Family feuds

-         What am I going to do now? – said grandpa in tears.

Her wife was lying dead before him.

My grandparents had a large family: 7 children and, just after delivering their eight, a sweet baby girl, grandma had died. It was a traditional family, women should stay at home and rear as many children, as many as God, in its infinite wisdom, would send us.

-         Who is going to feed the newborn? – asked himself in despair.

At that time, there was not such a thing as the baby formula and newborns had to be breast fed.

Grandpa enjoyed a good standard of living. But he had to work hard to keep that status. This left him no time to take care of his large family.

So he had two concerns, one urgent: feeding the newborn, and two, finding a wife who would accept rearing the eight orphans.

- Do we know any woman who is breast feeding and would share her breast milk?

At that time, about 1920, wet nurses were frequent. They were usually poor women who recently had a child and accepted to share their breast milk for a salary, they were treated as servants. Her son and the newly born girl were milk siblings.

Grandpa was a practical man. Looking for a new wife he went no further that the second floor of his apartment building (he lived in the fourth floor). There it lived with her parents a forty something single woman, very honest and very sweet.

After a brief courtship –remember, grandpa was in hurry- he proposed her marriage.

She faced the dilemma of ending her days as a spinster or marrying a man with such a large family. Grandpa argued that his children will treat her as a true mother.

Finally she decided that she would marry him and embark in a new life, two stories up of her parents’ home.

- I’ll marry you, but you have to give me authority to run the house and discipline your children.

Soon after she entered her new home, she realised that, far from being accepted as a mother, she was considered an intruder by some of grandpa’s sons.

Particularly, by the priest. Yes, grandpa had a priest at home, the eldest son. After returning from the Seminar, he installed himself at grandpa’s house, and took the best bedroom, facing South. Probably he hated women and the presence of that stranger in his own house was unbearable to him.

He stopped talking to her, but he didn’t leave the house.

The situation was obscene. A priest who was supposed to preach love among mankind, who lived rent-free under the same ceiling that his stepmother, and who was not able not only to forgive, but to speak to her!

Finally, Grandpa died aged 83. He was genuinely loved by her children and grandchildren.

Did the old enemies reconcile over grandpa’s grave?

No, hatred had eaten them from the inside. They will never forgive.

The priest left his father’s house, without remorse, without forgiveness.

The moral than can be drawn is: hatred is a very destructive emotion that may get the best of you. It can literally drain your energy. Don’t let hatred eat you from the inside!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;

Only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate;

Only love can do that”

(ML King Jr.)