Learning From Others Mistakes {6}

I told you one of these was a comin so fasten your seat belts...

For whatever reason I have never been ashamed of my family. You are probably thinking...well of course...you neither right? The thing is, there have been instances where most would have been ashamed, embarrassed, etc. I tell these and other stories to you, to my friends because I want to help you learn from others mistakes.

I consider that God gave me this gift, to be able to look at a situation and see it exactly what it is. That doesn't mean I don't get emotional about whatever may be going on at the time, or need a moment (or a year, what have you) to process it...but I DO end up always seeing it for what it is.

You see there is this pattern with women in my family. And I believe God gave me this gift to see things for what they are to STOP this pattern. And yes, I really believe that.

My mom, again is the youngest of 7 children. Two of her sisters moved far far away to California, but one of her sisters stayed in Dvegas. I grew up with this aunt around all the time. She had been divorced, which was really foreign to me as a child. She had introduced my mom to God. She had three children around my moms age from her first marriage and two from her current marriage who were younger but still old enough to be my babysitters. I loved her and I loved her children. I still love her children, and their children, and their children.

I had always been told that her first husband was amazing. But I never met him. I was told if I went to her house after church to not speak to her current husband. Just to leave him alone. He sat in a chair and barked orders. I was scared of him and I followed the instruction to leave him alone.

When I was in middle school my aunt moved in with one of my mother's friends for a stint because he was beating her. That's when I found out. He had always beat her. He was a "southern charmer" (so they say) that wooed her and courted her and told her that life would be better with him, and then evil came out.

I had never seen a bruise on her. But I knew that if she moved out of her own house that it had to be bad. I was angry at him and I told my mother I would never go back to their house again. But a month or so later, she went back. And then I found out she had been "going back" since her kids were babies. There was even an incident from long ago with a gun and my mom and their mom and a car chasing once. And she hid the gun. From a police officer because of the car chasing. He had pulled them over. She HID THE GUN and protected him. And she went back.

Their dad, my grandpa abused them too. Pattern.

She got breast cancer when I was a sophomore in high school. She was a true believer in holistic healing and didn't do chemo right away. Evil moved back to Tennessee (on his apparent huge compound of a farm with his mother) a few years (I think) back. We were relieved. But he found out she had cancer and magically reappeared. He fed her celery juice. He thought chemo was the devil. She believed him. She loved him. I wish she would have loved herself.

There were hospital visits because the cancer got bad and she would do chemo for a bit. Then there was hospice. It had gotten too bad and she was dying. There was, I am sure of it, a lot of conversations in between that time frame. But I know this, she got cancer my sophomore year, and her funeral was on my 16th birthday my junior year. Cancer took her fast. Or maybe it was the celery juice. Or maybe it was that she didn't love herself? Pattern.

He would turn the hospice nurse away and my mom would be called. She was suffering and he was just watching her. My mom could always talk him into letting them in to make her comfortable. My mom still has nightmares about her sister, the shaking, the pain. I never saw her like that and I am glad.

The night she died is interesting. My mom's oldest sister was in town from California to say what was to be her "good bye" to her sister. She had been staying with us for a week and still hadn't mustered up the courage to go see her. They have seen too much in their family. The day my mom and her oldest sister went, my aunt died. Their living brother was there too. The family in shambles for many reasons and my aunt apparently didn't want to die because she was scared of more family fighting after another death. They always fought after death. There was always too much death. My mom, living brother and her oldest sister held hands and all quietly said that they would be fine, to just go be with God. They were lying, but they were sincere. My mom and her oldest sister left and my aunt took her last breath in the arms of living brother. I still can't wrap my brain about the tragedy and beauty that was.

People say there is a lot of beauty in watching someone pass from this life. I don't know that God gave me that gift.

Evil left. We thought he was gone. She was gone=he would be gone forever. She was the only thing tying him to Dvegas. We were WRONG.

A funeral director from Tennessee called the funeral director in town and said Evil was on his way back with a truck full of guns to kill the family and take my aunt with him. I didn't know it at the time, but at the visitation, all of the greeters and "employees" walking around were cops with loaded guns on them. After many tears shed, I left the visitation, and he came. He did have a gun. He did point it at people. His step-daughter lost it and told him to shoot her because he had also ABUSED her. The children, he abused the children too. Evil.

The funeral director calmed him down somehow and he didn't take her. Not yet. We had a funeral the next day. We said our good byes. I was mad at her. I was mad she quit living. I was mad she didn't do chemo. I was mad. I sometimes still find myself being mad. They lied to her. Things weren't okay with the family. She needed to live.

At one point their living brother was arrested for my aunts murder. Evil had called the police and said that living brother had smothered my aunt. My mom bailed him out of jail. The autopsy confirmed this was crap. He loved my aunt. She should have lived.

I met her first husband at her wake. The wake that he put together for his ex-wife. His ex-wife of MANY years. They were right about him. She should have lived.

Evil got permission somehow, someway to take my aunts body, in her coffin to Tennessee in the BACK OF HIS TRUCK. I am laughing now and I always (at a minimum) chuckle every time I get to this part. I mean, honestly people I just picture myself driving down the highway looking over and seeing A FOR REAL coffin in the back of some old beat up pick up truck. I think I would have been creeped out. I may have even called the police because NOTHING seems right about that. Nothing.

She was layed to rest in his backyard. That's right. His backyard on his Tennessee compound.

She deserved better than that. But it was a pattern. She didn't think so or didn't know better. She was a very savvy woman. She had money, he took it. But who cares, she had sense, common sense. Why didn't she see it? Why didn't God give HER my gift? She should have lived.

My parents divorced a year later. I am mad at my aunt because she needed to live.

I told this story for the first time, while very drunk senior year of college to my closest friends. Again, I had never been ashamed and they ALL knew I had an aunt that had been physically abused her whole marriage. But they didn't know the WHOLE story. I think, in its entirety it sounds a bit outlandish and I was afraid of being the girl with the stories or something like that.

This isn't JUST a story...although some of it was seen through my mothers eyes and told to me. This was my aunts real life this is a part of my real life. I wanted my friends to learn from the mistakes of others. I wanted them to know that I loved them. That I love myself enough to never let this happen to me. That I never want this to happen to them. This story opened the flood gates of my life to my friends. They saw me differently. Maybe even understood me better.

Earlier in college there had been a friend where drama had occurred and physical abuse was apparently happening. I told her about my aunt. Because she was apologizing for him. I knew the Pattern. I didn't tell her the WHOLE story because she didn't want to hear the ending, not yet. But she needed to hear that this wouldn't be the only time. I wanted to help her. She wouldn't let me help. That relationship continued (on and off) at a distance from me for the remainder of college. I couldn't watch it, I tried to help her and she wouldn't let me. I walked away. Because I am mad at my aunt. Because she needed to live. I couldn't watch a FRIEND go through that first hand when I knew the ending.

That friend stopped her pattern. She had a happy ending. Without my help. Maybe with my help. I don't care...my friend lived.

Evil died a few years back. My aunts daughters threw a party. I hear it was a great time.