gemini://thurk.org/blog/264.gmi

I took a ride with Amy last night. Amy is my cousin. 10 years my superior. We paused for a delicious meal in Arlington (Indian). Our conversation centered around something I have rarely discussed with anyone in my lifetime - that is, our relationship with our parents. And especially the rodina of my father and her mother. I will begin with an instance she explained to me concerning a great uncle by the name of Lynn who used to live in Walla Walla Washington (or so I am told). It shocked me.

Lynn was my father's father's brother. Apparently, he had a daughter who's name I have forgotten. Something beginning with an *E*. One day, when *E* was walking home from school (it was not far from home), she was joined by a black girl her age - in her class - a friend, I assume. These girls were 10 years old at the most. They paused for some moments outside of *E*'s house to finish their conversation. They dawdled there for some moments, enough for the household (Uncle Lynn) to take notice. The black child left finally and *E*, I would like to think, smiling, rapped at - or just opened - the front door to enter her home and perhaps do her homework or even prepare for dinner. I do not know the details. Nor did Amy. Uncle Lynn was outraged. *E* was caught by the scruff of her neck like a misbehaving bitch and dragged into the bedroom where she was beaten until her breaths came in gasps. I imagine the pain suffusing her body. Uncle Lynn used a belt... the normal sort that even a kind man might wear about the waist. I believe she was hospitalized, but I do not know the entire tale. It is a sort of black folklore in my family.

It's only meant to repress and neutralize your brain

Topics: parents, livejournal, family

2002-12-22