“Too Big, Too Painful”

In this article, I trace my siblings’ reactions to an autoethnography I wrote about our father, a religious leader and public figure. Six years after my father passed away, I published an autoethnography describing his decline until his death. The publication received very positive feedback from the general public, but negative reactions from my siblings that were incomprehensible to me. Following Joy Castro, I suggest that “too big, too painful things” underlie the unspoken opposition from my siblings.1 Based on interviews I conducted with children of other rabbis, I propose that writing an autoethnography about a parent who is a religious and public leader may be perceived as an act of appropriating the father’s legacy, or even a claim to the role of successor and heir. Additionally, publishing an autoethnography about a parent may evoke in the siblings a sense of ambiguous loss: Pain for a father who was physically present at home, but emotionally unavailable to his children. Finally, I describe the motivation behind my decision to write and publish the story about my father. I argue that, at times, a dominant narrative becomes entrenched within a family. Occasionally, a “deliberate stumble” is required to disrupt and challenge this singular family narrative. Such disruption may cause discomfort and resistance in family members, but, at the same time, can also make room for alternative narratives to be heard and told.