Family Secrets

I am back, but I am sure to you it appears I have not left the bonsai designed page of indented paragraphs.

I have found a secluded campsite just outside the city and I think I am safe with only the surrounding branches as a distracting, hum in the back of my head, like classical music heard from a distant room. I may now continue, hopefully with few other distractions.

Many stories are similar in their messages, but no two are the same. Like similar fingerprints of twins, each tale has a uniqueness that cannot be mimicked by another individual. The Streaming of the last story reminded me of how true this fact can be. A few years prior I Streamed a similar story of honesty and the necessity of family that many need in their day to day lives, but told of unspoken secrets that haunt many households. I kept this young lady’s words to add to the others I had collected over the years. I see it only fitting to retell. Perhaps their story will help the clarity of understanding why I devoted my life to retelling the stories of others.

Family Secrets

Hey old man. How is everything? Stop staring at the page in disbelief, yes, this is a letter. You know, the kind people like you used to write and send before the invention of toilet paper and electricity. How old are you now, anyway? Is it just over six hundred or seven hundred years old? I can never remember. I know we haven’t talked much, but you were on my mind so I decided to drop you a line. Sorry I haven’t been home very much over the last few months, but this new job has been sucking up so much of my time I have hardly been able to breathe, let alone make the four hour drive back to see everyone. I know what you’re going to say, “Work is no excuse for ditching family,” and I’m not, it’s just I have a lot to do. With this being my first real job after graduating I want to make a good impression. And besides, you know how I like to stay busy. Mom says I get that from you so you should understand. She does. We both have the need to be perfect in everything we do. The only difference between the two of us is you succeed while I…sorry. I know how you hate it when I do that.

Anyway, how’s Carol? She looks good in the photos you emailed. Short hair suits her, but you probably hate it, being the old fashioned man you are with your stern beliefs that a woman should have long, flowing beautiful hair to represent the extension of her eternal soul. Hopefully you were able to read all that from your firm stance in the 1920’s. Give her a kiss for me, and tell her we have to go to Macy’s this year when I come home for Thanksgiving. That was the one stop we were too exhausted to get to last year so we have to go there first. Don’t roll your eyes. I know you are. We go out every black Friday. It’s an insane tradition of waking up at four in the morning, fighting through crowds, and standing in hour long lines to make sure we are the few, lucky, one hundred individuals who get that free fleece blanket, or crappy mp3 player. It’s stupid, I know, but what else are we going to do on the day after Thanksgiving? Sleep? We’ll leave that to you professor.

Let’s see, what don’t you know about my life? For the most part there’s nothing new. Work is stressful, but fun, Jason and I are doing well, and I’ve been thinking about going back to school. Not right now, of course, but one day. I need to get my masters. As you said, “I’m too smart not to go back to school.” I’m starting to think you were right. Besides that, everything is pretty much the same, for the most part. Except…well, there is one thing.

Actually, it’s the reason for this letter. It’s nothing important, or relevant for that matter, it’s just a photo I found when I was unpacking. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s nothing bad. Nothing like that. To be honest I don’t even know how I ended up with it since I’m not even in the picture. Maybe I stole it the last time I was home because it reminded me so much of Tara, Jasmine, and myself when we were that age. Who knows. It’s of you, when you were a kid. Three, maybe four years old. You’re in a front yard holding hands with Mom, and Uncle Darren. It must have been around Christmas or something because it looks cold and all three of you are dressed up like you’re going to church. Mom is in a black dress, Darren’s in a sweater, and you’re in the ugliest sweater vest I have ever seen in my life! If I had to wear that thing I would have had the same scowl you had on your face. You know how they say some kids are cute when they’re angry? You were not one of them. Just thinking about it makes me want to crack up.

You three looked so different then. Younger, yes, but different in a way I can’t explain. Almost like you’re not even the same people that helped raise me. Like the people in that photo are familiar strangers who I think I’ve met, but I can’t be certain. Is that what time does to you, add so many layers that by the end you’re indistinguishable from who you used to me? It’s frightening to think that my kids, or nieces and nephews will look back on my photos and think the same things about me that I’m thinking about you. I don’t want to forget who I was, but some days I can barely recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror. I guess it comes with getting older, but it’s scary. I know, just as you do, we can’t go back to being those people in those photographs. All we can do is look back, remember, and hold on to a piece of that person as best we can, no matter how hard it may get at times. Easier said than done, right? It still makes me wonder what happened to you three to make you hate one another so much. Especially you and Darren. I’ll probably never know since you or Mom won’t tell me and Uncle Darren’s gone.

