Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Returning posts and mixed up uncles

First just a note that over the next while I'll be reposting numerous blogs that I took down when I was going through SSDI approval. I also am hoping to do more work on a blog I have started and not posted about getting SSDI approval successfully. Probably during my post-op time for that. Right now I'm setting projects to do because I am anxious about that time. Second, this is the other thing I'm thinking about. My grandma had 4 sons with the total spacing being 12 years apart. My father was the youngest. There were 2 older boys, gap where a baby was lost, 2 boys. The oldest uncle was somehow not seemingly affected by his childhood. I don't know if my grandfather didn't get crazy immediately or if this uncle just handled it better. I know that my grandfather was terribly abusive to #2 and that #2 passed that on. #2 was such a jerk that nobody, including his children, cried at his funeral. Most thing anyone can remember about him make him look awful. I have evidence from one of my grandma's diaries that he once borrowed my grandparent's entire month of Social Security and didn't pay them back. They had a tiny government annuity but they were living on ice cubes by the end of the month. He was just like that. But I never was around him all that much. A few times a year is all. The only time he lived near me I was still a baby. #3 was kind of like #1. Not angry and violent and hateful. Not deceitful. He was good with us kids and made us feel special. I spent a good bit of time with them because my cousin was 4 months younger and we loved to play together. I loved him dearly. I never once saw a single sign of him being abusive. I don't remember him even being frustrated when we were bad, and we certainly were. When I was about 9 I think his wife left. I can't really remember. But my cousins were staying with us for quite a while. My girl cousin and I were in the same class that year and so we were together constantly during that month. I have never physically spoken to her again. I don't even remember them leaving, which probably is because of the next part. During this period there was a day my father was particularly nasty. All day, everything set him off.That night we were all sat down and told that my uncle was in jail, accused of molesting a couple of boys. (Years later I realized that they were my classmates and they hated me for it.) My uncle, so totally not like the molesters in my family, was gentle and kind and just never gave off creepy. And I have a highly developed sense of creepy. I was too young to understand all of it but there was a plea bargain and my uncle did not serve time. I saw him twice for very short time periods in the rest of his life. He came up to help move my father out of our town and promised me that my father would not come to the house and that the family members moving him had every intention of stopping him from coming to my mom's house any way necessary. And sure enough they got him out of town without something awful. Given his own way I suspect he would have tried to kill us, and we spent the entire day locked up inside to decrease that risk. In the time period just before my father gave up on his foreclosed home he did things to make it as hard as possible for the eventual new owners. He cut electric cables, removed one piece of the custom made (he made it in fact, he was talented at woodworking) trim from each room, and did other damage I don't remember. Removing floorboards? Can't remember). So my uncle helping with that was very big as he was risking his own life, probably very literally. My cousins were taken by their mother who moved them far away and totally cut off contact with our family. However, both of them joined my uncle when they were old enough to decide legally where they wanted to be. They both had close relationships with him and clearly were not molested by him nor did they worry about it. He babysat his grandchild and nobody worried. I was talking to my mom the other day about him and how every time I think back to him I cannot believe he did what he was accused of. There was nothing bad there. I know what damage from my grandfather did to his brothers, I lived my grandfather's house of horrors and my uncle just didn't have it in him. She agreed, saying there was something funny about that whole thing. And there was. Plea bargain to probation only says they didn't have much evidence. And now I have a horrifying new idea. THere are very dominant jeans in my father's side of the family. I am an exception but most of my cousins are carbon copies. In fact, my uncle's son looks so much like him I've called him by my uncle's name. My uncle and father were only 15 months apart or so and they looked a great deal alike. We know my father was a pedophile. The boys molested that day wouldn't know my father. I have a very strong suspicion that my father molested the boys and my uncle took the fall. My father had been spending time at my uncle's, preparing the house for sale I think. He had opportunity and we know that's all it took for him. I don't know why my uncle covered it up. He may have felt helpless, that he couldn't accuse his brother or that nobody would believe him since they did look alike. He may have felt the consequences would be less for him since my father's job as a teacher would attract a lot of publicity. (So did the plea bargain, including I believe death threats). I have no proof but I do have a strong sense my guess is right. I'm going to ask y mom if she thinks there is any chance of this since she agrees my uncle was not who you'd think of molesting anyone. In fact I remember one of the hurtful things I overheard during that was my mother saying that she had always felt that child molesters should be locked up for life but knowing my uncle she didn't feel like that anymore. I know that she wasn't referring to my grandfather, who I truly think she she would have castrated herself if she lived in another time or culture. But at that time I did not know that and I thought if she felt that about my uncle than she surely meant my grandfather wasn't so awful and she could feel sorry for him. I didn't know she even knew at that point and that led to more confusion because I'd always heard a note of hate in her voice for molesters and then suddenly it was gone. I will never understand. I'll never know. I just picture my father and uncle both working in jeans and undershirts, both with wavy dark brown hair, the same size, the same relative age, similar voices and the same body language and I wonder if a 9 year old could have mistaken one from the other. I know my father was never in a linep or anything so they may have never been presented with Door #2. Somehow this PTSD thing I've done has made me better able to fill in blanks and feel confident about them. Partly because it doesn't matter, even if that did happen nothing can change it, and partly because I have gotten to see that my memories make a rational story line without major gaps or things that couldn't have happened. I got confused with my Dr. Mind homework. I tried and then realized I was trying my words in knots. So hopefully he'll accept this instead. Good-night. I hope. Copyright 2006 www.masterofirony.blogspot.com

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