked ham at my dad's house for the dry red wine and Food Network-inspired gourmet of my mom's family feast.

Usually the differences are easy to ignore, but as much as I can divide my time, it's impossible to separate one side of myself from the other - black from white.

This year was no different.

At my mom's Thanksgiving dinner, my aunt's elderly mother was regaling the room with tales about her quirky neighbor - "That black" - who helps with her yard work.

Cue the awkward coughing. The chatter screeched to a halt, and I could almost hear my aunt's silent screams: "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Did they hear that?"

My brother and I just glanced at one another, smirked, and turned back to our pumpkin pie.

We're used to it.

It happens with every racist joke my uncle tells or story about how my aunt's mom refers to blacks as "Nigras."

Sometimes I wonder if they think my mother divorced the black out of my brother and me along with our father.

In a column Wednesday, Marc McAfee asked readers, "Will you risk ridicule, even a fist fight, to take a stand, or will you let [racist comments] go?"

Standing up to a drunken idiot who crosses the line is one thing. It gets a bit sticky when the idiot is sitting across from you at the dinner table and used to help change your diapers.

After dinner, my aunt put her hand on my shoulder and said she wanted to make sure I wasn't offended by her mother's comment. I shrugged.

Like any good diplomat, I have to pick my battles. Was it worth it to rage at an aging grandmother who has spent 80-plus years stuck in her ways?

Probably not.

Whether or not you agree with me, it's a choice I made to keep the peace. My mother's family knows where I stand, and they are wonderful people who accept my brother and me wholeheartedly.

Any time different ideologies and cultures come together in one room, friction is inevitable. The holidays are a constant reminder of the differences between us, which is true for all blended families, I'm sure.

But I try to see it as an opportunity to build bridges rather than moats. If having a black niece or granddaughter helps my family members reexamine their own ideas about race, then that's a beautiful thing.

I don't have to throw food or give lectures. Just by making time to be with them, I'm showing them there is no "us" and "them."

There is only family.

- Mandi Woodruff is the associate news editor of The Red & Black.

"Never Coming Home Again?" -- A Column

I should preface this column by saying this was the first time I'd ever written about something personal for a public audience. It was strange and emotional and I nearly chickened out. In the end, when I received so many messages/emails/calls/notes from people who identified with my story, I couldn't imagine a better reward. Special thanks to my brother for helping me get over myself and just write.

Never coming home again?

By: Mandi Woodruff for The Red & Black

Posted: 11/24/08

My big brother Matt always left the toilet seat up. The disgusting plastic bottles he used to spit tobacco were all over the house.

We ran to our mother with our arguments - both adults yet still pushing and shoving like toddlers. Matt brought out the fire and claws in me - all good big brothers do, I suppose.

As we grew up, he would torment me until I ran from the room crying. I would flaunt my straight A's as he hunched over his homework, crippled by the ADD that's plagued him since infancy.

When Matt enlisted in the Army five years ago, my family was relieved to see him do something productive with his life other than wear a dent in our living room sofa and drink all the milk.

Our grandfather, a World War II veteran, shook Matt's hand proudly before he boarded a plane to Baghdad. Our mother cried. Our grandmother clutched her like a life raft, her eyes wet and bloodshot. A camera flashed.

I stood to the side. A lifetime of sibling rivalry had forged a rift between Matt and me that I wasn't quite sure how to cross. But the clock was winding down, he was leaving soon, and with a burst of rare emotion, I wrapped my arms around him.

"Bye, little sis'," he said, towering over me in his uniform and boots. "Stay away from boys."

He was gone for a year, when he came home on leave. I was taking a summer course. One day, a classmate, whose boyfriend was fighting overseas, did not show up. The young man whom she spent most classes gushing over would not be coming home, our professor told us.

I stumbled from class, my tears falling to the pavement like silent bombs. I ended up somewhere on North Campus before I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Matt's number.

"I just want to say … " I was sure I would hyperventilate before I got the words out. On the other line, Matt waited impatiently. "I just want to say that I love you."

It took one girl's loss to make me realize how much I had to lose if Matt found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stupid sibling rivalry or not, I knew it would destroy my family if he was not a part of it.

These days, even from thousands of miles away, Matt still manages to annoy the hell out of me - only now it's via webcam, which unfortunately denies me the satisfaction of punching him when he steps out of line.

As I sat at my cubicle at The Red & Black recently, reading the Associated Press, I came across a headline and froze. "Bomber strikes U.S. convoy in Afghanistan … death toll: 9."

I read such stories every day - 30 civilians killed by a suicide bomber at a market in Baghdad. Dozens injured in a raid in Kabul. Gunfire. Massacre. Explosion. Attack. Murder. Killed. Killed. Killed. Never coming home again.

Others can turn the other cheek, head over to Perez Hilton for a few laughs and a break from reality.

But I quickly signed into Yahoo! Messenger, the only way to get in touch with Matt these days. Nine dead. My mind raced. What if it's my brother this time? What if it's our family, our grief, our lives shattered?

"shut up i'm trying to get ready ofr work," Matt wrote in his usual sloppy, disjointed type.

I breathed again. It was 3 a.m. on his side of the world, and I was the obnoxious little sister distracting him from his work.

Never again will I take this role for granted.

- Mandi Woodruff is the associate news editor of The Red & Black.

Life (off the record)

Monday, December 8, 2008