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“Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache.”
~~~~~ Iyanla Vanzant
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Eddie had always suspected that most of his family basically just tolerated him.
He remembers when he was very little that he got along with all of his cousins, enjoyed playing with them, and knew he was loved as a part of the Diaz family.
That slowly changed over the years, and sped up once his father told him he had to be the man of the house.
He did his best, but somehow always managed to make mistakes, and those mistakes became funny stories and gossip that his parents spread among his family.
What Eddie didn’t realize until it was far too late was that his parents didn’t quite tell the truth. Or rather, they told the ‘truth’ in such a way as to make Eddie out to basically be either the village idiot, the villain, or both of their stories. His mistakes were made out to be so egregious that both sides of the family started to treat him differently. Treat him as if he was less than in many ways.
It all depended on which stories they’d heard, but eventually they basically just tolerated his presence and rarely ever engaged with him. At family functions, his siblings and cousins wouldn’t hang out with him or let him participate in their games. Not that he was allowed to all that often anyway, since he was the ‘man of the house’ and had to help set up and clean up and basically help keep any and all family get togethers running smoothly. If he didn’t, then his parents would pile even more disappointment upon him, sometimes adding other punishments on top. And, of course, tell stories about it all.
Thankfully, he had a few friends at school, ones that seemed to understand he would hardly ever be allowed to hang out afterwards or on the weekends. Those mostly shallow friendships helped to keep him from totally despairing of his life.
As he grew older, Eddie learned to ignore the loneliness and joylessness of his life. Simply going from day-to-day existing as a member of a family who, with very few exceptions, barely wanted him around.
All of that changed when Christopher was born.
Despite his son’s hard start in life, everyone loved Christopher a lot and wanted to be around him. His son was a bright spot in their family. And he became Eddie’s main reason for living.
And somehow that love for his son transformed how his family saw him despite the fact that he was away overseas serving his country and not actively helping to take care of him those first few years. Once his leave was over for Christopher’s birth and he was back in Afghanistan, Eddie suddenly started getting brief emails and letters from members of his family that he’d barely interacted with in years. He was praised for risking his life, for being a good father by making sacrifices to give his son a good life.
Oddly, even after Christopher was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, the family continued to treat him better than Eddie had ever been treated by them over the years. It even continued after he’d been medically discharged from the Army, after moving to Los Angeles, and after becoming a firefighter.
His parents’ love, care, and tolerance on the other hand dwindled to an all-time low after he left El Paso with his son instead of giving them custody of Christopher. When he stopped to consider it after they took his son away from him, Eddie thinks this was when his parents began to step up their whisper and smear campaigns against him after years of being somewhat supportive and less disappointed than usual of him.
The Los Angeles branch of his family was very different from the El Paso branch. It sometimes felt as if they hadn’t been as inundated with the stories and gossip his parents tended to share about him. They seemed to do more than tolerate him and actually treated him as part of the family even before Christopher was born. After his son was born, and he moved to L.A., he was treated even better because of Christopher.
He was invited to the L.A.-based family gatherings, and instead of being on the sidelines or helping things run smoothly, Eddie got to actually got to interact with everyone. Though it didn’t take him long to realize that he was essentially his son’s plus-one, because they always wanted to see his kid more than him, but it was still a nice change from how Eddie was treated by the El Paso branch of the family.
The only thing that stung a little was how his Abuela, who had once been his staunchest supporter in the family, seemed to transfer the majority of her love and attention to his son. Of his four grandparents, his mother’s parents notably favored his sisters, pretty much ignoring him when they visited. His father’s parents, especially his Abuelo, favored him a little more than his sisters. Likely because he was the first-born grandson, but it was nice to have some positive attention those rare times his Abeulos visited El Paso.
His Abeula had this wonderful ability to treat all of her son’s children the same. Loving them equally, and not treating any of them differently. However, that changed when her husband passed away. Over time, she seemed to start favoring him more than his sisters. It wasn’t very obvious or much more favor, but Eddie still noticed the change and was grateful for it.
The cynical side of Eddie thought it was because, he more than any of the grandsons, looked the most like his Abuelo. Either that, or his Abuela had decided to continue where her husband had left off, perhaps feeling sorry that Eddie no longer received any extra attention or favor from a grandparent.
So, the fact that Christopher had stolen her heart and she gave him much more attention than she gave Eddie, didn’t bother him like it probably should. In many ways, he reaped the benefits of that attention in terms of help getting settled in L.A., free babysitting, homemade meals, and the added bonus of his tía Pepa taking her cues from her mother.
Besides, Christopher deserved to have all the love and attention he could get because his son was the best thing to ever happen to him. Eddie would do his best to give his son the life he never got to have while growing up. He promised himself he would never be selfish and prioritize his son always.
Of course, being the massive disappointment he’d always been to his family meant that he’d make a mistake sooner or later. A mistake that, to his son, was so grievous and unforgivable that Christopher wanted to be as far away from him as possible. To live with his grandparents instead of with him.
His parents had finally got their way. They’d won, and Christopher was living with them, refusing to talk to his father, and barely acknowledged his existence. No matter how many times Eddie tried to explain the situation, his son refused to listen, wouldn’t even consider coming back home. Making matters worse was the fact that his parents were not even trying in any way to help reunite them.
And, being the parents they had always been, they told stories about him. Gossiped about him. Made him out to be the villainous father who had irrevocably hurt his son.
This time though, all that gossip spread throughout both the El Paso and the Los Angeles parts of the family. The vague support he had once enjoyed by the L.A. branch of the family was suddenly gone.
Not long after Christopher had settled in El Paso, Eddie started receiving all sorts of messages from those few family members who’d he’d been friendliest with cursing him out for what he’d done. Their words making it sound as if he’d been physically and emotionally abusing Christopher ever since the day Shannon had left them and he’d taken sole custody.
Yet, oddly enough, he never received any visits from the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS). If they believed he’d done half of what they thought he’d done, wouldn’t they have complained about him? Shouldn’t someone have already come by to officially investigate those complaints?
He didn’t know what to think about that, why that step hadn’t been taken, but for now he was grateful. It meant that there was still a tiny chance Christopher might come back to him someday.
After that brief flood of hate towards him, everyone he was related to went radio silent. Even his Abuela ignored any of his attempts to contact her and explain his side of the story. He was hurt by that, but it only proved that she had only been on his side out of pity and duty to her late husband and not actual love for or care towards him.
He was alone.
Completely ostracized.
He’d broken his promise, and for once, he’d been selfish. Just one time not thinking of Christopher first, and that was all it took.
He went from being tolerated to becoming a non-entity within his own family.
Eddie understood, believing he deserved it all, but he was happy that his son had the family’s support. That his mistakes hadn’t ever poisoned his family against Christopher.
Christopher deserved better than him and always had.
Maybe now, without the millstone that was his father around his neck, Christopher would have everything he could ever want that Eddie seemed incapable of giving him.
And finally, Eddie got what his family had always indicated he deserved.
Nothing.
No quarter.
Being completely shunned by his family.
Though, without Christopher, Eddie was lonelier than he’d ever been when he was simply tolerated by his family.
Eddie didn’t bother to fight it, not with everyone so firmly against him and because he’d never in his life had been successful at changing anyone’s mind about him. He’d spent his whole life on the outside looking in, so he was unfortunately very used to it by now. He’d long ago lost the ability to stand up for himself.
He couldn’t help but wish that one day Christopher would at least talk to him again.
But he didn’t have much hope of that because his parents just happened to be excellent at telling stories about him.
And by now, in Christopher’s eyes, Eddie was probably the worst father to have ever existed.
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The end.
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