Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Another person died...

Can you tell me how many funerals were performed or observed over the "Todos Santos/All Saints Day" weekend?

How many people died?

Did you know any of them?  Or did you know all of them?

I'm certain there are data bases on the internet that supply the stats of how many people are born and die in any given day on this planet.  I am also certain that most of those deaths would be considered deaths and not trajedies.

Years ago, if I am correct, my mother explained to me her belief that the endings of all relationships are felt as certain deaths...  It may have also been my mother that explained that milestones or the terminating of eras, such as the graduating high school or the terminating Division II of Hampshire College and entering the higher stage of the Division III thesis writing is approached with fear and dread and possibly the subconscious sabotaging of advancement to the next rung as if we were about to die...

I may be wrong.  All these ideas may have been from someone else.  In any case, they stuck with me. 

We don't like change.  And all change is a form of death.  When you advance to another level and your friends stay at the same level, you tend to lose those friends... for them, the part of you they enjoyed, maybe that part of you that was more playful and less serious, had died.  And they are resentful that you left them behind.  

Somewhere way back when I read about the various stages of grief and mourning.  And one stage is Rage at having been left behind by the deceased.  So, your friends who stayed behind or whom you left behind are resentful towards you because you left them behind, you abandoned them... Not much different than if they were entering that rageful stage of mourning your death, although you hadn't died.

My father died when I was 4.5 years old.  And my mother "changed...  And I lived much of my life dealing with the aftermath of my father's death and my mother's "change"...  I had to deal with two very heavy losses at a very young age and find myself constantly having to adjust to socio-environmental changes, such as the entrance into preschool and elementary school and middle school and high school along with the appearance of many different men courting my mother during the 70s (consolidation of the free-love movement.  Did you see the movie "Ice Storm"?).  Not only did she disappear how many nights and weekends with those different faces, she disappeared in her schooling and then her working...  Not only did we experience a revolving door of Men for Marsha, we saw a revolving door of women and young women temporary caretakers (babysitters) all scared away by a very possessive and jealous Sheri.  And all of this began two weeks after the death of my father...  

What we didn't see were the faces of family members who innately cared for and about us in our home on a weekly basis; no uncles, no grandparents...  

Do you remember all the times I wanted to run away from a very early age?  

Like death having many different metaphoric faces, running away does too...  Suicide may not actually be the desire to die, but the desire to escape, much like running away...  

Sometimes, when the child runs away, the adults ask, what is happening in the child's household.  However, when the child becomes suicidal, the adults don't ask.  They comment... that the child is mentally ill...  

How many of the adults that sat around the Goldstein-Nacht post-Grandpa Harry thanksgiving table cease living?  Uncle Henry, Aunt Jo, Aunt Annabel, Cousin Barry (although he wasn't really there as an adult and certainly didn't participate in the conversations or the arguments).  How many participated in the conversation about the family history?  About things that happened and how the main players experienced the other characters within the extended family or experienced the "passers by", such as the live-in girlfriends of my grandfather and their children or Harry's second wife Shirley and how her children gained most of my grandfather's possessions and capital.  My Aunt Annabel butting heads with my aunt Jo or Mary Beth (aunt) butting heads with my Aunt Annabel...  And how my Aunt Jo (who died at that ripe old age of 92) claimed that the family had NO German Heritage, although her maiden name was "Nacht" or night in German and claimed that we were of Romanian heritage, which would have given her and my mother a non-German maiden name since Romanian is a romance language.  My mother claimed that my Aunt Jo housed all of the family's deep-dark secrets, about how "we" came to "America" and why we left Europe and what happened in Europe and in the early years of New York City, etc...  but that the histories were guarded under lock and key... and went with her to the death.

And what I've been thinking about over the past few weeks is a conversation I overheard about the daughters of an Uncle Sid, who was one of my grandfather's siblings...  And this brings me back to comparisons and considerations.

I found myself thinking about my years of dreaming of escape...  from what? and why...  and how those desires for escaping did not lead to my death, but to my living in Mexico, now for coming on 12 years.  And from what age did I begin running away in my mind... and why?  Does anyone talk about this at the Thanksgiving table? like they talked about Uncle Sid's daughters, understanding and justifying the reasoning behind why his daughters moved so far away... One hasn't talked to him for years!...  From that end (the adult's end) of the table floated the idea that Uncle Sid sexually abused his daughters...  

Why would I have heard that and remembered that?  How old was I?  My grandfather died when I was 13-years-old... So I must have been an adolescent, old enough to understand...  

