When I was an early teen, maybe 10, maybe 12, my Great Grandmother, while sitting close by me, declared to the adults in the room, "I would not blame a young man for not wanting to marry and start a family in a world such as this."
That statement resonated with me. She was the Arthur Schopenhauer of my earliest moments of consciousness as a "literate" [MENTAL=soul] entity. As soon as I could learn to write cursive, I began a long exchange of letters to (and from) my paternal/paternal great grandmother. I treasured her cursive written letters. She was delighted the cursive written letters I sent to her, even when my teenage-world fell into a whirlwind of chaos, parents divorced and sleeping with other partners, sister pregnant giving birth to nephew shortly after parents' divorce, the letters I sent began to have to be restrained, if not altogether censored; and yet, the passion for honest written word must have compelled me to convey the pain and anguish and despair my world had become. The big secret may have been concealing the state of my sister, but I had to convey to her somehow that my sister was in some kind of danger, being on the outs with both [divorced] parents and having to stay with the mother of the father of the child [my nephew].
She was old ever since I knew her, and she was older still at 100 when she passed (she outlived her son, my paternal grandfather).
She was quite grouchy, but always tender with me. When I was a very young child, great grandmother would put my head on her lap and put me to sleep by rubbing her old wrinkled thumb ever so gently and slowly on the top of my forehead. As I aged I learned of the great grandfather I had never met, the man named Hentrich (or Heinrich) who had ended his life in the manner similar to the author of A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, attaching a hose from the exhaust of his personal automobile and putting the hose through a window closed as much as can be expected. For my recent ancestor, it took place in a closed garage. My father was only ten years old at the time, and he worshiped his grandfather (who came from a mysterious place called "Germany," spoke with peculiar accent, and tried to teach him words which were far too long and confusing for my father to learn).
For the author JK Toole, by the way, his vehicle was left running outdoors on the side of an old dirt road where he consciously took his final nap.
So,
My father never picked up on the German from his grandparents frequent arguments, and always complained that the words were too long. Neither of his parents spoke much German either. Generally, way back when, it was discouraged for "German-speaking" 'citizens of the United States of America' to teach their descendants the German language. There was great effort and propaganda to Englisize those with Germanic heritage. I learned this, not through formal education, but through reading Kurt Vonnegut Jr, novels as an angry and troubled young man. It was verified later in life during a homeless spell and many trips to a library through John Taylor Gatto's
The Underground History of [American] Education.) And so it goes.
So, I'm not too sure how much a part my great grandmother played in my mysterious great grandfather's apparent suicide (to put it so bluntly - if there are ghosts and spooky presences not visible to the living senses of organic life, forgive my abysmal ignorance if my assessment is offensive.) I know that financial agony was at the root, supposedly, from what I was able to pick up throughout my life through infrequent mention of this man, the grandfather my father cherished as a child, but who would vanish from the stage of life rapidly before his eyes.
Well, at least, were I to vanish into the void { }, there would be no mourning grand children or abandoned wife. I never spoke to my paternal grandfather EVER about this subject (of his father). It would have been considered HUGELY impolite to inquire. I liked my paternal grandfather better than my maternal grandfather. Both were scientific types, but my paternal grandfather, having been an only child, seem a bit more shy and reserved, where as I perceived my maternal grandfather as a bit more mischeivious and somewhat arrogant, but always trying to be funny (except on Christmas Day when he was bed-ridden over memories of his own father's death on a Christmas Day when he was just 12.)
Oh well, let he who is not a selfish animal cast the first handful of their own poop skillfully into the eye (?) of he or she who offends thee.
What I mean to say is that when I ramble on like this in free-style diaristic fashion [like diarrhea?], I am not seriously judging any of my elders' personality traits, just making what I think are honest observations and reflections ... blah, blah, blah
The main point was this:
When I was an early teen, maybe 10, maybe 12, my Great Grandmother, while sitting close by me, declared to the adults in the room, "I would not blame a young man for not wanting to marry and start a family in a world such as this."I feel I had her blessing to resign from our species. It's the only rationally and emotively
correct thing to do.
Amen.