![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annoyance and loss
Dec. 30th, 2018 09:13 amMy great uncle Tom, or Tommy as we sometimes called him, passed away shortly before Christmas. The funeral was last Thursday. They say we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but if you've heard me mention him, it's mostly to use him as a cautionary example of what not to do, or proof of how far white male privilege will take someone (to be precise, it will take you to the rank of Major, at least in 1965's army). He spent most of his post-Army life living rent-free in his parents (my great grandparents?) house in West End, Atlanta, hoarding the place into disrepair and letting various freeloaders, human and animal, wander in and out, spending his pension on failed businesses and every possible pre-internet scam you can think of.
That West End house, let me tell ya. There was a hole in the floor of that house that cats and raccoons would use, his neighbors would just wander over and plug in an extension cord to his porch outlet, at one point he had a roommate, some fellow single lonely old guy who never paid rent. The kitchen had last been updated in the 1950s. When you think of your grandparents having a home, you think of a big old place that is filled with family on holidays, maybe you think of it as a legacy that gets handed down through the years, but in this case it was neglected right down to the ground. It took us two weeks to un-hoard that place, and as fast as we'd haul junk out to the curb - unopened junk mail, floor tiles from the family business that failed in 1965, old Life magazines half-eaten by rats - as fast as we'd haul it out, he'd haul it back in, or the neighbors would haul it off.
I don't wanna say my great grandparents were racist, but they were white Democrats in the 1920s in Atlanta, so they probably were. I can't imagine the heart attack they'd have if they saw the contents of their home being emptied out onto the curb, to be picked over by the black folks who now fill the West End.
To his credit, I never heard Tom say a racist thing, ever. While, on the other hand, his sister, who was widely regarded in the family as a wonderful person, well, I heard *her* drop the n-bomb once. That's some food for thought there.
Tom was not the kind of uncle that did fun things or bought ice cream or presents for birthdays or Christmas; he would show up at various family gatherings, he would talk over everyone else, he would stubbornly refuse to take responsibility for any of the problems he was causing the rest of the family, and he caused an enormous amount of stress for my parents, who were the only family members willing to put up with him, and upon whom the burden of his care fell as he moved from the West End house to an apartment to various care facilities. The rest of his cousins moved to other parts of the state, or to other states entirely.
Tommy did have actual spectrum-type disorders, diagnosed very late in life, and certainly something they wouldn't have caught in the 40s or the 50s or the 60s. He was born very late in his parents life, and they packed him off to military school as soon as they could. He didn't have the kind of parents or the kind of childhood we did. I have to keep these things in mind when I talk about his behavior, but I don't know that there ever was a solution that was going to make him anyone that wasn't driving his family crazy. I wish there was.
He was the poster boy for failing-upwards white male privilege, unable to manage adult life outside of the Army; I resent every single bit of stress he caused my parents, who were forced to deal with him and his bankruptcies and his housing and his various piles of junk and his medical care and his funeral. I'm told the service, at the military cemetery in Canton, was sparsely attended, but there were people there who shed a few tears at his passing.
Anyway, that was the big news over Xmas in my family; a vague sense of relief, and a carload of clothes to the Goodwill.
That West End house, let me tell ya. There was a hole in the floor of that house that cats and raccoons would use, his neighbors would just wander over and plug in an extension cord to his porch outlet, at one point he had a roommate, some fellow single lonely old guy who never paid rent. The kitchen had last been updated in the 1950s. When you think of your grandparents having a home, you think of a big old place that is filled with family on holidays, maybe you think of it as a legacy that gets handed down through the years, but in this case it was neglected right down to the ground. It took us two weeks to un-hoard that place, and as fast as we'd haul junk out to the curb - unopened junk mail, floor tiles from the family business that failed in 1965, old Life magazines half-eaten by rats - as fast as we'd haul it out, he'd haul it back in, or the neighbors would haul it off.
I don't wanna say my great grandparents were racist, but they were white Democrats in the 1920s in Atlanta, so they probably were. I can't imagine the heart attack they'd have if they saw the contents of their home being emptied out onto the curb, to be picked over by the black folks who now fill the West End.
To his credit, I never heard Tom say a racist thing, ever. While, on the other hand, his sister, who was widely regarded in the family as a wonderful person, well, I heard *her* drop the n-bomb once. That's some food for thought there.
Tom was not the kind of uncle that did fun things or bought ice cream or presents for birthdays or Christmas; he would show up at various family gatherings, he would talk over everyone else, he would stubbornly refuse to take responsibility for any of the problems he was causing the rest of the family, and he caused an enormous amount of stress for my parents, who were the only family members willing to put up with him, and upon whom the burden of his care fell as he moved from the West End house to an apartment to various care facilities. The rest of his cousins moved to other parts of the state, or to other states entirely.
Tommy did have actual spectrum-type disorders, diagnosed very late in life, and certainly something they wouldn't have caught in the 40s or the 50s or the 60s. He was born very late in his parents life, and they packed him off to military school as soon as they could. He didn't have the kind of parents or the kind of childhood we did. I have to keep these things in mind when I talk about his behavior, but I don't know that there ever was a solution that was going to make him anyone that wasn't driving his family crazy. I wish there was.
He was the poster boy for failing-upwards white male privilege, unable to manage adult life outside of the Army; I resent every single bit of stress he caused my parents, who were forced to deal with him and his bankruptcies and his housing and his various piles of junk and his medical care and his funeral. I'm told the service, at the military cemetery in Canton, was sparsely attended, but there were people there who shed a few tears at his passing.
Anyway, that was the big news over Xmas in my family; a vague sense of relief, and a carload of clothes to the Goodwill.
