Hello friends! You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much since Christmas. I’ve been trying to think of a way to talk about what’s going on, but I don’t want to post it to every single friend and family member just yet, so I’m going to start off slow and just post here for now. I may share this stuff with the rest of the world later, we’ll see. I’ve only invited a handful of people to read this blog, so if you’re one of them, it’s because I really love and trust you.
Shitty Christmas
So Christmas day happened, recently. Christmas day 2022. Willy and I were driving to our friends’ house in Maryland when I got a text from my parents saying one of my nieces, Gabi (short for Gabriella), was in the hospital. They said there had been an accident and my brother (her dad) was on his way to the hospital.
As it turns out, it wasn’t so much of an accident as an intentional event. Gabi, for reasons unknown to anyone in my family, took a collection of medications on Christmas. She was placed in the ICU on life support. Yesterday, the 27th of December, they took her off of life support after finding no brain function.
To say that this is a shock to everyone is an understatement. Gabi was in her early 20s, in school to become a nurse, with scholarships and accolades. She was a talented musician with friends, cats, and a bright future ahead of her. The last time I spoke to Gabi, she was telling me how school was difficult but she was pushing through. I told her to enjoy these years, as I personally found college to be some of the best years of my life. There was no indication that she was suffering, but of course, why would she confide in an aunt she hardly sees? I hadn’t seen Gabi in years, and for that I have no excuse except that my family has never really been the type to gather very often. That’s what got me to thinking about my family, and our problems in general.
Depression runs in my family. I don’t know what Gabi was feeling, but if she had depression, she would not have been alone. My grandmother (on my dad’s side) suffered from PTSD for years before her life ended very young. We actually don’t know how she passed, as my dad was only told that she died because “she was too sad”. I never met her, as she passed away before I was born. I never knew my grandfather either, but he was supposedly the source of her PTSD, having been a violent person who committed acts of violence that she witnessed first hand. To my knowledge, he was never violent toward her, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.
So we have that as an example, and we also have my mom, who suffered from post partum depression and bipolar disorder for many years without any treatment, and was amplified when her mother died. Luckily, she was able to work past this, which is practically a miracle. Nobody should have to go through that sort of sadness without help, but we didn’t have insurance for many years. When my mom finally did have health insurance, she went to every doctor’s appointment and I think just having that kind of security helped her a lot.
On to my sister, who was diagnosed with depression as a teenager. I was told she had an incident similar to Gabi’s, but was caught before she could hurt herself permanently. Today my sister is a very successful person, a grandmother to four (soon five) grandkids, who loves birds and spending time with her kids. My parents did everything in their power to get my sister the help she needed, and I was too young to really understand just how overwhelming it must have been at the time, but I know my dad took a 2nd mortgage out on the house to pay for that help. Of course, her living at home with my family at the time made it difficult for her to hide her feelings, which is why my parents were able to do that.
Gabi was different. She was an adult in her 20’s, and I think most of us assumed she was doing great. That’s the thing with my family, we don’t talk much. Growing up, my parents being immigrants made it so we only saw my grandparents in Catalonia every few years. I had one aunt in DC, my dad’s sister Marina, who I saw sparingly. I had another paternal aunt and uncle who live locally, but for some reason or another, I have never met either of them. I have cousins my age I’ve never once spoken to.
I have been an aunt since I was 8 years old. My sister had her kids first, then my brother. In total, I have 8 nieces and nephews from my brother and sister, and now my sister’s kids are having kids, so I have (soon to be) 4 grand nieces/nephews, too. I see them every few years, but we’re not close. It makes me wonder a lot about how most of the American families I’ve known have close relationships with their siblings and aunts and uncles and grandparents, but having never had that I never really missed it.
Family is Weird
Until now. I’m starting to realize how much I missed out on by having the kind of family that doesn’t talk to each other. Within the past 10 years, my sister and I have created a much better relationship that we never had as kids. My sister grew up very young, and since I was so much younger I always saw her as an adult. Now that I’m an adult too, it’s a little easier to reach out and talk to people, but when it comes to my brother, that’s different. At some point in the past 10 years, he changed too. From the very proudly bi-racial Latino who spoke Spanish to piss off his neighbors to a Trump-supporting mega-church-attending “one of the good ones” who loves Barcelona, but doesn’t talk very much about his Salvadoran side.
I have a hard time when it comes to my brother because as a kid, I worshipped him. He brought home heavy metal albums that I secretly (or so I thought) stole. I wore his old band t-shirts that he left behind, and I’m pretty sure I wore his old Poison bandana at least 20 years after their heyday. He moved out when I was in primary school, so I never really got to know him. He was having kids before I was even in middle school! By the time Gabi was born, I was still wearing his old band t-shirts, and trying to figure myself out.
Gabi and her twin, Hannah, were both born with a few issues. Hannah was underweight and Gabi needed ear surgery. Gabi wore glasses as a baby, which I always thought was the cutest thing. They both played piano, sang, and seemed as if the world would be bright. When I was dating Willy in college, they were just old enough to say “I like that name, uncle Wiwwy”, and that will stay in my mind forever.
I have a lot of regrets, but not getting to know my family better is definitely one of them. Especially after finding out how much we have in common. I didn’t know the twins loved music as much as I did. I didn’t know Gabi was in show choirs and performed. I wish I had known.
I guess this is all just to say that living with loss and regret is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced. I spent all of yesterday nauseated and exhausted, not knowing why. My dad has spent the whole day crying. We’re not a super close family, but loss and regret seem to be pretty standard, which is something I’ve noticed is very common in immigrant families. I’m going to try and get through this as best I can, and I hope I’m not being overly dramatic by writing all this down, but it’s the only way I could think of to get all of my feelings in one place, where I could share them with the people I care about. I think I needed that most of all.