My beautiful son has autism. The non-verbal, walks on his toes, sensitive to loudness/pitch/brightness/temperature kind of autism. He is my North Star. He is the love of my life. For him, I would do anything. Literally anything. Steal any thing, burn any bridge, break any law, literally anything. I feel the same way for his sisters (my stepdaughters), and of course, my wife. They, together with my younger brother, my mom, and some of my aunts, constitute the extent of my family. I have half siblings I’ve never met, biological uncles, cousins, and so on. Even though I’m biologically related to those people as well, most of them are not members of my family.
Last year, when I was living on the streets, my wife kept me alive with Door Dash. She got me food when I hadn’t had any, acetaminophen when I needed it, and so on. She provided me a phone that she paid for (and still does). She listened (and still does) to me when I was wallowing in self pity, or navigating the depths of a despair that I’d never known before. Keep in mind: I was unceremoniously pushed away from everyone I loved. I had a pretty bougie lifestyle, and all of a sudden, I had no money, no job, and no friends that might have helped me. My wife is my hero (I know, I know. It’s ‘heroine’, but that has such negative connotations, dunnit?). My wife is also the love of my life.
My wife has taught me about real love. She is the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. She’s taught me what loyalty looks like in action. From her I’ve learned how to use the lessons of endurance I got from the Marines. I’ve learned how deeply one person can care for another. I’ve seen her endure her own inner turmoil, I’ve seen her endure raising five children, as well as a husband who was just then learning to be a husband. I’ve learned to forgive myself for my own sins, and how to accept others for who they are. Moreover, she’s given me a reason to live - which for a bit there, was an iffy proposition.
I served in the US Marine Corps. Understand this: I was not a ‘good’ Marine. I hated every minute of my time in uniform. I was not good at it. The best thing I ever did for the Marines was leave. My picture might even be in the Marine Corps dictionary next to the entry for ‘shitbird’. Still, that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything from that period of my life. Some of the greatest lessons of my life, in fact, I learned from my Drill Instructors. They taught me to value loyalty, sacrifice, and from them I learned how to endure. At that time in my life I had been searching for a father figure, since mine dipped out when I was little, and when he was there, he wasn’t, you know what I mean? So the Marines gave me a plethora of examples of what it means to be a father and a man. Not always ‘good’ examples, mind you, but then, I also learned how to think tactically.
The lessons I’ve learned from all these people, whether they were good people or not, are still with me, though perhaps the single most important lesson of my entire life, the one that has come to define who I am, I paradoxically learned from my biological father, who I highly doubt ever intended to teach me anything beneficial: NEVER abandon your children.
Along the way I’ve also learned to also be cynical, distrustful, vengeful, and many other things, both good and bad. That’s not to say that I am or do all these things now, just that I’ve gone through experiences that have fostered all these behaviors and more. In my head all these lessons add up to one thing:
Right now, I’m living in the United State’s poorest congressional district, and my wife and kids are 400 miles away in Canada. There are days when this reality hits me, as soon as I wake up, sometimes before. Nevertheless, aside from wrangling back my diabetes into compliance through diet and exercise, and keeping my head from metaphorically exploding all over my shoulders, the single most important focus of my life right now is reuniting with my family. Not the people who left me twisting in the wind when I most needed help, no, never those people. I mean my family. The people who I ‘belong’ to, and who ‘belong’ to me.
PS:
Perhaps one day I’ll write about all the practical skills I learned from all these people.