Mi Familia

I had lunch with my family today, to celebrate Ukrainian Easter. It was typically excruciating, moreso as I couldn’t drink (the entire drive home I hemmed and hawed over whether or not I should swing by the liquor mart for a bottle of Bell’s scotch-whisky. I ultimately decided against it, but I think I’ll buy one tomorrow. Sue me, I’m weak).
My uncle, my mother’s brother, died a few years ago, of a brain tumor. It was very devastating for my grandmother, as he was relatively young (around 40, I believe). Shortly after he died, my grandmother insisted that me and my brother go through his things and take whatever we liked. It seemed important to her, so I took a few books, but I never felt quite right about it. That was a few years ago, but for some reason she insisted again, today, that we go through his room and look for things to take.
My uncle lived with my grandparents off and on until his death; he was schizophrenic. I found out he was schizophrenic when I was about 18. I found out he was schizophrenic like this:
I was driving with my father and brother one summer, and my brother noticed a man wearing a parka, despite the fact it was a very hot day. He remarked on this, and my father suggested that the man might have been schizophrenic, as my uncle used to do the same thing. That’s how I found out. My father, bless him, has a habit of dropping bombshells like this in a casual way*.
So, I found myself searching though this room today, again, for things to take. It still felt weird, but it still seemed important to my grandmother. My uncle was always such a mystery to me, although it was surprising to learn he was actually mentally ill, it made a certain sense. I only ever saw my uncle a few times a year, at family gatherings, despite the fact we lived in the same city my whole life. Most of the time he was kind of like a ghost, he would eat in silence, not speak to anyone, stare into space, but there were exceptions. One year he was so animated, telling stories of a student trip to Japan, of art classes, his first nude model. One year, we started watching Metropolis together, and partway through he paused the movie and left for like half an hour to go smoke on the porch (as a child I though it was strange that he had to go out on the porch to smoke, while my aunt could smoke in the house. I also thought it was strange that my uncle rolled his own cigarettes. In retrospect it’s pretty obvious that he was smoking pot). I sat and stared at the paused screen, frustrated, but too afraid of my uncle to press play. Once we were watching TV with him in my grandparent’s house, and my brother accidentally knocked over some books. My uncle said: those are your grandmother’s books and if you don’t pick those up I’ll kick your ass." We were about six and ten years old, respectively. That scared the shit out of us, we had never been threatened by an adult before. I don’t know if that fear ever really went away. Once, I was about twelve, I came home from school to find him visiting my mother, which was unusual. He saw that I had a violin with me and asked if he could see it. He then played for us. I knew he was an artist, and an engineer, but I had no idea he could play the violin, or play so beautifully. (I remember it as being beautiful, anyway; it was thirteen years ago. Who knows?)
So there I am, in his bedroom, looking through his bookcase. There were a lot of coffee table books on various countries, Popular Mechanics, science textbooks. There were three copies of a book called the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Was this curiosity? Was it related to the fact that his parents, my grandparents, fought against and suffered under the Nazis? I looked through his old notebooks from when he was a student. Line after line of immaculate notes on math, physics. He was probably about twenty when he wrote them. Did he have plans for his future? Did he know what was coming; could he feel it? In the bookcase was a framed paycheck for 77.00; his first I assume. Who was this man?
When he was in the hospital, dying, my mother never encouraged me to go see him. I didn’t push for it, either. He was my uncle, my blood, I knew him my entire life, I was a pallbearer at his funeral, but he was a stranger to me. My mother never really talked about him while he was alive, I learned things by accident, or by overhearing them (I was a chronic eavesdropper as a child. Probably a result of no one ever telling me anything). Even after he died, she only told me snippets and curio; he watched Popeye cartoons as a child, he was friends with my dentist, "See that painting? That was one of Michael’s."
To me he was, is, and will always be a mystery. I’d like to think that one day I’ll be able to talk about him with my mother, although I figure I’ll have to start that conversation. Somehow, I don’t think she’ll have any answers for me. I think he was as much a mystery to her as to me. She tells me that when he was close to the end, the tumor spread throughout his brain, and he became very lucid. For the first time in decades, he seemed sane; he was my mother and my aunt’s brother, the boy they grew up with. He could speak, the paranoia, the delusions, the irrationality were gone. A few months later, he died.
All I have of him are these memories, a bag of old National Geographic's and, according to my relatives, a striking resemblance.



*A few years ago, I was having dinner with my father when the subject of gun control came up. My father is a pretty liberal guy, so I was surprised when he said he had considered buying a gun in the past.
"Why on earth would you want a gun?" I asked him.
"Haven’t you ever wondered why our address isn’t listed in the phone book?"
I hadn’t noticed.
"When I was practicing criminal law," he said. "When you and your brother where very little, I was prosecuting some members of a biker gang and they threatened to kill you. So I considered buying a gun."
Oh. Neat. Thanks, dad.