Tuesdays with Larry

I don’t often talk much about my family. I’ve on occasion told stories involving my mother and father, my aunt with the cats and the late-grandmother that lived with her, and even on occasion my brother (whose wedding is only about a month away). There is one small branch of my family, though, about which I have not discussed much, and the simple reason for that fact is that, unlike the rest of us, they seem completely normal.

The little nuclear family from which I come is fairly unusual. The household of my aunt and late-grandmother was a bit on the dysfunctional side. I have my own problems to deal with. But this little household seems straightforwardly congenial and sane. I’m talking about my aunt and uncle.

My father has two sisters. The younger of his two sisters is the aunt who lived with my grandmother. The older of his two sisters, though, lives a fairly normal life outside of Kansas City, where she was an art teacher for many years before retiring. She married a wonderful man who was a local school principal (and English teacher). They were named as Godparents for my brother and I and standing arrangements were made for them to adopt my brother and I should anything terrible happen to my parents.

My aunt, Marsha, and her husband, Larry, are good people. They live comfortably and well, have a nicely decorated home, many fine friends, and now that they are retired, spend much of their time traveling around the United States.

Of the two of them, I’ve always liked Larry more. It’s probably an awful thing for me to do… I mean, who ranks how much they like the members of their family? However mean it is for me to rank people that way, it is true. Larry is the kind of guy that I always saw myself as being, and is a role model for the kind of guy that I’d like to be. Maybe it was that he was living my secret wish (to be a high school teacher/administrator). Perhaps it was because he was generous with his money (he gave lavish gifts to my brother and I, including a $1000 check upon my graduation from KU). Perhaps it was because of his genuine interest in education and the fruits of learning (he established an annual scholarship and took the time to read the application essays carefully). Whatever the reasons, Larry established himself as my image of the kind of man I would like to become.

I really like spending time with him, and when we get together as a family (for Christmas or Thanksgiving or something) he is the only one at the gatherings with whom I can have actual conversations about the things I care about. It is a family tradition (one I’m not too fond of, actually) to put together a puzzle on Thanksgiving on the dining room table. While almost all of our small family did this this past year, Larry and I retired to the living room and spent about 5 hours discussing American education policy, the integration of technology with biology, politics, current events, and ethical issues. It was one of the most engaging talks I’ve had in a long time.

Larry was diagnosed with advanced stage-2 liver cancer a few days back, and the doctors said it is a cancer that has metastasized from somewhere else in his body (they don’t know where yet).

It is a hard thing to bear to see your role model laid low in what might be the final few months or years of his life. I’m not sure how to deal with this yet. As you can probably tell from the tenor and structure of this post, my mind is confused and disconnected right now, so I’m afraid that my silence will continue for a bit longer.

Explanation

First, I want to set the record straight on my last post. I’m not trying to create a mystery for people to solve, and I’m not trying to declare in flowery prose some gushing emotion to the few people who read the things that I commit to my electronic paper. I’ve felt this way about this woman for quite some time, but because of the unlikelihood of ever actually having a relationship with this woman (I don’t think she likes me that much), I pushed the fledgling feelings to the back of my mind and tried to pretend that they didn’t exist. My last post was simply a revelation to myself that in fact, the feelings are real and that I can’t simply deny them.

None of that makes a relationship with this woman any more possible, because the reasons which prevented such a relationship still exist and aren’t likely to go away. I even feel guilty suggesting that those barriers should go away, because that would change who she is, and the life she’s chosen for herself which quite likely makes her happy. Instead of simply denying that they exist, I thought that I might be able to admit to myself that they exist and recognize them as what they are.

While I like to think of myself as an intense person who can be driven by his passions at times, I’d rather not be driven by passions which are ultimately destructive. I’m hoping that acknowledging my feelings will make them go away.

The last thing I want is to indulge myself in wallowing in the type of unrequited love that spawns legions of notebooks of revolting poetry from adolescents. It’s not the type of person I like to think that I am, and it isn’t the type of person that I think I should be.

Revealing who this mystery woman is will only likely make things more complicated. Since nothing good can come of the feelings that I have come to recognize in myself, I’d like to at least do what I can to minimize the negative consequences by working through my emotions in a way that will make them diminish as quickly as possible.

Unhealthy attachments for the unattainable seem to be my bane. I now only have to figure out whether I am attracted to a woman because she is unattainable (indicating some psychological issue I should address), or whether I view a woman as unattainable because I am attracted to her (indicating that my attraction to a woman elevates her in my mind to mythic proportions). I’m not much in the mood to think about such things now, because I have weightier matters to deal with which press a bit more firmly on my consciousness. See next post.