My Uncle Gordy and My Grandpa Keller

Our house is finally our own again for the first time in five days. My Uncle Gordy (my mom's sister) and his new wife Cathy were visiting. He lives in Arizona so I haven't seen him much. He's also more sarcastic than me, my dad, and my brother combined. Which, if you know any of us, it quite a feel.

In an unrelated note, I apologize for being so sarcastic all the time. Now that I know how it feels, I'll try to be less flippant.

Anyway, I think I'll write another entry about Gordy later, but what I really want to talk about his my Grandpa Keller (my mom's dad). I learned some interesting stuff about him this weekend. Not happy stuff, but interesting.

Here's what I all ready knew about my Grandpa Keller. I knew that he died when my mom was six and I knew that he was an alcoholic. My aunt Joan is kind of a super hostess and will follow you around the house and try to make something for you. I've learned that this may be because when my aunts and uncles grew up, their house was in disorder.

I don't think my Grandpa Keller was abusive or anything like that. He and my Grandma were just negligent because he was drinking all the time. There's a twenty year difference between my mom and her my Aunt Joan so my mom, thankfully, didn't have to grow up in that household. She grew up with my grandma, her mom, Wanda. Who was, by all accounts, a wonderful person. She died before I was born.

Anyway, I didn't know much else about my Grandpa Keller's death. I realized, when I was at college, that there was a big hole in the story. As I get older, I've learned that usually means that there's something my parents didn't tell me because I was too young. I was right.

My Grandpa Keller just up and left the house before he died. Apparently, he left them a note that said something like, "You don't need me anymore." My mom did this martyrdom was common for my grandpa. I wonder if he left a lot too.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that he was dead for about fourth months without my mom's family knowing. They got a letter from the hospital informing them of his death. Heart attack.

My mom said she thought he might have been on the streets when he died, but apparently my Uncle Bill cleaned out an apartment that Grandpa Keller had been living in. So he had an apartment at least.

What was even worse, is that I learned that my uncle Gordy and my grandpa had a fight before my grandpa left. My mom said it ended with my grandpa falling down. I don't know if that means they had a fist fight or what. But either way, it was the last time Gordy saw him.

I knew that my mom's family was dysfunctional, but I guess I didn't know the depths of it. As hard as something like this is to hear, it also makes my mom's family make more sense.

My uncle John was an alcoholic and abusive before he died. They think he might have been molested by a family friend in the chaos that was their household at the time. It's probably why Gordy moved to Arizona too, I wouldn't be surprised.

And I think that I finally understand why Aunt Joan and Uncle Bob got together. My Uncle Bob is a really good man. He's super friendly, he will talk to literally anyone about anything, and he's been a hard worker all his life. He runs his own real estate business, even though they don't have a lot of money.

But he's also extremely anal and kind of controlling. Especially when it comes to religious stuff. It's not like he's ever tried to get me to convert or anything like that, but I know it's turned some of my cousins off Christianity.

Joan married him when she was 18 and I think I understand why. He was really stable, really safe. After growing up in a household where you didn't always have enough to eat I'm sure that having a husband that's kind of controlling is a relief.

It just makes me realize how lucky I am to have grown up with my parents. I feel like I'm just a step away from that severe dysfunction. (On both sides, actually. My grandma on my dad's side was also an alcoholic which ALSO caused some severe problems in that family. Yay alcoholism.)

I'm sorry, this is a long none-to-uplifting entry and it's probably not that interesting to you guys. But it's good to learn family history even if it's incredibly depressing. Everything starts to come into focus when you learn things like this.

I wonder if that's part of why my mom became a therapist, just so she could make sense of everything in her family.