Without Next Of Kin

Since my recent blog posts have been largely autobiographical I'd might as well proceed with the theme.  The information I am revealing here is as usual selective.  I don't want to unfairly implicate or embarrass anyone and besides there is some personal information that I consider sacred, not for shame or embarrassment but simply because it is too precious to put in the public domain.

I have lately been pondering the fact that I have no family.  That does sound rather sad, doesn't it?  Well, I've long ago put away my handkerchief and instead of lamenting over what has really become a boon for me I thought I would share with you, gentle reader, some historical elements of my solitary status. 

My family life was rather unremarkable during my early childhood.  My father was an auto worker and fisherman and my mother worked part time as a product demonstrator.  I had a brother three years older than me.  We lived in a two bedroom postwar bungalow in Richmond and when I was nine moved to an almost new three bedroom split level in a spanking new subdivision nearby.

My brother was the favoured son, particularly by my father who took him under his wing as my parents' marriage was beginning to founder.  My mother and I became close as he and my brother were absent during the summers as he worked with Dad as his deckhand.  Those summers for me were bliss.  No abuse from anyone.  My father didn't always keep his hands to himself where I was concerned (yes, it was that bad), my brother enjoyed beating the shit out of me and my mother's punishments became increasingly brutal and violent.  At my new school I was bullied.  So developed in me the roots of post-traumatic stress disorder.  With my father and brother out of the picture Mom became a lot calmer.  She treated me more like a friend than her son.  I could relax and enjoy feeling safe if only for two months as Mom and I hung together at home, or went for walks together, or out to eat Chinese food.

When my parents announced they were separating I wasn't particularly surprised.  My father moved out of the house.  I was thirteen.  Mom began to try to establish a life of her own, and began dating someone I liked and coveted for a stepfather.  She was treating me a bit like a confidant though fortunately she never told me anything.  My brother was rarely around.  My father went through a particularly bad time of it and was twice hospitalized.

I was the product of two immature narcissists for parents with not a lot of education struggling to raise too children they had had when they were themselves both too young for the responsibility of parenthood being both in their early twenties.  I grew up in a spiritual, ethical, moral, and intellectual vacuum.  Being diagnosed as a gifted child under these circumstances was for me a curse as both my parents were both at a complete loss as to how to help nurture the development of my gifts.

By the time I was fourteen I was already almost alarmingly independent.