My Brother-in-law

Besides, too much parenting is not always a good thing either. Take my brother-in-law, the one who married my oldest sister, he ruled the family with an iron fist. He was the meanest bastard I ever knew, a regular Jekyll and Hyde—a self-made schizophrenic if ever there was one. I say this out of a sense of love, and because it is the truth. The worst think we humans can do for a bastard is to pretend that what he or she does is all right. Of course, we cannot be a bastard in return.

As a child, though, I didn't see or understand my brother-in-law's relationship to our family. It is obvious to me, now, that there was more to his always being around, talking to my mother, than the family was willing to question. We all knew, prior to his marriage to my sister, that he was a lot older than she, and that his first wife had died. Actually, he was closer to my mother's age than my sister's. We also knew that he lived on one of the better farms near Hastings, and that his parents owned the farm. Moreover, as a point of interest, we knew that he had five sisters—all of whom were nuns in the Catholic Church. I vaguely remember my parents and others talking about these things before he married my sister. I must have been four or five.

What my family didn't know, I am sure, is what bad karma this future son-in-law would interject into our lives. Interesting how we individuals can affect and influence the lives of those around us, even though we man not be aware of how or when. Thank God, I was a child and that children are survivors. I really believe that being a child during that period was an asset. Children are a lot like nature—they rarely take on more than they can handle. I don't think my one brother—the one four years older than I—fared as well during that period. I think that he may have been more affected by conditions and events than I. I remember he quit high school during his last year and went to work in the city.

I remember seeing my father's face after my brother-in-law gave him an unmerciful beating with his fist. I can also vaguely remember seeing my sister chained to a bed by my brother-in-law with a blood gash on her leg. Both experiences sent an emotional shockwave throughout my entire system. I no longer remember how old I was when either of these events took place. I do know that, to this day, I have not forgotten either of these events; I doubt I ever will. Strange, but the personal reasons why these beatings took place in the first place have never been of great interest to me. In my mind, there are no short term reasons for such actions. Such things can only happen out of a perverted form of human nature. But, as a child, I didn't think about how this or that came about, which is why we adults sometimes deceive ourselves when we attempt to understand our past without first recognizing the difference between the way we thought as a child and the way we think as adults. Take the two experiences I have just shared; as traumatic as they were, they did not devastate me—nor did they leave me with a perpetual resentment.

Nonetheless, the experience—as with others—did leave me with a long-standing emotional awareness of the danger of placing too much trust in human nature. Maybe that is why I have sought so hard throughout my life to find something above the obvious; and maybe that is why so many people are presently disheartened—they believe that human nature is all there is.

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