Last week, Benjamin and I had a long discussion about multi-dimensional relationships, although of course we didn't call it that at the time; it's not like we got in the car and agreed ‘today we are going to talk about multi-dimensional relationships.'
We were crawling along on 3rd Mainland Bridge; I was reading and half-listening to the neighbourhood update he was providing when I caught something he said: "...crying like a baby." I looked up. "Who was crying like a baby?" I asked. "Your neighbour, his wife died and he was crying like a baby," he scoffed.
After probing further, it turned out that while Benjamin agreed that the man had every reason to be heartbroken, he couldn't understand why he had broken down and wept so profusely.
"How can you understand how he feels?" I asked, totally aghast at Benjamin's reasoning. "This man was married to his wife even before you were born! You can't know what sort of relationship they had: she may have been more than a wife to him; she could have been his friend, his adviser and like a sister to him - how do we know which loss he was crying over?"
Benjamin didn't look totally convinced until I mentioned that some people have asked me why I'm always chatting with my driver. "It's because to my family you are more than just a driver." I explained. "If, God forbid, something happens to you and we start weeping, do you think other people will understand why we are crying ‘like babies' over our driver?"
In the end, he agreed that my neighbour's profound display of grief was relative to the loss of several close people at the same time: a life partner, a sister and a dear friend.
I felt this was something to write about because only a couple of weeks ago I read a comment that a reader had made in response to one of my articles on the NEXT website, referring to the fact that I quote my mother very often. "My mum said this, my mum said that, grow up kid" the comment went.
I smiled when I read that, because the reader had clearly not picked up on something important: my mother and I are very good friends and quoting her in my articles is not at all different from me saying "My friend B said this or my friend E said that." If ‘growing up' means not enjoying a priceless friendship with my mother then may I never ‘grow up'!
In my opinion, the reader must be someone who is strict about labelling relationships.
Do cousins, for instance, have defined roles in our lives or are they permitted to cross family lines to become our best friends? Will parents forever remain those relatives who dispensed food, clothing and discipline whilst we were growing up, with no chance of the relationship dynamics changing when the children become adults? Or are the rules of interaction with grandparents fixed, limiting your contact to those annual visits back to your hometown? If, for instance, my grandfather and I share a love of food and every so often I take him out to a restaurant he enjoys, I'd be amazed if anyone found that odd.
Agreed, some people in your life will remain pigeon-holed forever: a colleague may remain strictly a colleague and never make it to the next level of interaction despite the fact that he or she sits right next to you at work. Yet other relationships start out on level one and are elevated through a shared sense of humour or because of similar values and goals or tastes in books and films. Thus you find that you are blessed with multi-faceted relationships where a sibling becomes your mentor and a friend even closer than a sibling. Your boss can become your friend and your neighbour a trusted advisor.
I think that if we were forced to label our interactions, remain strictly within relationship boundaries and view the people in our lives from a single perspective, not only would life be quite boring, we would be denying ourselves an enriching opportunity to experience another side of these people's personalities.
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