Through these eyes I’ve seen the shape of things to come, and I’ve watched it all fall apart. Ness,Mike. “Through These Eyes.” White Light, White Heat, White Trash Epic Records. 1996.
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Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. I am Christian, and I believe it an appropriate time to celebrate the birth of Christ, and I feel that that spirit is manifested best through being with loved ones and sharing communion with them. It is a small way to bring peace and goodwill to Earth. Christmas has not been kind to my family in any capacity in some time.

I am the first grandson born of the first daughter of a man who pioneered aspects of cardiovascular surgery in the county in which I grew up. He was Duke educated, and was fundamental towards developing the concepts of trauma medicine there. He had a doting wife; a very old school southern belle type. They had 4 daughters, the oldest of which was my mother. From the outside, the family was somewhat well-to-do, my grandfather worked hard and made good money as a surgeon. Where he succeeded as a professional, he was less successful as a father. I will never know the entire story of my family. There are too many secrets that have gone to various graves. My aunts haven’t told me everything, and they never will. I do not think I wish to know it all. My grandfather essentially was my father, and he sat on a pedestal too high for even him to stand upon. Long story short; he was as human as everyone else despite the fact that he regularly held people’s lives in his hands. He was the patriarch, a man of no small amount of wealth, and this Christmas was important; it was the first one he would not attend in our family.

It seems Christmas has become an anniversary of the dead than a celebration of the newborn. It started my first semester of law school. Just a few days before Christmas, 2001. I got a phone call at 4:30 am from my mother. I woke up, alone (of course), and realized there is never a good phone call at this time of day. My oldest cousin, 17, who was like a little brother, was dead. He had gotten drunk and ran headfirst into a parked semi at 35 miles an hour. It cracked his sternum on impact and he bled to death fairly quickly. He had gotten into a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol, and was trying to work his way out of the situation when it happened. That aunt was devastated, his little brother, the new oldest cousin of mine, was robbed of a brother when he was 13. He had no role model to look up to, and it would alter their lives permanently, for the worse in my opinion. Christmas was predictably ruined.

Christmas 2002 passed quietly, as my aunt was still devastated at the horrid anniversary. But then it was time to go back to school. The third day of class I got home from trial advocacy. I got a phone call from the patriarch. My mother had died. She was not in good health for some time. In the 1990’s she suffered two heart attacks, got on every painkiller and upper/downer a doctor would prescribe, and developed congestive heart failure around 1999. She was essentially bedridden in 2001. She couldn’t take it anymore and the Rhodes Scholar found her end at the bottom of a pill bottle.
I was destroyed. She and I had a rough relationship through high school. She didn’t think I would make it, but when I got my BA and was accepted to law school, she was very proud of me. I remember being on the phone with her the morning of 9-11. We shared that awful moment together, and we were never closer.

Ironically my estranged biological father died from complications from AIDS in a state mental facility 5 months later. I had only seen him once when he left my mother and I in 1983 to permanently pursue a homosexual lifestyle. I can’t help but think those deaths were linked somehow.

My stepfather died from cancer 8 months after my mother died. All he had to do under her will was make it 6 months and everything passed to him. That will was drafted when they were married in 1992. A revised will giving me everything was drafted in 2000, after the marriage had deteriorated to the point my mother slept with a gun within arms reach. Due to circumstances I dont care to get into, it was never executed. My stepfather sold the home 3 weeks before his death. A beautiful estate that was built on 8 acres of land for 350 thousand in 1990 was sold for 130000. It is little more than ruins now, the land is slowly reclaiming the once well kept landscape. All inherited from the stepfather was the cheap fake diamond wedding ring he couldn’t hold onto. Thankfully my aunts went into the ruins after the sale and recovered some of my mother’s jewelry with substantial value, including a diamond necklace I had cleaned and appraised at 3100 which will become an heirloom.

That was 2003.

2004 came, and it was time to graduate from law school. I had my degree, and my lease at school was running out. I had nowhere to go, so I went to live with my grandparents. My grandmother was suffering from a terminal illness which had her health deteriorating throughout 2003 and 2004. By the time I moved in with them to help out around the house for the elderly couple, she was bedridden. I cooked dinner nightly, suffered through my first bar failure, clerked during the day and cooked at a Ruby Tuesday at night. Then it came Christmas time.

2 nights before Christmas my grandmother took her last steps. She made it halfway to the bathroom then collapsed on the carpet. My grandfather knew this was the end. My grandmother did not have enough oxygen in her blood due to her illness. She laid in the floor, gasping for 2 and a half hours as we summoned my 2 aunts who lived in the area to the house. I sat at her head and my oldest aunt held my grandmother’s hand as she breathed her last. In the corner of the bedroom, Thus Spake Zarathustra comforted the 81 year old surgeon. Everyone broke down in tears. I was the only one who knew what had to be done. I called the police and the funeral home. The family objected loudly when the police took photographs of my deceased grandmother. It was SOP for any death, just so they can close the file as a natural death. The funeral director himself showed up with the hearse. I helped load my grandmother onto the stretcher, and carried her over the banister, down the stairs, and loaded her into the hearse, never to see her face again.

I’ve had a lot of beer, and I just got back from jail. I think I’m going to leave part 2 for another time. I’ll pick this up in a few days. If you liked the song at the top, this one’s good too. Same band. Insane album. Shame they lost the guitarist.

Crown of Thorns

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