Chapter 12: Family Feud

On May 4, 1998 my Popop died. He was my mother’s father. He was 69 years old.
Throughout his life he had suffered three heart attacks and had a pacemaker placed in
his chest sometime in his sixties but that wasn’t what did him in. He later developed  throat cancer. He had to have part of his tongue removed and his illness wasn’t a long one. I wasn’t there when he died but my Memom, (my mom’s mother); my Aunt’s Lindsay and Ellen and my mom were there. He died at home. A bedroom in the house was set up like a hospital room to make him as comfortable as possible, (this was the same setup that my father got when he died). I was told that the night he died my mom had one of her drunken rages and threw a glass at her sister Lindsay’s head and tried to leave but Lindsay hid her keys so she wouldn’t drive drunk. They had to lock her out of the bedroom where my Popop was in a hospital bed clinging to life. She wasn’t in the room when my Popop took his last breath because she passed out on the concrete floor in the garage. My grandparents lived in Jacksonville Beach and the family wanted my Popop to be buried back home in Pennsylvania. The funeral was held in classic Irish catholic style with bagpipes at the cemetery and all. Later that night, I had two of my cousins with me, and we stayed at my Mom’s best friend’s house since they were out-of-town. I felt it appropriate to get into the huge liquor cabinet and drink myself almost literally to death and was found in the shower on the floor the next morning with alcohol poisoning. I don’t know why I felt this was such a good idea at the time; maybe it brought back too many memories of my father’s funeral. After that experience I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol from the ages of seventeen to twenty-one.

Things at home were anything but stable. My brother was out of high
school, in college and working full-time keeping himself out of the house as much as possible. I on the other hand didn’t have a car or a driver’s license and ended up quitting my job at the mall since my mom’s license was suspended. The abuse was escalating. I think it was at this point that I reached a breaking point. When she started to hit me I couldn’t restrain myself anymore and started hitting her back. I was angry. I felt the need to defend myself since I felt I couldn’t count on anyone else to anymore. My mother had alienated herself from her side of the family, so there was no contact. I couldn’t talk about what was happening to my dad’s side of the family, it felt like treason in some weird sick way.