Uncle Nancy

“Do you think you’re able to choose your family before your birth?“ I stared at my Uncle Nancy, waiting for her response. I asked her specifically as I was curious about her take on it. I thought we could connect for once, and she could share some family insight. That was not the case.

“I’m going inside,” she said in her raspy voice. She put her bone cigarette holder down and slammed the door behind her. I pissed her off.  Her previous behavior had shown me that she wouldn't talk to me for months after this. She was cutthroat, and I crossed a boundary. I learned not to take these encounters personally anymore. 

I finished my smoke inspecting her bone accessory. I know she carved it herself. I bet she caught, killed, and skinned the animal this bone came from. Uncle Nancy was the type of person that could easily survive in the wilderness, even a hundred years ago. 

Uncle Nancy, as she liked to be called, always appeared agitated. She rarely smiled and gave looks that could kill. Nancy had strong opinions and often contradicted herself. She loved animals and got the SPCA set up in our hometown, but she also got drunk and shot her dog. The dog lived but with only one eye. Nancy despised her parents, which made sense, and she also wrote poems in their honor in the newspaper. Uncle Nancy married a creepy man she fought with often. After years of a hostile marriage, they divorced when he stole her money. They made up soon after and remarried.  

Uncle Nancy has always been tough on me. I was interested if she believed in a  higher power; if not, I wanted to know why. There was something so uncanny about her that I felt she was mythical. Nancy rarely gave anything to anyone and gifted me items from her childhood, so there’s some sort of love happening, just not the kind I wanted.

My Uncle Nancy is currently dying of cancer. The last time I saw her, she looked frail. We talked about her buying adult diapers, and it’s the most we’ve ever bonded. She would only speak to me on the edge of my mother’s property because she was mad at someone in the house. So, she’s still pissed and holding onto grudges.

Uncle Nancy never had children, and when my mom was pregnant with me, she helped along the way. I even have her middle name because of this. Once I arrived, though, she stopped coming around. I like to think we both learned from each other here.

I picked Uncle Nancy before I was born, and I’m never going to get to know her in the way I want. She gave me the love she had. But this isn’t about me. How others give love isn’t up to us. What is up to us is how we respond and react to the love that comes our way.