Christmas and Childhood in Disfunction

 I had a strange upbringing. I have made it my life's mission to be as steady and ordinary and mundane and boring as I can be. 

Christmases were an odd mix when I was young. Yes, there was the hope of toys that would thrill me and keep me occupied. Maybe a better word for that would be 'distracted'. 

Family would pour into our humble farmhouse from all over. My Mom's sisters and one remaining brother descended on us. Uncle Basil was great. He was quiet and unassuming. He was the (most noticeable) family drunk, and treated with shame by the rest because they exhibited their dysfunction in other ways that they considered higher than alcoholism. Uncle Basil never pummeled a defenseless, innocent child. In his very soft, patient voice, he taught me how to play checkers, and we played many games together. He taught me the best way to remove the peeling from an orange is to firmly roll it around under the palm of your hand on a table or countertop. 

Uncle Basil became an alcoholic because he was rejected for WWII active service due to a heart murmur. His brother, Sid, was accepted. Something happened the night before Uncle Sid was shipped out, and Uncle Basil and Uncle Sid got in a big fight upstairs and crashed through the banister in their Beachburg house and fell to the floor below. They didn't make up before Uncle Sid was shipped out. I never met my Uncle Sid. He was sent to the Italian front and was killed in action there. Uncle Basil never forgave himself for fighting with his younger brother and not making amends with him, whom he really did love, and numbed himself with alcohol for the rest of his life. 

There was another uncle on that side who's name I can't even remember. He died around the time I was born. Maybe of alcoholism too. I don't know for sure. It just came to me: Randolph. I was think along the lines of Leonard, which I knew had to be wrong, but it was Uncle Randolph. I have no idea what he even looked like, but apparently Dad liked him and they were on good terms. 

My last uncle on my Mom's side, Uncle George, was equally as much an alcoholic, but I don't remember my aunts being as hard on him for it. I believe Uncle Sid's loss also played a heavy part in Uncle George becoming an alcoholic as well. The grief of the loss of their baby brother ran deep in the family. His wife Edith was his match for the bottle. In their later years they would drink together until they passed out right at the table in their little upstairs apartment in downtown Pembroke. It was terrible. I don't know where they got the money to do it. It really didn't help things for Uncle Basil that they called their firstborn of three daughters Sidone, or Sid for short. Living in the same town Uncle Basil must have heard the name Sid all the time, probably making his last moments with his brother fresh with each stabbing instance. 

Uncle George was sweet and kind. While I don't really remember much about him, a vignette of him floats around in the wispy cobwebs of the back rooms of my mind of him holding my sister's and my hand as he took us for a walk on the sidewalks of Pembroke on a snowy, Christmas-y evening, while he fondly told us how much he loved us; "I want you both to know: I love you kids, and I love you dearly". He knew he was going to die. 

Uncle George was the first in my memory to be killed by his alcoholism, followed very soon after by his wife, and then, it took Uncle Basil from me. The only alcoholism I was left with was my Mom's. And people wonder why I won't drink a drop of it.

There was so much resentment in my Mom's large family. At Christmas, there'd be passive Uncle Basil, and all of his riotous sisters at our farm. The most stable, in order were, Aunt Flo, the dead-steady, no-nonsense, indisputable rock of the family. Then Aunt Pansy, my favorite aunt and the life of the party. Then Aunt Mary, who ran a boy's home in Ottawa. Then petite Aunt Eunice, who had polio in the early 1950's and wore braces on her legs and one arm. Then Aunt Susie, I guess. Then Aunt Katie, who was as crazy as a bedbug. 

Aunt Susie loved my sister. Adored her. Or used apparent adoration as a means to accomplish her agenda. She hated me. She would get in a grinding tooth of vile hatred slap or cuff at me whenever she could sneak it. You don't squeal on an abuser out of fear of it getting worse. One of my last memories of her is for a good reason: when I was 5 years old, during one of her 'visits', Dad banished her out of our house for attacking me in his presence. She made the stupidest mistake of her life that night. Hitting me up until that point was always on the sly. Growing bolder, that time she hit me in front of Dad. Finally going too far, after supper she just smashed me over the head with her fat, heavy arm and flattened me on the kitchen floor. Chipped tooth enamel sprayed around inside my mouth. I hit the deck so hard my nose and mouth and chin struck it. Dad told me later in life when he first came off the couch, she was going straight out the West kitchen window between the counter and stove. Dad could pick up a solid 325 pound stier and set it over a fence. A 350 blob of fat would be no effort whatsoever to him, especially if he was angry. Being a man of well-recognized and displayed power and a fearful temper if you aroused it, but also a gentleman with reservation, he caught himself in the 10 or 12 feet before he got to her and she survived the event intact. I was taken out of her reach and what had to be a terrifying and absolutely unforgettable dressing down for her took place. She was told she was allowed to stay the night - only barely - and he would drive her anywhere she wanted to go in the morning and that was it. She was never allowed to return. Ever. 

