January 29, 2013 Aunt Patrice to Job
Dear Job,
You’re a wonderful writer! I got your letters and was stunned by both. I most definitely want your life story. I want to hear it all including the time before you lost yourself to the “false self” when you were “just a boy”. I vividly remember that beautiful boy walking on his hands and break dancing.
You must have said something to Chrissy because she asked me if I was sending you “anti-Mormon” books. I said I had recommended a biography of Joseph Smith with the warning it wasn’t “faith promoting”. I know your mother wrestles with her conscience over me. For instance, she once said she wouldn’t be able to get a temple recommend if she were to confess she associates with apostates. Another time, she asked Jack’s oldest son to say the blessing, and, channeling Chrissy, he said, “I know some people don’t believe in you, but I know you’re real.” Molly has evidently decided she needs to protect her children from my influence.
When I was around twenty-three I started to realize that I had a choice. Though I had almost as many demons as you do, I could choose to be possessed by them or to possess myself. I could choose between darkness and enlightenment. It’s hard work to quit feeling and start thinking. Human beings are hard-wired to feel, not so much to think. You can’t rely on feelings as evidence for anything other than that you’re alive. Nor can you use an intelligent designer to explain anything without first explaining where the designer came from. Since this can’t be done, that’s all I’ll say on the subject.
You’re not so strange. When I showed Archie your first letter, she said the fact you wet the bed into adulthood could mean you have a mild form of epilepsy. It’s in the family. Did you know that two of your cousins have epilepsy? Diana’s daughter Michelle, who saw her father shot to death when she was a second-grader, sucks her thumb and rocks herself to sleep still. Michelle’s pregnant, BTW.
I remember when I first saw your father. It was the middle of the night when I sneaked a peek through a curtain to see Aunt Beryl washing a red, naked newborn in an enamel basin. Joey was gentle and kindhearted and would give you his ice cream cone if you dropped yours. He made a perfect punching bag whenever any of the rest of us felt mean. When he was given a preverbal IQ test in primary school, he registered off the chart. But he was dyslexic and read so poorly, teachers—bullies all—called him lazy. He’d come home from school crying and Mama would spend hours vainly trying to teach him to read. He remembers school with horror. He was skinny with delicate features and so beautiful Diana and I dressed him up in girl clothes and put makeup on him. Davey called him Elizabeth. Several times I witnessed Daddy kick Joey across the yard like a dog. Before he discovered alcohol and drugs, Joey self-medicated for anxiety by sniffing gasoline. In late adolescence, he constructed an antihero persona evidently based on fantasies of kicking ass and getting even. He raised sons to be mean like he never was and lived vicariously through them. He was a terrible parent and knows it. He’s trying to even things by being a great grandpap. As Archie says you have to know a person’s life context before you understand them. That’s what I want to know about you.
Love,
Aunt Patrice
You’re a wonderful writer! I got your letters and was stunned by both. I most definitely want your life story. I want to hear it all including the time before you lost yourself to the “false self” when you were “just a boy”. I vividly remember that beautiful boy walking on his hands and break dancing.
You must have said something to Chrissy because she asked me if I was sending you “anti-Mormon” books. I said I had recommended a biography of Joseph Smith with the warning it wasn’t “faith promoting”. I know your mother wrestles with her conscience over me. For instance, she once said she wouldn’t be able to get a temple recommend if she were to confess she associates with apostates. Another time, she asked Jack’s oldest son to say the blessing, and, channeling Chrissy, he said, “I know some people don’t believe in you, but I know you’re real.” Molly has evidently decided she needs to protect her children from my influence.
When I was around twenty-three I started to realize that I had a choice. Though I had almost as many demons as you do, I could choose to be possessed by them or to possess myself. I could choose between darkness and enlightenment. It’s hard work to quit feeling and start thinking. Human beings are hard-wired to feel, not so much to think. You can’t rely on feelings as evidence for anything other than that you’re alive. Nor can you use an intelligent designer to explain anything without first explaining where the designer came from. Since this can’t be done, that’s all I’ll say on the subject.
You’re not so strange. When I showed Archie your first letter, she said the fact you wet the bed into adulthood could mean you have a mild form of epilepsy. It’s in the family. Did you know that two of your cousins have epilepsy? Diana’s daughter Michelle, who saw her father shot to death when she was a second-grader, sucks her thumb and rocks herself to sleep still. Michelle’s pregnant, BTW.
I remember when I first saw your father. It was the middle of the night when I sneaked a peek through a curtain to see Aunt Beryl washing a red, naked newborn in an enamel basin. Joey was gentle and kindhearted and would give you his ice cream cone if you dropped yours. He made a perfect punching bag whenever any of the rest of us felt mean. When he was given a preverbal IQ test in primary school, he registered off the chart. But he was dyslexic and read so poorly, teachers—bullies all—called him lazy. He’d come home from school crying and Mama would spend hours vainly trying to teach him to read. He remembers school with horror. He was skinny with delicate features and so beautiful Diana and I dressed him up in girl clothes and put makeup on him. Davey called him Elizabeth. Several times I witnessed Daddy kick Joey across the yard like a dog. Before he discovered alcohol and drugs, Joey self-medicated for anxiety by sniffing gasoline. In late adolescence, he constructed an antihero persona evidently based on fantasies of kicking ass and getting even. He raised sons to be mean like he never was and lived vicariously through them. He was a terrible parent and knows it. He’s trying to even things by being a great grandpap. As Archie says you have to know a person’s life context before you understand them. That’s what I want to know about you.
Love,
Aunt Patrice
