My Dear Cousin - The Second Olive Branch

21^st May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

In my last letter I spoke of the first of the three gifts my family gave me as, what were they really, olive branches. Giving someone an olive branch is a symbolic way of saying ‘let’s stop fighting’. An apology would have meant more, but they wouldn’t have meant it anyway.

In any case, the second of these I believe was a birthday card from my grandmother with a check for a hundred dollars. This hits on the vary basic problem that my family believed that no matter what they did to me it had no ill result. At this point I was so damaged from the anger I felt that it was consuming my life. I had to learn to manage my anger.

As I said, this gift came as a birthday card handed to me by (Pickle), and I looked at it and said “what is it?”

(Pickle) said “she just told me to give it to you,” and I opened it wanting to just tear it in half but trying to keep the pain in check. I found the check and a card that said “here is a little something …” I don’t recall the rest.

The bottom line was that the old woman was toxic. I remember when I complained about her son she would say “there are worse fathers” or “you’re making me sound like a bad mother”. I would say that her mothering skills were the issue as she raised a man who would never take responsibility for his own actions and would listen to no argument other than violence.

For a hundred dollars this woman wanted to come back and destroy even more of my life. I just wasn’t going to let her. I handed the card and the check back to (Pickle) and said “you may return it”. That was the last I would hear from the old woman.

I think she was better off without me. She was better off without the constant reminder of what a man-child her son had become, and better off without whatever nightmare the family would have inflicted on me next.

The attempts to make things right were getting more and more feeble. To me they were saying “you’ll take what you’re given”, and I was done.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal