Up until my brother died from cancer back in 1990, we were close with ALL our relatives and they were close with us.
After my brother's death, many relatives have changed how they 'relate' with us because my parents and I chose to receive comfort from attending church services and so on. In the first year after his death, these people used to call and would come to visit and basically showed that they cared about us during our devastating loss and we too also reciprocated with visits and calls and so on.
My brother's death left us at a deep loss in more ways than one and can only be appreciated by people that know and understand it if they've been through it.
We were at the time just scrambling to pay for the kids funeral expenses. My father had asked a few relatives to help but only 2 families stepped in. He even asked me in all the stress, pain and devastation to go talk to HIS brother for a little financial loan, to help get us through this crushing time of crisis as he was too busy to go talk to him himself.
The fucker told me to "go piss on you and your father."
I was shocked and embittered by his response. It was like kicking a beaten and bloodied man while he lies unconscious on the ground.
When I relayed this information to my father it devastated him and made us all realize that we were alone in this world.
After much scraping and some generosity from the boy's former employer and from a little help from my godfather, we managed to give the boy a decent funeral and wake with over 2,000 people (half the people were students from my brother's high school where he attended; he was student council president, a top student and a very promising long distance runner before he got struck down by cancer) showing up to pay their respects, including the asshole uncle that offered to urinate on me and my father.
For the next 10 years, this man's words echoed deep in my heart and soul and to this day, although I have forgiven him for his insensitivity, I cannot forget what he said during our time of devastation and need.
My father was most hurt by his words - he was in fact his brother afterall and my father had to go 'turn the other cheek' and go visit him at HIS house in order to re-establish communication with this man. Ingreat.
This man was and still is a real piece of shit. My father sponsored him to come live with us here in Toronto and this fucker even lived in our house for FREE, eating my mom's cooking and sleeping in his own room, and just being part of our family and so on for the first 12 years of his life here in Canada.
To this day, if my father doesn't make the effort to call, he just won't. When his daughter got married, he even sent us an invitation. Luckily, I got hold of it before my parents did and responded with a "no offense to your lovely daughter, but piss on you and your daughter you piece of shit." As you can imagine, this did not go over well with my parents but at the same time they laughed about it and weren't too to hard on me for giving back what he dished out first. This fucker of an uncle knows better than to come to my place - EVER.
But as time went by, the phone calls dissipated from the majority of our relatives that we made the effort to stay in touch with, and now it seems there are just a handful of 'relatives' that keep in touch with us and we with them.
Turns out, none of these people have ever had to cope with the loss of such a promising young man at such a young age. In fact, out of ALL our relatives, the immediate families, 2nd and 3rd cousins and their respective families, my brother dying at 19 was the only tragedy in any of their lives.
Yet, when it came to engagements, birthdays, weddings and the like, we always receive a phone call or an 'invitation' to go to a family function of theirs and it usually always involves forking over some cash for gifts or cash for the wedding booty or in some other capacity.
Growing up, I was very close with 3 of my cousins. I always visited them. I even ushered for all 3 of them at their respective weddings.
After my brother passed away, only one of them has managed to keep in touch with me after all these years and genuinely have a come and go relationship with me and even that is mostly by telephone today. The other two have not called me (I used to call and visit, believe you me) since 1989, the year before my brother died.
Jim, I think you did the right thing and knowing that you are good guy I think I can even sense that its not EVEN about the money to a large extent. If there are people in your life that don't look at what's important like health, real family values, honest to goodness love and care, then they have no place in your life nor in your heart.
It seems that some people will never learn this lesson, no matter what happens to them in their lives nor what age they live to be.
Life is too short to have 'your blood' act in a pathetic and demeaning manner towards you.
