Reconnecting with my DNA, after 20 years

Yes, this disease is in our blood

-----Original Message-----
From: Uncle Randy
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 3:54 PM
To: Lisa
Subject: Your Last

Hello Lisa...I should be in bed sleeping off last nights shift but for two nights now I have been thinking about your last <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=e-mail&v=55">e-mail</a> which took me on
quite a ride. I first want to congratulate you for successfully quitting drinking. I have only recently <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=quit smoking&v=55">quit smoking</a> after trying for 20 years so I
know a little about the intense struggle it is to break an addiction.

I suppose you know that your Dad was addicted to heroin for a <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=time&v=55">time</a>. I have an image stuck forever in my mind of him locked in a small bathroom howling
like a wounded animal, screaming and crying wretching with withdrawls. I was just a frightened boy who could do nothing and I felt just quite as
powerless reading your account of your fateful frightful night...but I am not completely powerless now because I have your rapt attention at a <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=time&v=55">time</a> in
your life where you are reaching out vigourously for something you feel I and your other Rousey blood can give you.

You wrote of the bridge you always planned to jump off of one day and of course I know what you mean because it sounds so familiar to me. My mother's sister, aunt Velora committed suicide when I was three or four.
Our <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=family&v=55">family</a> was still together then and I remember her an <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=angel&v=55">angel</a>. Her smile and her eyes much like those in the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=pictures&v=55">pictures</a> you sent to us she glows in the
images saved in my mind's eye. She must have been in her mid-thirties as she was Mom's younger sister. She had breast <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=cancer&v=55">cancer</a> and back then they had little to do but lop off the area's aflicted and hope for the best. First they took her breast then they took her arm and I believe about the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=time&v=55">time</a> they were going to take something else she took pills and died in her sleep.
Her young daughter found her body and of course the rest of the lives of the children were emotional struggle one after another. The older son
Richard lives in Boise and is quite a fine man with a mind <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=sharp&v=55">sharp</a> like <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=diamond&v=55">diamond</a> and very talented but at 50 he has never been able to commit to a long-term relationship and to this day is still a kind of tragic loner.

My mom had two of what was always termed "nervous breakdowns" before I was born and in my 17 years living with her I saw an emotionally crushed woman
sometimes paralyzed by her anxiety and fear. She survives today at 83 but she is still like a broken plate held together with old tape. One simple
comment is all it takes for her to shatter and when she does the shards fly in every direction imaginable.

Over the course of my life I have contemplated suicide many times. I too had it planned. I wanted to fly off the highest point possible so I could fly and see my death coming at me. It seemed like an option. Simple, straightforward, like going on <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=vacation&v=55">vacation</a> and it never worried me that I had those thoughts. I remember having dark periods as a child. I guess things like being "ditched" by the older boys in the neighborhood, left alone unwanted as a playmate might set it off. Certainly as I grew, failures of
any types set it off. I would sit in front of the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=television&v=55">television</a> just staring for hours not wanting to move or eat or go anywhere. When I got older and
began chasing girls rejection was terrible and I would gather under the dark heavy clouds of sadness, anger, frustration and worthlessness and wonder how
I could make it all stop.

As I got old enough to have freedom of movement the darkness would take me away and it was at this <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=time&v=55">time</a> I began to run from the storm. When a <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=job&v=55">job</a> and
a girl both seemed to break my heart I ran to Ontario Oregon. There I found the wonder of the stage and acting and the most beautiful girl in town I
hardly believed was loving me. When that ended my heart ached again and I ran to Portland and "the city" where I embraced the theatre community that
embraced me and became best <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=friends&v=55">friends</a> with a quirky costume designer who eventually everyone told me loved and worshipped me though I was such a spud
I never even knew he was <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=gay&v=55">gay</a> until his jealousy exploded over a Lisa of my own. She too would break my heart and the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=depression&v=55">depression</a> then was at its apex
in Hollywood where lost and hopeless, afraid confused and perfectly failed at even that which I thought was my calling I hitch-hiked to Texas to your
Mom and you. I thought I was healing there but I was just resting and the deep dark <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=depression&v=55">depression</a> kept chasing me...to Navy bootcamp in Illinois. I saw the skyscrapers of Chicago and thought now there are some places that could make all this stop.

