Within days of my father “kicking the bucket,” I was off to a family friend’s house. There, I’d be given some “recovery time,” a period to grieve, while doing my best to stay focused on school.

This ideology ended up working out as well, in the long-run, as a rebuilt post-1970’s Ford Pinto(©) engine. Displacing me that quickly, after losing such a figure in my own life, was a disastrous idea from the start. It resulted in absolute distance from immediate “allies,” which at that point, felt like a ticking time-bomb of an idea… set to inevitably go off at the worst possible time. I had no idea it’d all end up guiding me in the ways it did… or that the journey would yield these “lessons,” lessons I’d go on to ponder the depth of for years thereafter.

Truthfully, had I let those paternally-allied characters that my parents knew become my mentors, I’d have gotten absolutely nowhere. Though they “wanted the best for my sister & I,” it was always an insincere gesture. In every instance of their opportunities to truly help my sister or I, they ended up absent. As an adult, whenever medical hardship was upon me, allies always quickly revoked invitations into their homes… sometimes, without my conditions even showing symptoms. The same relatives that gave me the “we’ll always be here for you” bullshit as a youth… now disposed of me as trivially as commonplace waste.

Though obstacles in life, if even philosophical, reveal themselves to you along your path, it’s key not to trip-up… but, instead, to recalculate, and then more carefully take a different type of step. Throughout your time here with us… mid-route alternations, plan-B’s, changes-of-course morally, even alternating philosophical goals or ideological “destinations,” will “offer” themselves… and maybe even classify as “optional” somehow. Few will understand your own personal journey, just as so few of us understand unfamiliar people we glance at. Similarly then, and naturally, so few of us will understand the personal journeys of so many that we’re closest to.

Whether younger or older, I began losing “relatives” early in life. Experiencing the deaths of others early was like a ceremonial rite by such an age… almost as though if you hadn’t seen so many die, you weren’t truly “in.” If I can influence anything contributorily from here… this current generation of my family will see nothing close to what I had to. The best I can do is be more loving, more caring, more responsible, more honest, more attentive & more considerate… than my own parents were. As with anyone & anything… a team-effort’s key is cooperation. Take for example the image to the right, which includes three generations of my family in one photo. I don’t even want to get into how well-supported by my Grandmother her daughter & granddaughters were.

On that token… when I fell to my lowest, needed to get away from a mother that was slowly committing alcoholic suicide… and I had nowhere to go, she opened her doors. She was always there… for all of us. I lived with her for just more than 500 days… then, Mom became aware of “habits” I’d acquired, and retrieved me with haste. Grandma hadn’t done anything wrong. Rather, she’d just let me wander freely in the most locally “negative” possible neighborhood… in the worst state-of-mind, with the most pessimistic attitude.

She did what she knew to… which was to let me “relieve my own emotions,” my own ways. She never asked me about having been gone for days at a time. I checked-in with her, made sure she was alright and did what needed to be done around the pad… then, I carried on with my day/night/habits. Although it’s a period I regret in large part… it’s also a time, during cataclysmic loss, that she was there for me throughout. Through childhood, then into adult life, my own family wasn’t even there to “remind” me of what family really was. She’d always been there.

I began living on my own, then creating the type of atmosphere I needed, at 17 years old. Only then did I achieve true peace of mind, ability to focus and the capacity to professionally concentrate. As I say “I,” including my “first love” in the “I” formulation, PLEASE notice I’ve observed the “mistake” she was… and I came to bypass that mistake emotionally, in time. Through her “teachings,” I again learned (this time, from a different angle) the importance of prioritizing your own most beloved. Time spent bedside with a dying Grandparent was, instead, mostly wasted on a whore & her bastard daughter. While I focused on moving out of an alcoholic mother’s house to achieve more peaceful blowjobs… my most beloved elder was dying, and I had no idea.

The love I’ll always have for my long-lost Grandma is irrevocable. By way of patience, love, a firm-but-gentle approach, and an unmistakable tone… her presence captivated my childlike mind. Always so caring & generous, yet so unsuspecting & almost “happily ignorant to it all”… she was there whenever called upon by my mother, if even just to babysit my Sister & I. Grandma & I would go out to breakfasts with my Uncle, a brother of hers, regularly. Both of them passed within a handful of years of each other. Each instance of deceasing was as saddening to me as the one opposite. Pivotal family to me… irreplaceable family… was now irrevocably gone.

Diamonds to me are as irreplaceable as tinfoil. Grandma was a different type of gem. It’s not as though they don’t make them like her anymore… they’ve never made ’em like her to start with. It’s not even like it’ll be a long time before there’s another “her.” There will never be another woman like my Grandmother.

Though Mom taught me tolerance for those who helplessly disappoint us, and Dad taught me patience for the recklessly abusive… Grandma taught me how to love, how to appreciate life, and most importantly, how to be happy despite the bullshit. Once Mom & Dad passed away, despite how brutally & unfairly. Grandma outlived both of them for as long as physically possible. To me, it felt (still feels) like she did that to make sure my Sister & I would “be alright.” That alone was impressive, but to have supported so much… so far beyond the years she would actually be fairly expected to by so many others… is a feat above & beyond. I’ve never known, or known of, another woman like her. To have carried her name, for any amount of time, is an honor. God bless this woman. I know she’s resting happily.


“You gotta know I’m looking up… oh, so proud…”

~Eddie Vedder