Seeing him in that picture really made me miss him. I can’t believe it’s been two years since the accident. It seems wrong in some way that time kept moving so quickly after he died. Almost as if I were betraying him by living from one second to the next while he didn’t. I know he wouldn’t want me to think that way, but it still doesn’t change the way I feel. And I know you may not feel the same way and don’t want to hear all this, but you didn’t give him enough credit when he was alive. I don’t know what happened between you two, but he was a better man than you think he was, and he deserves more respect than you gave him at the funeral. He helped me through a lot. And I know your thinking what he could have possibly helped me through, being the screw up that he was, but he helped me more than you realize. More than any of you realize. I tried to tell to you about it last time we talked, but you got so angry and frustrated I just dropped it. But I can’t just let this go. Not this time. I won’t let this be swept under the rug and forgotten like so many other secrets. You need to quit being so stubborn and listen to what I have to say. I don’t mean to be so forceful, it’s just I love you three so much, but you make me so angry when I have to choose sides, even when one of you has died. It’s because of that simple fact I never told any you or Mom about about…God, how do I write this? So much has been going through my head since Jason and I moved to Ohio I’m not even sure if I can, or want to tell you, but I will. No more secrets.

Did you know I almost dropped out of college my sophomore year? It wasn’t going to be forever, just until things calmed down. There was so much that happened all at once I wasn’t sure I could handle it all. That was the year you and Mom got on me about my grades slipping, and you and Darren got into an argument about it. Do you remember? Uncle Darren thought I was just stressed and needed a break, and you said I just wasn’t concentrating hard enough. I remember that battle between you two because Uncle Darren wouldn’t back down. He normally did, but on that Easter day he didn’t. Afterwards, did you wonder why? Did you ever wonder why he didn’t stop defending me even with you constantly telling him how worthless he was, and how you didn’t want me to end up like him? It’s because he knew something you didn’t. He knew that for the last week I had been at his house staring absently into a TV screen when I should have been in school. He knew something was really wrong with me…because I told him. And do you know what he did? He didn’t ask prying questions, call you or Mom, or try and get me help like I know you would have. He bought me a bus ticket, picked me up at the station, and let me work it out on my own because he knew, without asking, that was the best thing for me. He let me talk to him when I needed to, be alone when I needed to cry, and hold me when all I could do was sit in silence. He was a good uncle whether you admit it or not. What he did, then, meant a lot. It still does.

You see, something happened. Something I don’t want to talk about, and I’m not going to. I’m sorry, I really am, and I love you, but I can’t. Not with you. I’m not telling you all this to make you upset, or to start asking questions. I’m telling you all this to let you know there was a time when things got really bad for me and you had no idea, but Uncle Darren did and he helped me in ways you couldn’t.

Not that you’re a bad uncle. I’m not saying that. What I am saying, is the same way I see different people when I look at that picture of you three standing in front of your old house, all three of you see someone different when you look at me. You and Mom see me as this perfect child; the niece or daughter that gets the good grades, behaves, has the good head on her shoulders, but that’s not the way I feel. I feel average. Although you two see the good in me, there is a lot about me you don’t know, and you never will because you don’t want to. What you want is what you’ve always gotten, the perfect image of a young woman you believed to exist when I am much more complex than that. But because that’s the person you wanted to see that’s the person I became for you and is why I can never tell you about what happened to me. Until you can see me the way Uncle Darren did.

I’m not writing this to hurt you. I’m writing this to tell you I love. And to tell you that I also love Uncle Darren just as much. No more, no less now that he’s gone. No matter what he’s still family and when it boils down to it, family is all we’ve got. I love you Uncle Kevin, and don’t forget to give Carol a kiss for me. Take care of yourself and don’t be angry with me. We’ll talk more later. Until then, I miss you and I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.