I remember the evil, unrepentant old b*tch sitting blubbering in the rocking chair in the kitchen the next morning saying, "I know where I'm not wanted!" No kidding. Good riddance. I was that young and innocent and yet had developed that much of an attitude towards her. And it was completely of her own doing and making. No apology. No promising not to do it again. Just the guilty as sin trying to flip the situation and playing the innocent victim instead. Dad was being hard on her and that was all there was to it. Not her almost concussing a defenseless child. 

You don't need people like that in your life. I think her husband, Steve, died just to get away from her. For good. He was apparently a pretty decent man, just attached to a pretty awful woman.

Dad was true to his word. She never got back. I never missed her. Several years later she died in bed in Aunt Flo's house in Beachburg during a visit there. From that last day at the farm she never got to hurt me again. As off the wall crazy as my Aunt Katie was, she never hit me. She wouldn't. Hurting a child wasn't in her. She was crazy, not evil. There's a big difference and it was readily displayed between the two of them. 

Someone hurting one of his children in front of him was staring Death right in the face. Dad was for certain not a man to be trifled with. For dead certain. My Mom wouldn't report abuse of my sister to Dad because she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt he would have jumped in the car, drove right over, and killed the man responsible with his bare hands. I mean unmercifully and unstoppably beat him right to death. And she would be left alone while he unjustly languished in prison. Let me be perfectly clear: People like that need killing. I have no qualms with that. The only admonition to that I have is "Vengeance is Mine", sayeth the Lord. It was selfish of her, but it did result in me having my Dad with me as long as he lived and I am grateful for that. The man he would without question have brought to terminal justice is now deservedly doing his time. As God sternly warned, it'll be awful. And it won't end for him. Ever.

At Christmas, whatever all the built-up family resentment was, it always spilled over at that time of year. I guess it only could at that time of year because that was thankfully the only time they were all together. I was too young to understand any of it. Well, maybe even not too young. I never understood anything of mature content when I was a kid. My sister did but I didn't. Everything adult flew out of reach over my head. The most bizarre of all Christmas traditions was Mom's sisters of sitting at the kitchen table, each with a task for Christmas supper - and somehow carrying it out - while all seven of them carried on a raucous, bawling, at least TEN way fight pointing their fingers back and forth at each other. 

Uncle Basil quietly and passively played checkers with me in the living room. Oddly, the most inebriated of them in physicality would be the most sober in demeanour. I'd be sitting cross-legged on the floor and Uncle Basil on the couch and we had the checkerboard between us on the coffee table. Dad either sat in his rocking chair in the den, or in the arm chair in the living room. This particular season he was sitting in the armchair in the living room, trying to nap and distance himself from the chaos.   

Dad was always quiet and soft spoken. Until he wasn't. The howling and bawling and hurling accusations destroying his peace and finally getting the best of him, he launched himself out of his chair and landed in the kitchen in a couple of bounds. In a deafening roar, he told them all to knock it off, be quiet, and get along, or there would never be another Christmas for them all in this house. When an alpha male's alpha male like Dad lost his temper, hold this in no doubt: He had everyone's undivided attention. Chagrinned peace and order was immediately restored, and that was it.  

That was the last large family Christmas gathering at the farm. I guess Dad, later ruminating on the situation, knew that they would regardless do the same thing again next year and put his foot down and didn't allow it after that. I didn't miss that craziness much either. We spent part of Christmas Day in Aunt Flo's house after that. And then we went home. Nobody got to stay with us. That was so much better.

People have always wondered why I don't make a big thing of big family Christmasses. Or get togethers or parties of any sort. That's why. As much as I hate alcohol, I also absolutely hate drama and chaos. I won't allow myself to be dragged into it. The first hint of drama signifies my absence. Some people thrive on drama. Then others like me despise it with every fiber of their being. If someone doesn't like me, I will cultivate their dislike to keep them as far away as possible. That keeps drama to a minimum. Frig off and stay frigged off. If you can "be civil", as Dad would put it, you're welcome. If you want or try to bring drama, you're not.  As simple as that. And I sure as heck won't go near you. 

Family get togethers should be warm and loving and peaceful. Not like the way my sister and I experienced when we were little. The Jehovah's Witnesses later stole her from us and Christmas was pretty much over altogether at that point. Aunt Susie tried to turn her against Dad and Mom and I when she was younger, but especially Dad and I. The equally demonic, despicable JW cult finished the job. I only saw Dad cry twice in my life. The second time was when my Mom was the last of her family to die of alcoholic misery. The first was when my sister, whom Dad called, Little Pet, joined that satanic cult. 

Emotional scars can run deep in a person. Life events take their toll. Some bad things are truly accidental and unavoidable. Others are directly attached and attributable to who you allow to be in your life. Be wise and be wary and always be on the watch. Especially for your children and grandchildren.