Ed B. Is Proud Of You
When Ed B., my grampy, died in February 2016, I lost the person who made me feel like he wanted for me what I wanted for me. I lost the only person who never made me feel like I needed to be be more than I was and who just seemed to enjoy my company. He was my anchor in a family that often uprooted and cast me adrift, and then asked me to pretend with them that everything was just great.
He and I were like embedded anthropologists in a family full of magnificently unhinged new age magical thinkers who, what they couldn't spiritually bypass, they attributed to some far-fetched government cabal. He would be there with me and often saw when I became overwhelmed by whatever bullshit I was being made to hear about photon belts, or karma and what "those" people "deserve", or whatever the illuminati might be cooking up. He'd look at me, incrementally raise a brow, shake his head just a little, turn the page of the newspaper he was reading and then laugh out loud at at some comic. In a room full of crazy it's hard to stay sane, but he made me sane. He made me feel in on the joke and he empowered me to find my own way in the world even, eventually, when that meant me being far away from him.
As often happens, who he was for me WAS NOT who he was for his own children.
Even with me, he was not perfect. He was often unkind in his truth-saying, and was 100% a product of his generation's particular brand of white dude-ery that overlooked and took for granted the care and labor expended by my grandma and all those around him. He was TERRIBLE with money, and it was only his privileged position and the constant conservatorship of Grandma that kept the family from losing everything more than once.
With him gone, I have had to mostly sever contact with that part of my family and it breaks my heart because I know how much that would disappoint him. But maybe not. In the six years since he's been gone, social and political culture in the US, particularly so in that white Utah part of the US, has shifted drastically from what he considered reasonable in terms of expectations for equitable access to opportunity.
I have been grateful that he didn't have to see so many people he cared about doubling down on this current brand of white American culture (emphasis on "cult") and have wondered if it was something he'd have been able to just smirk and turn the newspaper page on. Or, if he'd have done like me, and finally determined that he just couldn't anymore.
I honestly don't know. Part of me is glad I didn't have to find out.
When Ed was dying, I couldn't be there. I was full-time mom to a toddler and interviewing for a new job. But my sweet cousin who was as close to him as I was was with him and made sure I got to facetime with him. I told him that I loved him, that we'd all be ok, and that we'd take care of each other.
"None of them told me that." He looked at me through the video on my phone dead in the eye when he said it, and I couldn't help but hurt for the other people in the room who he had poorly prepared for his leaving.
He loved them. They infuriated and befuddled him. But in the end, all he wanted to know was that they would all be ok. He never told any of them that, though. He should have. I bet it would have made all the difference.
I keep watch on the rest of the family as I am able, and help when I can. Mostly they are ok. Some more than others. Because of what Ed was able to give to me, I’m one of the okay-est. He anchored me in myself and taught me to trust myself even in a room full of people that had answers that made no sense to me. On that bedrock I have been able build a life that suits me, one where I’m surrounded by collaborators who, rather than ask me to participate in fictions about why things are the way they are, work to build a world that actually does make sense. For everyone, not just me and mine.
I don’t think Ed had any sense of what he was doing for me. I think it is far more likely I was just easy to be around in a family full of hard cases and that, by the time he got to me, his bar for what he expected of people had been substantially lowered hahaha. But I’m grateful either way. I wish he had had more time. Enough that he would have got to go out knowing how much he meant to his kids. That, more than anything, they all just wanted to be people who would make him proud.
I hope my son hears me when I share how proud I am of him, and believes me when I tell him that my pride is not rooted in what I hope he will achieve but in who and how he is in the world. Hopefully we will both continue to be ok.
If you have time after reading this, I would love for you to take a few minutes and imagine a life for yourself that a person who loves you—and who has nothing to gain from you—would choose for you. This person doesn't need you to be famous, or rich, but just wants you to be always cared for and ok. It’s ok if this person isn’t perfect, and you don’t have to be perfect either. When you think of this person, imagine how proud they are of you for being the things that you needed, and also the person the present moment needs.
If you never had a person like this in your life, I’m sorry. You deserve better. For now, you can borrow mine. For as long as you need. Ed would love it.