My family and family history starts like most people’s. Two people fell in love, they had kids, their kids had kids and so on and so forth. But where we come from and who we are, is a completely different story. From our European roots, to the mixing of our blood once my family migrated to America, my family is quite complex but one that I am proud of and love greatly. I want to begin with my dad’s side of the family as we know a little more about where we came from.
From what we know, his relatives lived in Ireland until the time of the great Irish Potato Famine. Once they arrived in America my dad’s relatives settled down South, but somewhere down the line, someone moved North. This brings me to my Great Grandma Mary. She and her husband lived near Coldwater Michigan where they settled and had my Grandma Lela and her brothers, Lee Combs, Lewis Combs and her one sister that we do not remember her name. My Grandma Lela meet and married my Grandpa Albert Donihue. My grandpa had one sister and three brothers Harley, Roland and Carlos.
Again we do not remember the name of the sister. Once my grandma and grandpa settled in Coldwater Michigan, my grandma gave birth to my Aunt Gwenda, Aunt Marty and my dad, Mike Donihue. One important detail to know about my dad is that he was born in the 50’s, and is very much a baby boomer. My Aunt Gwenda married my Uncle Carol Outwater and they had two children, Michelle and Tony. My cousin Michelle married my cousin Brad and they had three children, Krissy, Tyler, and Ethan Moore and my cousin Tony married my cousin Bridget and they had three children Tucker, Carson and Bella Outwater. My Aunt Marty was married to my Uncle Don but he passed away when I was a little girl.
Before he passed they had. .the head of the household, so he had the authority. But my mom did not want to feel as though my father was above her. She felt as though he was at the same level of power as she. My dad “tended to use power in a way that assure the maintenance of his own more powerful position” (Balswick 14).
This did not help our family much at all. We became what the Balswick ‘s call a “hurting family.” As I was reading through the chapters I came across the section, in chapter one, that talks about the hurting family. This stuck out because it almost perfectly summed up how my father was when he lived with us. “Hurting families tend to withhold grace, often demanding unreasonable perfection and blaming those members who don’t measure up. Individuals in these families fear they will make a mistake and be rejected because of their failure to meet the standards” (Balswick 20).
