Day 73, morning
Today is day 73. Yesterday was not an exercise day, but I took the dogs for a walk after work as it has finally cooled down enough do so. Today is a lift day.
On Monday, I went to lunch with the parents of a childhood friend. They wanted to take me to lunch for my birthday and they wanted to take me somewhere that might have meaning to me and that was the orphanage where my grandfather and his 4 brothers grew up. It is no longer an orphanage. The school there has been restored to almost its original state and there is a very nice cafe inside, meeting rooms one can rent out and that's where they took me.
Aside from the old school a lot of the original farm and dairy and horses are there. It was a working farm orphanage. My grandfather contributed to the restoration of the school prior to his death. It was something that was years and years in the making. He died 26 years ago and the the school's restoration finished last year.
After lunch my friend's mother asked if I wanted to take some time and look through the archive photos. I looked only very quickly as my friend's father was obviously tiring, but in just that quick look I was able to find a photo of my grandfather's eldest brother, my great uncle.
He looked to be about 9 or 10, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger. He’s standing with two other children. He looks very much like the men of my family, dark hair, dark eyes, a good Irish boy with sweater and slacks. He’s looking into the camera, smiling, with a gosling cupped in his hands. There was such seeming innocence and so little of the man I knew later in his life.
It almost brought a tear to my eye. First, because they were in the orphanage, I’d never seen photos of them when they were children and second, I knew him as an alcoholic, often belligerent, a hard feel to him, broken and had drank heavily since he probably took his first drink. It seemed to define him in much the same way I have allowed alcohol these last years to define me though not with as long term a destructiveness toward self or a destruction of family. I am grateful for both those things.
He had a wife, my aunt, beautiful when young but after being beaten repeatedly by him, also broken. When I knew them, they would have been in their 40s/50s I think, though I'm not sure how much older he was than my grandfather. I’ve always wondered where my cousins ended up in life. Did they survive, were they able to make themselves some semblance of whole, did they repeat generationally. Later my uncle had cancer and had his eye and part of his cheek bone removed. I remember the eye facial patch he wore. He still drank but seemed to have become ineffectual. I juxtapose this image against that smiling child. It's effects me profoundly.
I remember one time making some comment about my aunt being ugly. I don’t remember exactly what I said. I was grade school age. It was during a family picnic. My grandmother snatched me up, walked me up to the house. She was pissed. Pulled out a photo of my aunt and told me to look at it. Take a real good look. That was your Aunt Lorna. She was beautiful. You never say what you said again. I never did. It wasn’t until later I knew why she looked the way she did.
When I saw the photo, I really thought of the Hanh book that I used to meditate out of fairly often. The meditation goes something like: see your father as a 5 year old, smile to your five year old father. See your mother as a five year old child, smile to your 5 year old mother. This photo really brought home that meditation. And when I take away the alcoholic and his the violence of his actions, I do not excuse that violence and the harm caused but I wonder about the man who he was underneath behind the drinking and the violence.
I showed my friends parents the photo. They were tickled that I had found one of them so easy. I didn't share his history, but I'm very appreciative of the unknowing gift they gave me.
Today is day 73. I am committed to making a life change. I do not drink. I am the trees, not the leaves. I am the mountain. It is day 73, and I am solid.
On Monday, I went to lunch with the parents of a childhood friend. They wanted to take me to lunch for my birthday and they wanted to take me somewhere that might have meaning to me and that was the orphanage where my grandfather and his 4 brothers grew up. It is no longer an orphanage. The school there has been restored to almost its original state and there is a very nice cafe inside, meeting rooms one can rent out and that's where they took me.
Aside from the old school a lot of the original farm and dairy and horses are there. It was a working farm orphanage. My grandfather contributed to the restoration of the school prior to his death. It was something that was years and years in the making. He died 26 years ago and the the school's restoration finished last year.
After lunch my friend's mother asked if I wanted to take some time and look through the archive photos. I looked only very quickly as my friend's father was obviously tiring, but in just that quick look I was able to find a photo of my grandfather's eldest brother, my great uncle.
He looked to be about 9 or 10, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger. He’s standing with two other children. He looks very much like the men of my family, dark hair, dark eyes, a good Irish boy with sweater and slacks. He’s looking into the camera, smiling, with a gosling cupped in his hands. There was such seeming innocence and so little of the man I knew later in his life.
It almost brought a tear to my eye. First, because they were in the orphanage, I’d never seen photos of them when they were children and second, I knew him as an alcoholic, often belligerent, a hard feel to him, broken and had drank heavily since he probably took his first drink. It seemed to define him in much the same way I have allowed alcohol these last years to define me though not with as long term a destructiveness toward self or a destruction of family. I am grateful for both those things.
He had a wife, my aunt, beautiful when young but after being beaten repeatedly by him, also broken. When I knew them, they would have been in their 40s/50s I think, though I'm not sure how much older he was than my grandfather. I’ve always wondered where my cousins ended up in life. Did they survive, were they able to make themselves some semblance of whole, did they repeat generationally. Later my uncle had cancer and had his eye and part of his cheek bone removed. I remember the eye facial patch he wore. He still drank but seemed to have become ineffectual. I juxtapose this image against that smiling child. It's effects me profoundly.
I remember one time making some comment about my aunt being ugly. I don’t remember exactly what I said. I was grade school age. It was during a family picnic. My grandmother snatched me up, walked me up to the house. She was pissed. Pulled out a photo of my aunt and told me to look at it. Take a real good look. That was your Aunt Lorna. She was beautiful. You never say what you said again. I never did. It wasn’t until later I knew why she looked the way she did.
When I saw the photo, I really thought of the Hanh book that I used to meditate out of fairly often. The meditation goes something like: see your father as a 5 year old, smile to your five year old father. See your mother as a five year old child, smile to your 5 year old mother. This photo really brought home that meditation. And when I take away the alcoholic and his the violence of his actions, I do not excuse that violence and the harm caused but I wonder about the man who he was underneath behind the drinking and the violence.
I showed my friends parents the photo. They were tickled that I had found one of them so easy. I didn't share his history, but I'm very appreciative of the unknowing gift they gave me.
Today is day 73. I am committed to making a life change. I do not drink. I am the trees, not the leaves. I am the mountain. It is day 73, and I am solid.
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