The Winchester Family Business

Sam and Dean are many things. Hunters. Heroes. Antiheroes. Criminals. Saviors. Lovers. Brothers. And they are orphans. They are no longer anyone’s sons. As young adults they have to live without both their parents. 
 
The phenomenon of the adult orphan is not really on the radar of most people. Perhaps, because we tend to think of an orphaned, little child and the emotions that evokes in any empathetic human being. There are countless films and novels that deal with that topic, and many of us know the stories of David Copperfield, Heathcliff, Luke Skywalker, Little Ophan Annie, Harry Potter, Pippy Longstocking or Tom Sawyer, to name but a few.
 
But what about those people that become orphans at an adult age, such as Sam and Dean Winchester? 
 
I’ve had this article in me for a while, and it began to take form over last Christmas that had brought up my own feelings of being orphaned as an adult and the deep loneliness I experienced over that particular period. I think I didn’t feel this lonely in a long time.  And, naturally, when I feel that kind of pain, I look to inspiration, guidance, comfort and/or answers in books and stories when people aren’t able or willing to offer any of those. 

I started thinking about our favourite brothers, and many of their experiences echoed in my mind, and I realized that there might be another reason why I feel so close to these fictional characters. When my father died I was 28 years old. That was thirteen years ago. My mother died two years ago. And a dark truth hit me like a battering ram – the knowledge that parents one day die doesn’t shield you from grief and loss. It doesn’t protect you from losing your footing and the kind of unconditional love parents can provide. You never stop looking for them. Sometimes I glimpse my parents in the face of a stranger, in the mannerism of a person walking by or in someone’s voice that sounds like one of theirs. 
 
Somehow, your parents remain a constant factor in your life, even when they are gone. And in the lives of our hunting heroes they are still of huge importance.
 
‘We orphans, we lament to the world: World, why have you taken our soft mothers from us and the fathers who say: My child, you are like me! We orphans are like no one in this world anymore!’

       -  Nelly Sachs, Chorus of the Orphans.
 
Both brothers have a dissimilar approach to their parents’ loss, simply because both have experienced them differently. Sometimes I like to think of Dean as the luckier one, as he knew both his parents. He remembers Mary, and many memories probably are as vivid as that moving scene in Dark Side of the Moon when Mary cuts off the crusts from his breakfast bread. But then again, having known her, having been the recipient of her warmth and kindness, the awareness of that terrible loss must eat away at him in a very painful way.
 
Is it better to not know what we have lost? Sam never met his mother. Without the pictures he wouldn’t even know what Mary looked like. He had an idea of her and he loved that idea and what he thought his mother might have been like. For the first time he saw her in that brief moment in Home, and then she was gone again. Forever, as Missouri informed the devastated young hunter. She had sacrificed herself, her spirit, to protect her children. It took almost five seasons of this show to allow Sam really meet his mom for the first time, in The Song Remains the Same. To get to know something of her soul, of her courage and warmth which hopefully will have helped him to establish a memory of hers to sometimes cling to when loneliness creeps up his spine.
 
It might be the natural order of things that parents die before their children. In ‘the life’ of a hunter the probability of an early death is taken for granted, but when it happens, the sheer inevitability is no cushion to the pain.

Even though Sam and Dean were aware from childhood on that the world they were raised into was a dangerous one, probably assuming that they would be able to handle those dangers well, their world was still somewhat basically safe – so far, John had always returned from his ‘hunting trips’ more or less in one piece, and they have been trained well in all kinds of combat techniques thanks to their Marine dad. They held on to that notion. 
 
After that car crash John had recovered well, and both brothers felt safe to think that he was going to be around for much longer. But then John made that deal with Azazel and the whole apocalyptic train was set in motion. John needed to be the righteous man to break the first seal, Dean became a welcome replacement, since John didn’t do what was expected of him in hell, etc. You know the story.
 
Losing their father in a moment they thought everything was going to be somewhat okay, threw them in a storm of guilt, grief and loss that quickly took on a life of its own. The impact of his loss went way beyond burning his remains and sorting out what he might have expected of them. 

There was a deep sense of rudderlessness, as there was no one there anymore. Their family was gone. There was no warning, no time for good-byes of any kind. And since both had had a different relationship with John, they were crying and grieving for different reasons. We saw that in the lack of communication between them in the aftermath and their mismatched ways of coping.
 
‘To complete relationships, people have to say five things: Forgive me.  I forgive you. Thank you. I love you. And good-bye.’

        - Ira Byock
 
The sudden nature of both their parents’ deaths caused many questions to unfold, and not all of those were answered. They had to face, at first, their inability to solve this new problem. The fact of being the last of their family (Adam wasn’t a part of it, yet).

What we found in their behaviour were signs of high mental distress, trauma symptoms, interpersonal problems, delayed loss accommodation. Their relationship was rocked profoundly and guilt hung like the proverbial sword above their heads. Furthermore, they didn’t really enter any kind of mourning process that would help them to smooth the psychological integration of the loss.  I think to this day they haven’t really mourned their parents. 
 
As a child, Dean didn’t know how to do it, and I hope that John provided the comfort needed – but we haven’t heard about anything in that department from the show. As an adult, Dean avoided the subject. He pushed Sam, who wanted to talk about it, away. Dean was scared out of his wits to even touch the matter.
 
Not alone the death of John was tragic, but also that it occurred off-time in life. It was a premature death. The Winchester brothers needed to find a way to support each other and to use that support, but it took them quite some time to come to terms with it, well, more or less, and to acknowledge their feelings.