And my mother had pushed me away when my father died and removed the possibility that I, the 4.5-year-old would become the "man of the house"... because she didn't want us to develope an "unhealthy" relationship as she had seen between a cousin and an aunt.  And somewhere during my years in college she had mentioned that an uncle had done things to her and her older sister Annabel, but then denied all of the above later on...  And my younger sister Beth was sexually abused repeatedlty by how many people from early childhood until mid-20s... And my cousin Elise became anorectic/bulemic, alcoholic and a drug addict and my older sister Sheri became Epileptic and Obese...  And one of my Aunt Jo's sons became gay and one of my cousins became gay and died from HIV/AIDS  and if you look into the psychiatric literature you will find that a good percentage of male homosexuals were sexual abused by men as children and that many anorectic women (and promiscuous) women were sexually abused by men as children... And if we analyze the character/behaviors of my family and the histories and stories and and and...  and then their reactions to all of this... along with all of the literature... it should become extremely difficult to believe that there isn't a cycle here...

It was ok that they talk about Uncle Sid and his daughters, since they weren't in contact with their cousins, or with Uncle Sid, since he lived so far away.  It became less personal. So the could understand the behaviors or reactions or actions of their cousins.  But, why can't they understand my behaviors or actions or reactions?

It's a simple reason:  Because they must protect Marsha as a pillar of the family.  

Did she sexually abuse me?  I don't believe so.  But, she greatly harmed me to protect herself from her darkest fears. My mother is so afraid of what people will think about her, that in her epitath about her older sister Anabel (my aunt), she reminds everyone that she was there for Anabel every day of the weeklong period of dying in the hospital... When my mother dies, she must be remembered for being there for everyone ill in the hospital and for how she cared for her younger brother and father after her mother's death (in a psychiatric hospital) when my mother was 15-years-old.  She even spent many days alongside my uncle Stan's bed during his heart surgeries, although he used my father's death insurance for improving his family's income and lifestyle, while that of ours went to the dumps... and she had to implore him to pay her back in order to pay for Sheri's college...  But she will not be remembered for being negligent or abusive and psychologically destructive or manipulative, emotionally unavailable, sexually promiscuous...  No one will know about that side of Marsha.  She is a saint and even if they believe all that I write, they will say, "but under the circumstances..."

When my father died, under the circumstances applied to 4 people, not just my mother.  

And, yes, he died.  And my mother got over it... VERY QUICKLY, didn't she?  When did Hal propose to her?  Less than a year after my father's death.  How long after my father's death was my mother having sex with how many guys?  

My father's death was a trajedy for... his children... since his widowed wife got over it very quickly.  Why?  Because he was only spring-board for her... that malfunctioned.  And she sought other spring-boards... Fortunately for my sisters, they had their live-in female role-model...  Unfortunately for Beth, an aspect of the lesson of that female role model was to become very promiscuous... Under the circumstances...  Beth was 3 months from her 3rd birthday when my father died.  So, we can't say that she suffered much the loss of her father... and had her mother.  Sheri was a little over 7.5-years-old and suffered greatly the loss of her father. But, she still had her female role model.  I on the other hand... 

Became a problem... although I wasn't promiscuous and I didn't become an alcoholic or a drug addict...  But I did become a fire starter and "self-mutilator" turned suicidal...  And I dreamed of running away for so many years of my life until I left for Mexico...  

In NYC I saw a PTSD specialist who continually asked me who sexually abused me as a child... since the literature connects fire-starting and self-mutilation in young and adolescent boys to childhood sex-abuse...  But I don't have those memories and my mother didn't want to participate in group therapy.  As a matter of fact, my mother has NEVER seen a therapist in her life, although that was one of the requisites for becoming a therapist herself.  Who knows how (and why) she escaped that... She could dive into the personal experiences of her patients, but no one was allowed to dive into hers...  

I was sexually abused by my younger sister Beth...  

You may ask, But how is that possible?  I'm sure that when the stats came about about husbands being beaten by wives they were initially received by the same question of incredulity... like when students of Afro-American history are accused of being racist against whites...  How is that possible?  It has to do with power and hegemony...  Or are things actually so damn simple?

How old was Beth when she began throwing herself at me?  And why?  My mother would say, under the circumstances...  But do the circumstances justify all of the anti-social and psychologically destructive/mentally ill behaviors performed or perpetrated in public or behind closed doors?  Or is she justifying everything that occured in her family, so that she can be pardoned?

When do you decide to stop denying and start listening and trying to understand and say, "enough is enough, lets break the cycle..."?

Last night, after writing the piece about death as trajedy and sentimentalism, I thought about writing about breaking cycles.  How do you actively break a cycle?

Maybe the only sure way is by removing yourself from it... 

I removed myself from that cycle coming on 12 years.  But, somewhere coming on 5 years ago, my mother's husband was accused of sexually abusing, my mother's grand daughter (Beth's daughter)...  And they didn't have to share that with me...  Nor must I have known about it... And if Bruce is innocent... is slightly besides the point considering the irony of the situation...  

Beth's husband to be threw his bachelor party in a strip joint and couldn't stop talking about how he would love to be with "one of them" Women of Latin or African descent...  And during the time of their marriage, the foolish man repeatedly mentioned his longings to me, his brother-in-law.  In fact, he was incredibly taken by my last "American" girlfriend (Joey) who's mother was of African descent and claimed that I was very fortunate.  It's not a surprise that he and Beth divorced, with two young daughters.  

