It's really appalling. Things were far worse than we thought with my Uncle Dick. As I posted previously, he took his own life several weeks ago. His long-time partner Ron called me with the news earlier this week. He said Dick had gotten into financial difficulties but it was much more than that.
Turns out Dick was ill with bipolar disorder. As you may remember from my posts about my sister, she has it too. But Dick refused treatment for it. And he and Ron had been hiding from me and the rest of the family how awful things had gotten. Dick was so mentally ill that he had been throwing his money away on women's costume jewelry and watches from the Home Shopping Network. Ron has found shopping bag after shopping bag full of it. He had mortgaged the house twice and maxed out every credit card he could get a hold of including some of Ron's. The money Ron got when his mother died, which Ron thought was safely tucked away in T-bills had been raided. It looks like Ron is going to lose the house and everything in it.
I had no idea my uncle was that sick. When we talked on the phone he sounded fine. The same wonderful, gentle, courtly man I always knew. I'm having trouble believing it. It's like I have to rethink everything I ever knew about Dick and about our family.
I no longer have any illusions about anything to do with family. Any last shred of sentimental romantic nostalgia has been burned away. No more trying to stay in touch with relatives, no more being the family news reporter, no more work on family trees, no more opening my heart just to get it torn to pieces.
I hate mental illness, I hate the family disease of alcoholism, I hate homophobia. I hope some day there is a world where beautiful young men like Dick and Ron were can grow old together happily and surrounded by family and friends who love them rather than going quietly crazy and broke, hoarding cheap trinkets and buying shotguns at Walmart to end it all.
God help us all.
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Laura
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Update on my Uncle Dick's death...WARNING: TOUGH READ
