Family ties that bind
You’ve heard of the last Mohican? Well my friends out there in newspaper-land, I’m the last Bates of my clan. You might say, I’m one of a kind.
The reason for not breeding was that I was about as stable as a bowl of Jell-O, and I was never in one spot long enough to even care for a dog named Spot.
Kids just weren’t in the cards for this joker. I preferred the open road and the call of the wild — that, and I found out babies needed watering — daily!
The actual truth is that some of my friends had children (rug-rats), and when I went to visit my old drinking buddies these bundles of (cash) joy would scamper (stampede) around, hugging (wiping snot on) uncle Bernie.
I can say this with great pride: I’ve never changed a single diaper (portable, putrid, poop pouch) in my whole life. The truth is I couldn’t; I’d chuck-up-yuk on the child and no one wants that.
It’s not that I hate kids (scream machines), I love their innocent nature (sleeping), their cheerful smiles (dental bills) and the silly little things they say (truth).
Things like: “Mommy you’re not 29 again” or “Daddy likes girls with big bombs”
As an adopted uncle I get to blow into their lives, fill them with sugar, get them hyped up and leave as quick as the winds that blew me in.
This is the part I love; I get all the love and none of the mess. I get their admiration and none of their guff. I get to walk away and I don’t have to pay; I just leave a little piece of my heart behind.
As in the title: “Family ties that bind.” Some families are bound together by love, while other families feud and the only tie they share is a bloodline.
Glasses full of alcohol shattered my clan, and the broken shards cut deep and severed the ties that bind.
Dysfunctional families happen for different reasons; some come out of greed, some of abuse while others are born to bite the hand that feeds.
Every tribe has its dissenters; the bad ones, the black sheep — you know who you are — you never follow the rules, the boundaries or the other sheep.
The one thing that I find familiar about these trouble-makers is that they are in a lot of ways just like their mothers or their fathers.
“The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.” No one on this planet is meant to get alone with everyone. Tell the truth, you even have fights with yourself, don’t you?
It’s not only the black sheep that walk their own path; even some of your white snowflakes, used to be “baaaad.”
When booze became the wedge that drove my family apart, at first, I felt hate towards their behaviour. Then indifference and now I feel remorse that it’s too late to say: “I don’t care anymore. Water under the bridge and I love you.”
Now that my ass of a brother is gone — I can’t tell him that — and what’s what hate brought us.
If these words fall on deaf ears, so be it, but if they give you a second chance, grab it. Who knows, reaching out could be just the life line that a black sheep was hoping for?
Trust me it’s cold out there without anyone to care.