Love- Part I. Me

**  One of the main reasons I was passionate about using this platform was the creativity and freedom I eventually would work into.  One thing I am really excited about is about having "guest" writers contribute to the whole gig.  So for the next few posts, hopefully you'll get to hear from people I find fascinating and am close to.  You'll get to read their stories of love and passion**

I've never really done "love" all that well.  I guess you could say, my track record isn't all that great all that well.  In fact, one might observe that it's nonexistent.  And you know what?  I'm not all ashamed of it.

A lot of people have opinions about love, how it's defined, and how to accomplish it.  I've always been more interested in where it comes from and how it expresses itself.  I can tell you the most "lovable" people in my life right now are people who at first I didn't want to love.  You could say they intimidated me or seemed impervious to affection.  But they are definitely the ones worth loving.  Like all.  Like you.  For me, love just isn't an end to a means.  It's a process.  A transformation.  A serious of actions.  Or in the most profound ways, love sometimes is most powerfully captured when the lover does nothing to the beloved and its expressed in what is being withheld.  It sounds crazy I know, so here I will start off with an expression of my love and how through the years, it has taught me.

Think of that one family person or member, you know the one that once you mention their name, a silent murmur and then moves into a pained sigh, and back into a well versed and cut to the chase grumble.  Think of that person.  Got it?

That person in my family was my late Aunt.  We'll call her Aunty D.  Aunty D was the eldest child of her generation, my own mother being a younger sibling.  She had a rough go of it early on in life.  In a car accident, had left her without vision in one eye, an eye that would never open fully again throughout her life.  She struggled.  With her own body image, self-esteem, confidence, and it affected every aspect of her role as a Yakama woman.  I'm sure it made food gathering, cultural protocol, and home making work.  The woman I came to know struggled, and struggled terribly.

Aunty D had a load of other nephews and nieces to love.  Its not like our family was short on children.  What brought us together was out utter weaknesses.  I was a needy child, weak, vulnerable, incompetent, and lame.  She was a lady passed over, scarred, and at times abandoned.  

Her own mother, aunts offered very little in the way of encouragement.  I mean its not like she was a model either.  She made poor life decisions.  Bad parenting.  Gambling addiction.  Untrustworthy.  Suspicion inducing.  People needed a break from her.  I was a traumatized adolescent.  In need of rescuing in every possible way.

We needed each other.  The most enduring act of love is when she stood up to grandmother and said that the violent sexual abuse I survived was not worth trying to save her reputation as a professional and a member of the community.  She risked what little honor and dignity so that I could be safe.  She risked being disowned, treated harshly, and scowled and held in contempt.  For that I'll always love her.

When others talked bad about her, I remained silent.  Because that's my aunty.  Why should she only get the scorn and contempt?  I made it a point to visit her every time I was on break from college.  My mom disapproved and  rolled out the list of the evil deeds and manipulation my aunt had recently engaged in.  I ignored it.  I was happy to see her.  She never waived in telling me how proud I was.  Everyone else was concerned with making me a better man, how to be an honorable man, and what decent men were like.  She loved the man I was  And I loved her.

I never had to question, take a sigh, roll my eyes, or moan under my breath painfully in accepting her approval and affection.  There was no motive behind her words.  And towards the end of her life, all I wanted to tell her was she had done a good job.  That her life wasn't in vain, lost, or a burden.  She may have failed to  do many things in her life. One thing she never wavered in was loving me.  That love helped save my life and bind my own wounds.   In an instant, the shattered slivers of our family tree fell into my hands, and I whispered "I got it" as we passed each other.  My ascent has everything to do with the descent and lowliness she so dilligently embraced.

I've had to stop and cry a couple of times writing this.

When I do get to go home, I'll park myself at her head stone, we'll laugh, cry, and I'll tell her stories.

She told me once I deserved an uncommon love and that I'd have to work at it and make it my own.  I never understood that. I guess I'm starting to now