Whenever my father talked about his childhood I pictured him and twelve other kids, stuck in a small run down shack in the middle of fields with my grandmother trying to hold them together. Have you ever seen White Earth? So many parts look desolate and abandoned. They call it White Earth for a reason, because the ground when you dig it up is white clay. Abandonment is what I picture as they fade out of my thoughts through the tall prairie grasses with the strum of her guitar. I used to think that the Bunkers had a curse cast onto them. I made up stories about how it all came about maybe one day when my grandfather drunk at the bar sold his soul and the rest of ours too on a bar tab. Generations he guaranteed of lives that could forever be destroyed in horrible ways picked off one by one while we all thought we just had a string of bad luck. My mother said that when he died, he screamed horrible sounds of pain from his cancer. Wailing like the devil himself was taking him back into the flames slowly limb by limb. His skin peeling inch by inch. "He was a horrible man," she would say. I only know the very few details that managed to escape her lips about my fathers upbringing. He beat on whoever he could and when my grandmother died he decided to move into the bar as his permanent residence so all of the 13 children they had where split up across the wide state of Minnesota.
I grew up constantly thinking that something bad was always around the corner. That no matter how good things were going something was inevitably going to go wrong. How could things go right? with the Bunker curse. All of my uncles have been murdered, the Aunts that have past away have all died horrible long deaths. My cousin drove her Husband to hang himself. My other cousin so distraught over my Aunt dying overdosed and past away on heroin. The last memory I have of him, he was clinging to my aunts casket at the Indian center not willing to let go. I later heard he slept by her side the entire night. She was my favorite aunt. She took me to eat my first ethnic meal, Chinese food at a fancy restaurant. She always bought me jewelry when I was little and made me feel so special. She also was incredibly beautiful that men fell to her feet. So much so, her sisters husband could not resist her temptation and his wife, my Aunt Deb found my beautiful aunt and her husband in bed together. This according to my family drove my Aunt Deb into the mental hospital, where she past away there.
I only met my aunt Deb once and whenever she left the room whoever was next to me would make it a point to lean over to me and whisper "she hasn't always been like that, when we were young she was totally different, completely normal like you and me"
The curse did not escape my father, just a year before he was about to retire and a month after my niece died in a car accident he got news of his terminal cancer. For me now that I'm older, I'll be honest I look back on my life and I've missed a lot of opportunities. Alot of things I messed up because I was so scared things where going to fall apart again. I would sabotage them before they had a chance to surprise me. I thought, I wouldn't let the curse get me but to my surprise this is what the curse was all along. Our insecurity. Our ability to love but our inability to let things go. Sure, I have my sad stories like the rest, but looking back at this year, it has been one of the best years I've had in a while besides baby Steve passing away. As I get older I've realized there is nothing that will ever protect you from harm. Its just going to happen. You can let it guide the rest of your life and live in heartbreak, or you can open your heart and live and at least have all of these great experiences. I've slowly started to open my heart, I guess become more and more the person I always have been deep inside, what people who have been close to me have always seen but I have not always been able to show and I'm forever grateful that I have been able to see the light, the way out.
I miss baby Steve so much. I'm glad he was still in this world, even for a little bit. I think about him, the last night I saw him before they took him off his life support. He look like a little angel. I think about him laying there in only his tiny pampers, glowing, radiating. His dark locks soften to a blonde as they curl along his face. Just like in the pictures of angels that I've always seen. His image that night and Pastor Wees smiling face on my computer are the most comforting images that I can feast my eyes upon. They make me know for sure, there is something greater out there for you and me. They don't tell me what it is, but they make me feel the peace and the evidence of spirituality.
I hope your year had been just as great as mine. If it hasn't, no need to worry. That's the thing about years, they keep coming. Soon, one of them will be waiting with a great bounty for you. I have no real resolutions, maybe to not eat as many cookies. Definitely continue on the path to be open and nice. For example the other day while I was cleaning the apartment building on New Years Day so many people came up to me to talk to me and to thank me for cleaning (which was so nice). I wasn't in the mood really for small talk, as I was tired and a little hung over but I stayed and talked. One person even offered me cookies, and as much as I LOVE cookies I wasn't in the mood to eat any but still ate them anyways to be nice. Small talk, taking stuff that people offer even though you really don't want it, all gestures of connecting, being nice. So remember that in the new year, to try to take the time out, be patient. Other then that, maybe play some more music. Happy New Year!
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