My uncle died suddenly in his sleep in April. I drove down to Denver where he lives in desperation knowing my life would change and the family ties I had broken in my meth addled state would now be broken by siblings that I’m fairly sure never liked me. I asked the fire department go in and collect his remains and I opted not to look at him. The yellow uneven face of my dead father sticks with me along with the cats i found licking up his blood that had pooled on the concrete pad in our yard where he fell.
I went to go see my sister this past weekend noticing a change in her texts and seeing my opportunity to make things right and to see if we can stand each other in person. That’s perhaps where the first lie starts. I don’t like my sister right now. She is obese, her daughter is obese with diabetes type 2 and nothing will be done about it. I struggled with the indifference to my mother’s mental health right up to the day she killed herself last fall just as I struggle with my sister’s indifference to her own health issues.
I am considered overweight and I am working on that, steadily losing 2 pounds a week knowing that I have very little control over my past, my future, and I can get lost in the anxiety of the present moment licking chunky peanut butter off my hands in the dark because I want to feel some kind of comfort. I feel sick to my empty stomach thinking about the $1000 Mounjaro shot my sister administers to my niece. I don’t think it will work. I don’t know how to let go.
I find a small square piece of tinfoil sitting outside of my bag and my niece is laughing wildly because she has eaten my bacon cheeseburger. I tell my sister eh oh well pick your battles and wonder if I will ever get the chance to pick a battle. In my own frazzled insecure world i noticed she has blocked me once again on Instagram a few days later and I really start to believe the narrative that I am dead to her, too, like my brother has already told me.
I take a giant hit of fentanyl from a small square of tinfoil in the height of my addiction because I have given up. My sister has $160,000 in the bank because when her pimp shot his brains out he thought he ought give his favorite sex worker something that would last. My uncle has bought her a $450,000 house and now she owns my brothers house too…quick claim deed to my mom who downed a bunch of trazodone and muscle relaxers. I wonder what her thoughts were as she swallowed down over 100 pills.
My niece likes to grab the small of my waist when I visit her and my sister in South Dakota. She alternates this touching with passive aggressive run-ins that bump me into the nearest wall and every once in awhile this has escalated to a pair of glasses flying across my small studio apartment over the blown up air mattress, past the geriatric dog who has fallen off the mattress onto the tiny kitchen linoleum. I feel as helpless as my sister at these times and have resorted to screaming in her face “you don’t pick on my sissy.” The shame is so thick and visceral it feels getting caught in the tailpipe of the school bus gasping for air and gasping for stability.
I wonder why I am able to forgive my mother–because she is dead? My relationship with her was strained and my aunt told me at the funeral i seemed million miles away. I feel a million miles away from my own family, estranged from my siblings, sorting through my uncle’s blackbelts in Tae Kwon Do wondering if I’ll ever achieve something great. I feel really small in the wake of my mother, brother, and sister’s hate. I plead with God to bring me understanding and shine light on my spiritual gifts. Or at least help me be good to my dog.
the misfit west 