In the Books: Everything is Fine

After his schizophrenic brother killed his mom, Vince Granata finds healing in paradox

“But avoidance fractured me further, stripped me away from myself, from all of my memories, until it felt like there was little left of me. Eventually, I had no choice but to look at loss and pain, at all the pieces of my family’s story that I didn’t think I could ever understand. It was this process, recognizing the pieces, struggling to put them in order, that almost destroyed me. It’s also what allowed me to live again.” Vince Granata, Everything is Fine

DISCLAIMER: The book mentioned contains severe accounts of violence and mental illness.

What would you do if one member of your family killed another?

This was the gut-wrenching and life-altering crossroads Vince Granata found himself stranded in after his younger brother, Tim, killed his mother while overtaken by a schizophrenic psychosis.

The grief and trauma of this event was complicated further by one of the more destructive aspects of schizophrenia known as anosognosia, defined as “a symptom of severe mental illness experienced by some that impairs a person's ability to understand and perceive his or her illness.”

Not only was Tim himself unable to understand how ill he really was, his parents likewise failed to see the full magnitude of his illness. Prior to the onset of Vince’s mental illness, the Granata family had been—by most measures that count—the kind of “perfect family” everyone says doesn’t exist: affluent, stable, loving, caring, close-knit. This uncommonly healthy family dynamic was perhaps part of what allowed Vince’s parents to minimize the propensity of Tim’s schizophrenia to cause real damage.

Although both parents were physicians and had promptly sought medical care for their son when he began exhibiting signs of schizophrenia, they did not take his violent tendencies seriously. They interpreted his malevolent threats as cries for help or signals of self-harm rather than real signs of danger towards others. As a result, they continued to allow him to live at home even as his violence escalated.

The last time Vince had spoken with his mom in person, he expressed fears of what Tim seemed capable of. He cautioned his mom against keeping Tim at home, and confessed that he was terrified of his own brother. Seeking to maintain peace, she smoothed things over, insisting that “Everything is fine.”

A short time later, she would be dead at the hands of her own, mentally ill son.

Everything is Fine is Vince’s attempt, as Tim’s oldest brother and his mother’s son, to make sense of what happened, to determine for himself what “moving forward” looks like in the wake of such a traumatic tragedy.

This is one of the better memoirs I’ve read in 2022, not only because of the unique (albeit horrific) events it bears witness to, but also because of the quality of Granata’s writing and his depth of reflection.

---

While the whole work is full of poignant thoughts that have helped me reflect on my own healing journey, perhaps none more so than the discussion of paradox found towards the end of the book.

To come to terms with what happened, Vince realizes that he needs to find ways to bear witness to both sides of his family’s story.

I had to learn a new way to remember my mother, to remember Tim before the terror of his illness. To learn, I had to look at pieces of my life that seemed impossibly at odds with each other. I had to understand that these pieces could be simultaneously true.

I love my brother—and—my brother killed our mother.

This pair, this impossible simultaneous truth, is what I learned to hold.

Vince Granata, Everything is Fine, p. 277

A similar “pair” Vince learns to accept is that his mother was a good, even amazing, mother—and—she failed to protect herself and her family from violence.

I found the idea of these “pairs” compelling and gutwrenching. It made me realize how, in my own life, I so often prefer to dwell on one side or other of the “AND.” It is easier for me to think of those who’ve harmed me—many of whom are or have occupied the closest circles of friends and family—as either all good or all bad.

Camping out in either side—the all good or all bad—leads to opposing but equally unhealthy coping mechanisms. If I start to view people as “all good,” I’m more likely to engage in enabling or self-blame/loathing—I become less vigilant of how destructive their behavior is, or I convince myself they are the good ones and I’m the bad one for having thoughts, feelings, or discomfort about what’s going on.

If I think of them as “all bad,” I cut myself off from them and from all good memories I may have of them, or my life “before” the traumas transpired. There is a time and place for boundaries, and even choosing to have no relationship with someone who has harmed you, but this internal “cutting off” can metastasize like a cancer until I become incapable of connecting even with safe and healthy people in my life.

---

While Vince refers to these “simultaneous truths” as “pairs,” in the language of theology we might think of them as “paradoxes.”

A paradox comes from the Greek para (contrary) and doxa (opinion, glory)¹ and refers to situations or beliefs that combine multiple contradictory elements.

Interestingly, Merriam-Webster Online describes paradox as an etymological “cousin” of the word doxology, since they both share Greek root doxa as part of their composition.² (The literal meaning of doxology is an expression [-logia] of glory [doxa-].)

This is not an accurate etymology, but we could think of a paradox as (seemingly) competing or contradictory glories.

There is something unspeakably sacred about the contradictory facets each human carries within, even as some of them push us towards darkness, because God is the author of our existence and for the sake of our freedom (and His), allows these contradictions to occur and persist. It is not only the “good” elements of us that bear the image of God—we bear His image as our whole, multifaceted selves, the broken shards of that image coming to unity in God’s love and mercy.

It was probably fitting that I finished this memoir on Saturday night, the Eve of what’s known in Eastern Orthodoxy as the “Sunday of the Geneology of Christ” (also known as the Sunday of the Ancestors of Christ).

Christ, too, lived in a family mired by paradox and anguish.

The Gospel reading for this day is the long genealogical account of Christ’s lineage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

As Gospel readings go, it’s not the most enthralling—a long laundry list of archaic names.

Yet it is one of the most important scriptural texts of the year.

The Synaxarion (Lives of Saints) portion for that day explains that these verses

“[show] us that Christ truly became a man, taking on human nature. He was not a ghost, an apparition, a myth, a distant imagined god, or the abstract god of philosophers; such a god does not have a family tree.”

Christ, like us, “has flesh and blood,” human ancestors and family members, “many of whom sinned greatly, but like David, also repented greatly.”³

This is the paradox we all, and all our families, live in, or at least are all capable of living in—the paradox of sinfulness and repentance.

This is not to minimize the suffering of trauma that can occur in families, nor to put a “happy ending” on the horrific story Vince endures, or our own.

It is merely to point out just one of the ways liturgy provides a container, a way for us, as Vince Granata put it, to “learn to hold” the “impossible truths” our families may contain.

I have not fully learned to hold my own truths, not yet anyway. Still, I am grateful for the signposts—like this powerful memoir and the life of the Liturgy—provide on my journey.

NOTE: In this Substack, “In the Books” posts explore specific books that have given me something to think about when it comes to trauma, healing, theology, and/or faith practices after trauma.

1. This second meaning of doxa derives from the Greek verb dokein, meaning "to seem" or "to seem good."

2. “Doxology.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doxology. Accessed 19 Dec. 2022.

3. As qtd in “Sunday Matins” service text, Sunday, December 18th - Advent Sunday before Christmas – Tone 2 The Ancestors of Christ, The Orthodox Church in America, St. Maria’s Orthodox Mission (https://calendarwiz.s3.amazonaws.com/112650/Matins/18-12-22-Sunday_Matins_Tone_2-Ancestors.pdf).