Hi Mitch,
Happy Birthday, and hello from your third string grandpa. I hope that you are continuing to enjoy life and love at the highest, healthiest levels possible, for a man of your age and inclinations! We won’t be seeing you anytime soon, apparently, so just know that we love you and think about you and your brother Tony often.
I know that you are too busy to read and respond to my emails, so I have no expectation that you will read this anytime soon. This email is a pretty involved message, yet it is the best gift that I can give you, which is my honesty. You are an adult now, and you are now capable of reading and understanding some difficult facts about the family, which you are already aware of anyway. I have little else to give you now that you are grown up. You were not to benefit from my wisdom, humor, and zeal, zest, and joy for life, since we just did not spend enough quality time together while you were growing up. Perhaps you can capture a whiff of the essence of the experience through my written word.
I always loved my grandpa Henry, who was my mothers father. My grandpa taught me what it meant to be of service to love and caring in all relationships, especially family relationships. And my grandpa was a saint of sorts, too (that is the perception that a kid gets when he gets to know his grandpa at the deepest level). When I was grown up, I looked forward to the day that I could share my love and wisdom with my own grandsons while they grew up. I had a desire that my own grandchildren would learn to love and appreciate me as much as I loved my own grandpa. My first wife developed severe mental illness, and she suffered mightily from her disease of being a paranoid schizophrenic (with multiple personality disorder). We did not have children together, because of the turbulence mental illness creates was not an acceptable atmosphere for child rearing. I brought no children into my relationship with Sharon. I tried to accept Sharon’s children as best that I could. Your aunt Hayley was one messed up teenager who almost appeared to enjoy hurting people and judging against them maliciously (that has not changed a whole lot over the last 30 years, as she is still quite MESSED UP), and created the greatest of difficulties with us over the years. Yet, somehow we hung in there with her, even though she is mentally ill.
Your father was a different story. As a teenager, he was a fun loving spirit who enjoyed life and his relationships with his friends and, usually, his family. We recognized that he had a problem with drugs and alcohol early, yet were powerless to do anything about it. I counseled him about my perception of his abuse of alcohol, but Brad told me at the time that this was just part of his “growing up” process. Boy, how many years does it take to “grow up?”. The time that he fell over black out drunk and hit his head was a revealing chapter in his life. A growth appeared to have developed on Brad’s brain as a result on the impact, and Sharon accompanied Brad to the Naval Hospital in Washington DC to get investigative surgery in 1992. So, alcohol has been many of our companions over the years, though alcohol, over the years, turns on the user, and WILL CAUSE SPIRITUAL DISEASE, in addition to the inevitable physical diseases of cirrhosis, esophageal and other forms of cancer, and heart disease. One does not have to look far to see, and feel, the ravages of the spiritual and bodily harm that the use, and abuse, of alcohol creates, that is for sure. At times, I have been suspicious of your parents’ alcohol consumption, having witnessed high volumes of alcohol being consumed, and some disturbing tendencies in communication reminiscent of practicing alcoholics (I might have a little expertise here, but watch how those in denial will disagree mightily with me). The point of this letter is not to call others on their drinking, however. The point of this letter is to point out the disease of the spirit of this family (and, of all families within the human race, which you will understand at the greatest depths my perceptions, if you ever read my book)
Right now, I have no relationship with your father. We used to be quite friendly with each other, and appeared to enjoy each others’ presence. What solidified my understanding of the failure of our relationship was when my father died. Brad did not call, talk, or express anything to me about one of the two greatest losses of my life. Brad was not present at the funeral (Hayley was, though, surprising as that might be), and I knew that I was not part of his “spiritual family” AT ALL. That one smarted, for sure, but at that point,it was not unexpected. And, as Brad and Dawn are your “way show-ers”, it was no surprise to not have heard from either Tony or you, but it just painfully reminded me of how poorly I have been integrated into the family.
Dawn did not encourage my participation in your life. We tried to have you take flights to Portland to visit with us, yet Dawn refused to allow that, at least until you were 16 years of age. Well, by that time, Dawn had already cast us aside, andd you already had made your choices for who was important to you, and we did not make the grade. We do live 1000 miles from you, and trying to make connections is difficult under those circumstances. Sharon and I did send countless cards and gifts to you when you were young, but when I never heard back from you, I had to assume that we had missed the mark, and what we had to give just was not enough for you and Tony (and Dawn).