What remained was a lingering presence of their father, even more than the idea of their mother had been, and I wonder if they have managed by now to establish a new bond with them. Because that is essentially important to cope with and survive the death of a loved one, in particular one’s parents. 
 
We know today that the violent loss of a loved one is often associated with various indicators of dysfunction. Mary’s loss catapulted the family into a circle of dysfunctional behaviour that became an integral part of their lives. They didn’t create any rituals to cope with that loss (which is necessary to cope with loss, for instance in some cultures people wear black for a year, as I have done after my parents died, people have a mass read for their lost ones, etc).
 
Their coping strategy was embarking on a revenge trip. First, John fuelled it, and then it was taken over by his sons. Though it served its purpose, the results didn’t bring them peace.
 
Suddenly, they were alone. Bobby is a surrogate father, ‘the closest thing I have to a father’, as Dean pointed out, but he is the closest thing, he’s not the father. Family doesn’t end with blood, true, but there is a difference. Even such a close relationship can’t replace what is lost.
 
When parents are gone, the primary archivists of our history are gone. They witnessed our first steps, were around when we fell in love for the first time, and they were the connection between their generation (and that of their parents) and ours. If we were lucky they walked beside us, teaching and guiding us and loving us unconditionally, an anchor nothing or no one else could provide.
 
There once was a place we called home within the relationship with our parents. That has changed. The moment our parents have died, we finally have to grow up completely. Our childhood ends, as we are no longer anyone’s child. Those who have been around during our childhood and youth, marking our journey to adulthood, transform us into adults when they go. Because that’s what we have to be from that moment on. There is no older generation anymore. No defense between us and the grave. 
 
It’s more difficult when we didn’t believe to be unconditionally loved.
 
I think both Winchesters have experienced that nagging question – is it enough what I do to keep dad love me? Both brothers read conditions into John’s words. John often communicated with his boys using terms of reproach and blame. He blamed Dean for not watching over his baby brother, he reproached Sam for leaving the family to seek higher education. There is no doubt that John loved his boys. He might have been a tad clumsy in his ways of showing that love. I am sure, Sam and Dean knew that John loved them, but I think they didn’t feel it all the time. 

And with dad gone, the last opportunity to set things right was lost, also. 
  
‘There are only three things important in life: To be kind. To be kind. And to be kind.’

           - Guy de Montpassant
 
Sam and Dean survived the loss of their parents. They survived being orphans. But that doesn’t mean that they have managed well to live with that fact. I believe it is very difficult to find any benefits there. But, as I have experienced within my line of work when dealing with patients who have suffered that loss, too, there are. The death of our parents can set us free.

With Mary and John gone, the brothers can use the chance to become their deepest selves, the men they truly are, without having to seek approval of their parents. It can help them to be wiser and more mature and, perhaps, to decide to quit ‘the life’. For Dean it could mean to return to Lisa, and for Sam to find a woman whom he could love and whom he allowed loving him back.

What they didn’t have time to do, so far, was a careful examination of their parents’ legacies. They jumped to continuing the family business, ‘saving people, hunting things’, but what their parents meant for either of them, what impact they had, what of their personal characteristics they wanted to keep and treasure (and find in themselves) is still in the dark. 

It takes time and a conscious review. Many tragic moments have happened in their lives and they have been faced with difficulties that might have driven other people ‘screaming to the nuthouse’.  They didn’t really take the time necessary. They weren’t able to use their parents’ deaths and their own states of being orphans as catalysts to change significant issues in their lives. There is still an obligation within their souls to do what their parents would expect of them – save others, even at the cost of their own lives, for instance. The power especially John had over his sons is still there in their minds. Including the anticipated reproach for their actions their father would not have approved of. 

They, as adult orphans, could have a chance to alter the relationship with their parents. To forgive them, to reinvent them, to choose which advice to accept and which to reject. Some emotional inheritances are worth keeping, others will not serve them well.

In part, I believe, they have begun to do so. We could detect signs of it when Sam spoke to YoungJohn in The Song Remains the Same. Or when Dean heard his father say that he was proud of him in My Time of Dying. As siblings, they have become closer, even dysfunctionally so. They have become more vulnerable to the other’s words, behaviour and decisions, as all they had left was each other.

They came to the brink of being driven irreparably apart by that loss. 

Parents often are the prism through which siblings see each other. They notice ‘typical’ traits that are their parents’ and thus parents often serve as a kind of intermediary between brothers (or sisters, of course). When parents are lost, they are compelled to see each other directly and their bond might change. 
 
Sam and Dean need to redefine their relationship as siblings. And, I believe, to achieve that they need to find a definition to their relationship with their half-brother Adam, as he shares their experience of being an orphan. They are all disconnected now from their own history, as the keepers of that history are no longer available. So, at first it seems as if there is nothing good about losing our parents – apart from knowing that we won’t have to go through that experience ever again. It’s a one-time thing. 

But it is a chance to find a kind of freedom we didn’t know before. And a peace within us that has to come from our deepest being and that is not relying on our parents’ approval. Sam and Dean are not there, yet, but they have every chance to find it, without losing the deep and inseparable bond they have to their mom and dad. It takes courage to be an orphan and to face the world, the sudden emptiness and the pain stemming from it. They have done their best to survive, and still remained essentially good and kind men. Their parents, undoubtedly, would be proud.
 
 
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