Brier Island and My Dad's Side of the Family
oh my gosh she's back... with all the family tea and humble magic that is Nova Scotia. (This piece is a bit dramatic, but I feel very strongly about what it means to be family)
I am not close with my dad’s side of the family. We congregate once a year on Boxing day for the Seifried family Christmas. Twice a year if someone dies. Me and my siblings are the youngest of the cousins, by a lot. As in, all of my cousins have kids around our age or younger. I remember being little and slipped extra money in my Christmas card because it was my birthday 3 days prior. I remember being afraid of my cousin Garrett who was covered in tattoos and rode a motorcycle. My uncle Dirk and his raspy voice that I can still hear and how he would wrap me into tight hugs every time he said hello or goodbye. My aunt Shelia, her kind smile and the sound of her oxygen machine. When I was well into my teenage years she started to ask me if I had a boyfriend and when I would say no, she would tell me how beautiful I was and that it was bound to happen soon. I was always afraid of my dad’s brother, uncle Larry, who used to yell my name in reference to “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which of course happened a lot in my youth, but he was the first and I remember being terribly confused as to why he wasn’t yelling anyone else’s name. His wife, Mary– not to be confused with his sister, Mary– always made the most beautiful cards by hand for all of us and smoked a pack a day until she got lung cancer and inevitably had to quit.
When I got older (around high school, pre-pandemic) I attended my uncle Dirk's funeral and learned that Christmas wasn’t the only time my dad’s side of the family would congregate. It was just the only time we saw them. My dad’s ex wife also attended this funeral, sitting right next to my freshly widowed aunt. I watched this slide show of photos, with all of my family and her. We had not received one invite and our invites to them were often declined on the basis that Toronto is too far from Guelph. This is when my mother and I started to joke that they must even have two Seifried family Christmas’ – one where we were invited and another where she was.
I had learned about her a few years prior to Dirk’s funeral, when attending his daughter (my cousin) Shannon’s baby shower. My dad’s ex wife was a photographer, so while we were sitting in one big circle, she went all the way around the room, taking pictures of every single person until she got to my sister who was sitting beside me who was sitting beside my mother. When she saw us, she promptly skipped us and went to the next group. No one said anything, no one else came to take our picture. But everyone knew. That was the first time I saw it. The unwelcomeness. As if it was my mother’s fault that she fell in love with a man who had been divorced for years. As if it was mine and my sister’s fault that we were born to the love of her life (who might I add, she broke up with).
Now that I’m older I know that Guelph isn’t far from Toronto. Now that I have taken the Go Train to and from multiple times I know that it's possible. If you want it to be.
With all of this in mind, I recently was invited to be driven by my aunt Mary and aunt Anne up to my cousin Shannon's place on Brier Island. Geographically they are the closest family I have now that I essentially live in Halifax full-time.
I get into my aunt's car. Greeted with a short hello and the smell of Alex’s stinky feet (she is my cousin's kid). They act like they already know me. I guess that comes naturally when you’ve seen someone grow up in timelapse. I sit shotgun as we drive over the slight but rolling Nova Scotian hills. I’ve gotten to know the winds of the roads here, I’ve been on them a lot this summer with all the field trips I’ve taken for school. I fight the drowsiness of my gravol and imagine glaciers carving and scouring the batholith bedrock we might be driving over. We are side by side with forest and every so often enter a veil of smoke or observe dense plumes of it from a distance. Annapolis is burning.
I felt an immense amount of pressure to give a good impression on these women who have known me since I was born. I often get quiet at family Christmas, letting my older and bolder siblings do the talking. So this felt like my one chance to be seen as an individual. Or I guess represent my father in some way, their baby brother.
When their mother died, my grandma Joyce, my dad’s ex wife came to the funeral and when everyone was asked to leave except for the immediate family she stayed and stood next to my grandfather. I was 4 at the time. My father stood and watched with his new wife and new family by his side. None of his siblings stood up for him and when he asked them too because he was uncomfortable, he was met with indifference from his sisters. The same sisters that sit beside and behind me now. I don't think their relationship has been the same since.
As my aunt Anne drives impatiently behind a truck with a Quebec license plate (which she thinks is an Ontario one) we watch our ferry leave without us. She’s going 80 on a road with a max of 50 and calls the truck driver an asshole for going the speed limit. She reminds me of my father. We obviously miss the ferry, which means we will have to wait at least half an hour before we can get from Free Port to Brier Island.
My aunts bicker and go on tangents when they talk and when Anne looks at me all I can see is who I could be one day. When I was young I used to have to pose next to my aunt Anne for our picture to be taken. They wanted to capture our resemblance. Still to this day my mother calls her my twin. I undeniably look like a Seifried. My siblings however, all resemble my mother. My mother is genuinely my best friend so I’ve always resented looking like a Seifried instead of a Polson. My granny (on my mum's side) has never so much as missed a dance recital or even a Friday dinner. When we were little we used to take turns sleeping over at her house on Friday nights, we would drink hot chocolate and watch movies and she would always be there– in emergency or celebration. I wish I resembled that. I wish I resembled my family. Not these women who I don’t know.
My mum texts to ask if they are even nice. I mean no one in my immediate family, except for my father, has ever spent more than 2 hours with them at a time. I say they are nice and that they are like dad. After 2 ferry rides we arrived on Brier Island. There are houses of blush, droves of seagulls protected by Peter's island, lichens growing on the shingles of houses. Their house is blue and across the street from the wharf. In the harbour (it's not actually a harbour I am just lacking the right terms here) there are 5 aquaculture pens, I am told they are for salmon and that the locals hate them.
Their tin roof makes the sudden pouring of rain sound like continuous thunder. I sleep in their daughters bedroom and eat the gluten free bread that they got just for me. I watch the sunset over what feels like the edge of the world. There are seals cryptically swimming between rocks, bobbing and popping their shiny heads up every once and a while. Their backs curve as they dive out of sight. There would be a lot more to do here if there wasn’t currently a woods ban. I collect rocks at the beach, make resin art with my cousin and try to do the dishes after every meal with no avail (they say I am a guest and guests shouldn’t do the dishes).
We spent 2 days thinking that hurricane Erin will get our whale watching boat canceled. But when the day comes the waters are calm and when the evening rolls around we pile ourselves into these bright red onesies and get on the zodiac. I expect to see a few whales, but nothing that I haven’t seen before. I almost immediately eat my expectations. You can see them in the distance or at the surface soaking up the sun. You can hear them breathe. The sun low in the sky glares off the ocean's surface. Whenever I am on the water it makes me inexplicably happy.
I overhear my aunt Mary telling the captain that I had tagged whales this summer, which is straight up wrong. I helped tag one shark, but what I note from this is the subtle brag of her voice. That's the Seifried form of pride.
I hug my aunts goodbye in two different parking lots, they tell me it was nice getting to know me. The sentiment is a kind one, the invite was a kind one and I am trying to not hold onto grudges. But the last time these aunts drove to see me was when I was born and they have had 20 years to get to know me.
When I return home my mum explains to me that she never really felt welcomed into that side of the family. That they already had a sister in law that they liked (my dad’s ex wife) and never made an effort with her. My dad pops his head in on the call and says “welcome to the family,” and I know it’s a joke, but that’s what it actually feels like. Like I have finally been recognized as a Seifried.
I don’t know how I feel about this recognition. I believe in 2nd chances, hell, I believe in 10th chances. We watched droves of humpback whales together, surely I can forgive whatever indifference they have had for my family in the past. So why am I struggling to let go of what could have been? If these sisters stood by their little brother. If they let us host Christmas.