Fortunate is to be with a person because of that person and not because of their material worth.  I'm so sorry that my mother saw my father as a ticket to "the American Dream" and expressed later on that she never loved him...  Joey and I didn't work out because we couldn't work out; not because of money or appearance or connections or status...  Margarita and I work out because work very well together...  We gained weight together and I didn't dream of a skinnier woman.  We lost weight together... and realized how that helps us greatly intimately etc.  But, we don't remember how being overweight or obese hindered our interpersonal relationship...  We've planned and managed the business/es together for over 11 years and have shared the same bed every single night since May of 2003.  We both cook and enjoy what the other person prepares.  We've always exercised together, although someone may leave the other person in the dust at times or often and it doesn't really matter (no one must slow their pace in order to be with the other person)...  We are honest, sincere and successful together...

And I ran away...  

I would say... to find her... or to find myself... But, the truth of the matter is that I ran away from my dysfunctional family that is immersed in denile...  And I became healthy and successful...  far away and disconnected from them...  

How many funerals were performed last weekend?  How many people died?  How many of those deaths were truly trajedies.  If a tree falls in the woods and you didn't see it fall, did a tree really fall in the woods?  

Since the early 80s, world population has increased from 4 billion to almost 7 billion... In less than 40 years the human population has almost doubled...  That means that more people are being born than are dying.  But, if almost 7 billion humans exist on the planet, how many die every day?  And if all of their deaths are considered trajedies...

As I said in what I wrote yesterday, death CAN'T be a trajedy, since it is what must occur with every living organism in order for the universe to be healthy.  In fact, trajedy is human concept that can be linked closely to sentimentalism and psychological or spiritual weakness; flaws in understanding reality.  

If we look closely at the concept of tragedy, maybe we will find that trajedy is something that "shouldn't" have occured.  And we can argue this point too...  Death is not something that shouldn't occur.  It is the only guarrantee or sure thing we know.  What we don't know is how life will be (any given moment) between birth and death.  So, many can say that my Aunt Annabel was fortunate for having lived as she lived for 75+ years and that she didn't die alone...  Where is the tragedy?

And if the circumstances behind my childhood weren't tragic... less so was that of my aunt's death and less so was that of my mother's losing her sister...  

If we can call all deaths trajedies, than how warped is our perception of life and human experience?

If "Americans" suffer living in the wealthiest country in the world with the highest level of consumerism, what about those people living in countries within much worse circumstances?  There are over 200 countries on this planet and most are not considered 1st world nations.  

Under the circumstances... another person died... she just happened to be my aunt, the older sister of my mother (who's son ran away to Mexico and tried cutting all ties from her and her daughters and her nephews).  And she doesn't want to understand why I live much better not having contact with her or her family and why...  As such a responsible "caring"/empathetic person she seems to be to her peers, she isn't responsible for anything connected with me and she doesn't truly care to understand why I continuously burn the bridges... with heavy difficult truths... But everything is under the circumstances...

This is not a trajedy. It is just a fact of life.  And, yes, we get over it... as long as the past doesn't try implanting itself with in the present and doesn't try controlling the future.  We get over it... especially with death.  My mother got over her mother's death and her husband's death (probably too soon) and her niece's death and her father's death and her nephew's death and her younger brother's death and will get over her older sister's death.  And she will get over Bruce's death and probably will outlive some of her children.  And not one moment will any of these deaths truly have been a trajedy.  Not even that of my father...

Just another person died...  and they will continue dying...  and there is nothing we can do, nor should we do...    

You may call me a cold-hearted bastard... But, if you lived between my mother and I from January 1974 until... you would realize that being cold-hearted is a learned behavior.  

Bastard... was circumstantial.

After years of my mother's behaviors towards me, her announcement that she had never loved my father (what an incredible myth of a man as explained by her and others--especially my Uncle Henry--over the years) clarified what had always been confusing within my mind; that I was what she often called me throughout childhood, bastard.  That she never loved my father explains her relationship towards me.  It doesn't make me sad or resentful.  It's better to understand than to be confused due to being misled.  

Bastard is only derogatory when children or young adults sling it at a defenseless peer who is at risk.  But, if you understand the circumstances that make a child a bastard, you realize that they aren't to blame for that status.  And, maybe their mother isn't to blame for that status.  But, there is a reason why the term bastard is slung at men as derogatory descripters; because of their style of behavior after having been born a bastard.  The circumstances... That their mother may have been promiscuous, a prostitute, not knowing who the father was... and the cause of the conseption of the baby boy was not based in love.  And it is probable that the mother never loved the son and resented his presence.  Growing up within those circumstances the bastard displays certain traits of bastardome, earning him that name.  

And that's what I am... regarding my mother's family.


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