I found my uncle on FaceBook.
Okay, well, technically he isn’t my uncle anymore. My (horrible, terrible, awful human being) aunt divorced him shortly after my cousin’s death way back in 2001. And I have had no contact with my uncle, my H*******masa (“masa” means “my mother’s sister’s husband”) since then.
He was the only older relative I ever got on with really well. The only one I felt ever loved me. Just so you know, I had two in all (in the USA, that I actually knew; everyone else was still in India [so many relatives there], and remember: I grew up before FaceBook and the internet as we know it) – the other one was his wife, my mother’s sister.
My aunt is a hard woman. We do not get on well at all, and I have no trust in her; yet, I look up to her as a woman. She raised, after the death of her oldest son and a kind of nasty divorce, my cousin and put him through private school on her own. She maintained a thriving job as an occupational therapist, while also pursuing her education and recently (well, a year ago) achieving the rank of PHD in her field. Regardless of our relationship, she is a woman to be admired. She has a backbone, she doesn’t back down ever, and she is fierce as all hell unleashed. She also is nasty and mean; the lady will cut you down in such a sweet tone that it will leave your head spinning, trying desperately to understand the understated insult she slid into your bones.
That being said, she is vindictive, selfish, horrible, and will stomp on others if it makes her look good. I am her favorite stomping ground.
I don’t think my aunt hates me, or even has anything really against me. The bone she has to pick is with my mother; I’m just an easy target. See, my younger cousin and I are only two months apart in age, and he is so beautifully successful. My cousin is an Air Force special ops pilot. He is so badass and cool and amazing and I love him so much. Not as much, or as deeply, as I did his older brother, but I love him more than myself and would easily sacrifice any happiness I could ever have just to make sure he comes home safe. He is my brother, and I couldn’t imagine life without him.
However, my aunt’s favorite hobby has been pitting him directly against me. It started out a losing proposition, because I was placed a year advanced in school from him (even though he is older) due to my reading comprehension and language skills at a young age. As years went on, any time I succeeded in anything, He kipped at my toes. I did choir, got admitted to chamber choir; he did the same, but got a solo. I played soccer, he played lacrosse but made varsity and was a school hero. I got booted off my team for red cards because I couldn’t stop slide tackling.
There was never a real competition. The man is now an Air Force Special Ops; he attended the Air Force Academy (which you have to have 2 senators write you letters of recommendation for), he actually graduated, he’s handsome and strong and just a generally great guy. What am I? Well, I haven’t done anything, really. I have some pets? I work a mediocre job? With no degree? But…and this is such a lame kicker.
I’m the one engaged. My cousin isn’t, he IS dating a beautiful, successful doctor, but he will be re-stationed to the USA again soon, and she practices in the UK. I want her to leave her practice there and make my cousin happy, but I’m worried that won’t happen. And so is my aunt. Because if I get married first, have babies first, then she loses no matter what. Thanks to being the children of immigrants, mine and my sister’s worth come down, at the end of the day, reproduction.
I don’t wanna win this battle. And I don’t think I will. I want to marry The Fiance, and have a beautiful life with him, but I don’t always see kids in that picture. I’d be lying if I didn’t consider them, but kids are expensive and take up so much time. And effort. And I’d rather write and hug my dogs and drink wine.
To get back to the main point: my aunt hates my mother’s success, and thus hates me as a biological product of that success. Unlike her siblings, my mother had a love marriage; her and my father chose each other. All my other aunts and uncles were matched by family/etc. My aunt didn’t choose her first husband, the father of her children; her parents did. And I believe she has been bitter about that ever since. My mother is the oldest of her siblings; the four under were all matched, not love marriages. Only my one aunt’s has failed. I’ll let that fact speak for itself.
My aunt remarried, to a doctor who is the former husband of her former best friend. For years, and still, rumors have abounded that she had an affair with him while he was still married. While I cannot stand the woman, I do not believe this to be true. She’s too proud to ever be “the other woman.” I know my aunt; she’s just too resilient and self-sufficent.
This post was supposed to be about reconnecting with the uncle I haven’t spoken to in 15 years, but he hasn’t messaged me back. Maybe he won’t, but I know my H******masa and he will.
Once upon a time, I would visit Kentucky ever summer break for two weeks. Those days would be spent with my cousins, one four years older and so bored by the gabbing of his sibling and silly cousin. They were heady days; I was obsessed with my two males cousins, because they were so different from me (they played violin instead of piano, my GOD) The younger one and I lived in constant fear of my older cousin, because he was so much taller and bigger and had a guitar. We worshipped him, but knew well enough to leave him be to grown up things. Roses grew around the kitchen window, and my cousin and I would make complicated mazes from cardboard for his hamster while his older brother looked on, chaffing under the restraint of being forced to watch two tiny relatives.
M***** has been gone from this planet for almost 15 years. K***** is fighting a war that doesn’t really exist, miles away from me. I am alone. His plane could be shot down at any moment, and all my horrible aunt, who put everything into her sons and sacrificed so much for them, would be reduced to a useless shell of a being. And she would never, ever, know how much I truly love and respect her. That is heartbreaking to me, and I know I could change it…but the woman is fucking awful.
I will try to find, and speak with, and rebuild a relationship with, the man she left. He is still my uncle, my masa, no matter what.
Tales of a Sad Sack 