America the poor: A Wanderers Tale, Volume One

Chapter 34: An Unfair Decision, and moving on again

Out of all my relatives, Uncle Joe and his wife Sandy were both my favorites certainly. Joe for his wonderful humor and quirkiness, and I genuinely liked him. He always seemed jovial, with a quick smile, and very unassuming; He loved both receiving, and playing jokes on any and all within his range.

I remember a particular lawn party they had around 1979, and he was half drunk, and wore a giant diaper the entire day in the sun, just for the laughs. He had an infectious smile, and seemed to enjoy making others laugh.

I have no doubt he was very good at his job in politics, as a "man of the people", he was certainly talented socially. It's a shame he didn't feel the same way towards me, but my mother was the ultimate "black sheep" in my entire family, and she was a pariah in every possible way, hated and despised, and I was her only eccentric son.

So I guess the reputation carried over to me, even though I was the total opposite of her, in literally every way. Where she was the embodiment of pettiness, I was open minded, where she was unintelligent, I was a young genius, where she was shallow, I was amazingly deep, where she was materialistic, I only cared about knowledge and learning on my own. I was the complete opposite of her in every way that truly mattered, and I hoped the rest of the family would see this somehow, someway.

They really didn't see this about me, or at least didn't show it that much if they did. My mother was pretty much universally despised among all the members of the family, she was the outcast and the ultimate black sheep, and I was her only issue. I was an innocent, yet tainted by her being my mother. She was always lowbrow, pettiness and anger were her defining traits, from the very youngest age, as my aunt also attested to many years later.

Only my grandmother seemed to feel even a minor sympathy for her, and even she was rejected quite often by my mother, to her detriment as well as mine. She would bring groceries to the house, every week, and my mother would make it quite known it wasn't appreciated, although I suspect my grandmother did it more for me, then my mother.

I was still very much an innocent boy, and had made no real choices as of yet, but my mother had. So I think to this day, when my relatives saw me, they only saw my monstrous mother in me, just by virtue of my birth.

So I think to this day, when my relatives saw me, they saw my unredeemable mother in me, just by virtue of my birth, but they weren't really seeing me, who I really was, and I'm not sure they ever really did.

They were going through the motions, almost like a familial obligation, they almost had no choice, at least it was the proper thing to do. One thing the rest of the family was, it was proper. Everyone was upper middle class, except for my mother, she was dirt poor, and so by extension I was as well.

Every member of the family had a house of their own, and sometimes for many years, and always cars, and careers, and lives of material significance. My mother had nothing, and existed via welfare, and the generosity of New York state, otherwise I would have been living on a sidewalk since my birth.

My mother wasn't just a black sheep, she was a total pariah, and much of the family thought her unworthy of any help whatsoever. Her only advocate was my grandmother, coincidentally also named Elizabeth. Somehow she still had some empathy for my mother, although I'm not sure how or even WHY.

My mother did literally everything she ever could do to burn her past bridges. Yet my grandmother tried to help her, and me, whenever she could. I have a very early memory of her having a full sized electronic organ delivered to our small apartment, which I truly loved more than any present, and played on literally everyday.

Yet it was gone within a single month, sold by my mother for mere cigarette money, sadly. I never truly recovered from that loss, and I never forgave my mother for that crime of the soul.