Inheritance
How to handle legacy
I inherited more than DNA, and so did you.
I inherited a legacy and since my Mom died 10 years ago, I feel a sense of obligation to tell her story, to give it the attention it deserves, to prevent her name from becoming obscure.
A lot of my story is the product of her story.
Therefore, I cannot tell it without telling hers. Without her story, my story wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t exist.
I want to tell you just one part of it.
1985
They were married. My Mom and her husband who we’ll call Kevin.
They were happy at first. Together they faced life’s challenges and supported each other through the typical issues that couples face, but Kevin began to spiral after three years of marriage.
His life wasn’t going the way he envisioned it. He had trouble at work where his boss jerked him around. He had trouble with his PhD advisor who was extending his research, and his wife (my Mom) didn’t know what to do.
These might not seem so terrible, but they were made worse by the years of repressed emotions. Those current issues compounded his already fragile emotional state.
If he had been smart, he should have sought counseling.
But instead, alcohol, and his dog Cosmo, were his sole coping mechanisms. He loved Cosmo and was fiercely loyal to him. In fact, before Kevin and my Mom were married, Kevin’s apartment caught on fire. Cosmo, naturally, went berserk and saved Kevin from suffocation and certain death.
So, he felt indebted to Cosmo, and gave him all the love and attention in the world.
But, still, it wasn’t enough.
His mental state deteriorated. He was majorly depressed and he started becoming violently drunk. This put an enormous strain on their marriage and for months one thing after another seemed to go wrong.
My Mom didn’t know what to do. She, herself, had her own problems! She, too, was an alcoholic and dealt with depression and anxiety. Watching her husband go through similar difficulties was horrible for her because she didn’t really have the energy to support him through it.
Without professional help, like so many men do, he internalized, self-medicated, and suffered alone.
My Mom would call her parents in tears night after night because Kevin would stay out at bars drinking. She felt so isolated and overwhelmed because her marriage was crumbling. She didn’t know what to do or how to help.
Then, the worst happened. Cosmo died.
Kevin was consumed in grief. That was it, the tipping point. In their garage was Cosmo’s kennel, then empty. Kevin sat in the kennel, drank and drank and drank away his sorrows, then doused himself in alcohol, and set himself on fire.
My Mom woke up to the screaming inferno at 2am and found him burned to death, his suffering over, his debt to Cosmo repaid.
Legacy.
Kevin wasn’t my father, but his part in my Mom’s life was formative, traumatic. It changed her, and not for the better.
This is just one story I inherited. I wouldn’t be here if that didn’t happen.
The story of our lives is so much more than what happens from birth to death. How we get here matters, and so does what happens after we leave.
Legacy is more than a life.
It’s a responsibility. Stories that matter are lost everyday, even in living memory.
Perhaps it’s misplaced, but I feel an obligation to tell these tales. I feel that way because otherwise, they’d be worse than dead.
They’d be forgotten.
Thank you for reading! And I appreciate the support. CLAP if you feel like it!