To <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=Japan&v=55">Japan</a> and a loneliness that was suffocating. To the Phillipines, Singapore, <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=Thailand&v=55">Thailand</a> where the whores made me pay for an illusion of <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a>.
To Canada where a three-month bender turned into marriage, committment, and
finally, children.

Even now the darkness still comes. I feel its chill breezes caressing my cheek and I look to the horizon to see the clouds gathering. When it envelopes me, falls over me, engulfs me, everyone dear to me pays and later, after it clears I am guilty and saddened again, pitiful and sorry. I have said I'm sorry to the ones that I <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> and <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> me until I am sure the words mean nothing and saying them again is enough even to gather the clouds once more.

I have never been to the doctor Lisa but this I know for sure. <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=Depression&v=55">Depression</a> is real. Mean, powerful, cold hard killer scary and strong like only
mother-nature. IT RUNS IN MY BLOOD THAT IS YOURS and has taken its toll in dark black spades leaving behind ashes, bloody-broken souls and wide long rivers of years long tears.

I think you have taken a big step in giving up alcohol. If you can't see clearly you can't keep walking and of the many things that drinking does it
can give us a false sense of what is happening.

I don't have any secrets and I would be lieing if I told you I was past it but I will tell you what I feel. The <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=people&v=55">people</a> that really <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> us need us.
There isn't all that much <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> in this world that they can just go out and get it elsewhere. So while we may think that we're worthless and sorry and
stupid and more a sickness than a cure, we're not. We're needed for the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> we give, the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> we have and the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=love&v=55">love</a> we've yet to share.

And everything is just something we're going through...EVERY THING.

We have native Cherokee in us from my Dad's side and they believed in the power of circles: the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=water&v=55">water</a>, trees, the <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=stars&v=55">stars</a>, the sun and moon, everything
they knew...life. Everything is cycling, circling <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=moving&v=55">moving</a> through and about circles entwined intersecting interacting affecting touching. I see it
everywhere now and in everything and the simplicity in it is really the truth for me. Used to be, the worst <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=time&v=55">time</a> for me was when the dark clouds were forming on the horizon and I could sense another <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=depression&v=55">depression</a> coming. Inevitable. Again it comes. Will it ever stop? Must I go through it again? I don't have to. I can stop it. I can. Just jump off and its over.

Finally. At last. Peace at last....ahh but what do we leave behind?...the spectre, the pain anguish confusion of the type that only you, I and everyone else who have lost loved ones to it can imagine...that
terrible final option...a singular ending choice...

But its simple really Lisa my beautiful, talented needed important niece, daughter of my tragic beautiful brother who gave up before he could finally
see it for himself...its all just something we're going through...it will pass...the storm will gather, the darkness will fall and the storm might
seem the worst of all...but it will pass...it may always come back...but it will always pass...and when it does your loved ones will still be there
needing you loving you forgiving you. They have our blood too so the darkness may lurk within them as well so watch for it and talk to them about it...your life, your Dad, my mom, your great Aunt Velora and teach them what it is and how hard life is and how strong they have to be and most of all show them your own strength...continue to be the strong vibrant light your
words and <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=pictures&v=55">pictures</a> show you to be.

You've an amazing incredible life behind you and believe me the best is yet to come. At 30 you are only beginning to stretch wings that have until now
merely let you fly. Only with maturity can you soar. This will be part of the true <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=gift&v=55">gift</a> to your offspring.

I am off the pulpit of the cirlce now and headed finally to bed. I've more stories to tell, less preaching....but until then, I am always,

Your loving Uncle Randy


Creativity is the willingness to express emotion and the ability to explore it without perfection.