Welcome again, my children, to the Church of the Wholey Bizarrely Insane! Our sermons have so far taken us through Grams’ marriage to the Spaniard. His bootlegging. Her fast. Her coma. His gambling. What more could go wrong?! Well…
Just as Grams recovered and the rhythm of life resumed, the hits just kept coming. Her middle child, who was entertaining and outgoing and the apple of her father’s eye, became ill. Her life thus far had not been easy. She was very small in stature with very poor eyesight. In fact the family had been told that she would eventually lose her eyesight entirely. They tried to prepare by sending her to the state school for the blind. She came home with skills that would allow her to have a full and independent life. It seems, however, that fate had different plans for the green-eyed teenager.
One day this middle child became desperately ill. She was burning with fever and could barely breathe. As already established, my Gramps wasn’t fond of doctors and this time his arrogance would prove deadly. He and my Grams tried to care for her themselves but they didn’t have the knowledge or the tools to make a difference thus the sixteen-year-old just became sicker and sicker. Finally, friends and family intervened and sent for a doctor and then forced Gramps, at gunpoint no less, to allow the physician to see the girl. Unfortunately, it was too late and soon her young life dimmed. You see it turns out she had diphtheria. So to add insult to the most grievous injury the signs were nailed to the door and the family did their grieving while under quarantine.
As soon as the quarantine was lifted, my Gramps went on the binge (as will become a pattern in his life) of all binges. Essentially, he felt he had killed his favorite daughter and to the end of his days he lived with that guilt.
He disappeared for weeks and no one knew where he was until a cousin came by and told Grams that they were sure they had heard him singing from a window in the State Mental Hospital. Leave it to Gramps, from tragedy to the ridiculous in one fell swoop!!
Along with his return to the family home, however, terror took up residence. He was never easy to live with but now he bullied my Grams, beat the son, and humiliated the the youngest (my mother). Oh yeah…and he became a master philanderer.
It was not unusual for my mother or her brother to hear from “friends” that Gramps had been seen at a carnival or the movies or a restaurant with some woman and her kids. Not that he ever took Grams or his own kids to any of those places. Not an easy childhood experience to be sure! Perhaps this explains the difficulty they would each have with their own children…
I wonder what new challenge will befall this family next Sunday…hmmm…