Brad and your grandma Sharon actually were making plans to share spring break every year for a family vacation when your mother nine years ago stuck the dagger into our hearts. The truth is that she was angry with Brad and herself, and she unconsciously projected her own anger with herself onto Sharon, and anybody else who might accept it. The end result is that we have had no relationship since then, which makes me sad. Dawn is troubled by more than just raising a son with autism, but, boy, just raising Tony (and being his brother, as well) had to be quite the emotional burden to carry. Yet Dawn has generated problems of her own, through her own behavior choices, and we all experience the effects.
The broken relationship that we all have shared for the past nine years or so must benefit Dawn in some unknown way, but we will never know because of her own conspiracy of silence. Geographic and heart distances, and indifference, don’t add up to high odds for relationship healing, do they? I feel bad for the message that Dawn sends to you about the value of in-laws and grandparents. We witnessed and listened to Dawn bash Bill (your grandpa) all the time when we visiting you guys when you were young, and we feared that she felt the same way about us. Then, she capriciously and maliciously attacked your grandma Sharon, in the most callous, hateful diatribe and email message that I have EVER SEEN OR WITNESSED nine years ago. She told us never to come to her home again, and said unconscionable things. And your dad was too insouciant to even speak up for or to defend his own mother. I subsequently lost some respect for your father, which hurts everybody. Insanity and hatred are cultivated when one brings enormous harm to another, then makes the victim wrong for having hurt feelings around the abuse. That is the position your mother has struck with us.
Now, after all of these years, Dawn would like to be “cordial” with us, without acknowledging the horrible damage that she caused. Of course, without communication and amends being made, there is no relationship, and your mother never admits to her mistakes, apparently. She would rather go to the grave than make amends, which is quite the manifestation of a spiritual disease. I had a spiritual disease known as alcoholism, and this was successfully managed. NOBODY deserves the hate that Dawn created, and until she begins the healing of herself of her need to control and judge others, we have no further need of connection with her. Your father is in a most difficult position, trying to balance his household energy with the need to love and be present for his own mother. That sort of conflict is a lot more common that you might think, so we will all keep an open heart for Brad while he wrestles with his own “angel”. I love your father more than he realizes, yet I am saddened by the failure of the family to remain connected with us. Your mother would also be the beneficiary of our love, but she values her judgements over our ability to share love with each other. She does not fully embrace the truth that the Spirit of Love abides within all of us and will bring healing to ALL RELATIONSHIPS, once we see beyond our limiting ideas of self and other.
I just want for you to know that I am soon submitting my book for publication. I have included a link to the final chapter for you. It is written in a language, pointing to an experience that you will not yet comprehend with your heart, yet you also have the same vast potential to touch and experience wholeness and a non-fragmented love as you evolve. Your grandmother and I are carried by evolutionary spiritual forces into the richness that we now experience in our own lives, a zeal for life, love, and healing that those who do not share in our experience, can never understand, including many of our family members.
Anyway, when you read this six months from now, when you can find ten minutes of time check out the link, it points to my entire message and book. And based on our time together over the course of your life, your time reading this may be the longest time we will ever spend together. I tried out for a lot of team experiences in my life, and I derived greatest joy from the team experiences while running, both with your grandmother on Hood to Coast 200 mile races, and on many 500 mile bike rides over the years with Cycle Oregon and thousands of other bike riders. Sharon and I have been involved in countless healing circles and interdenominational gatherings of peoples of the Spirit, sometimes being a part of many communities of people simultaneously. Yet, the one team that I did not qualify for was that of your family, and no amount of training would have prepared me for the disappointment that I derived from the failure of that process.
The narrative above is purely my own (though Sharon agrees with much of it). This letter is not intended to be directly shared with your parents, yet there is plenty of information presented here that might warrant a general family discussion someday, perhaps when you have children, and have the desire to cultivate loving family relationships of your own, without excluding your own in-laws. Hopefully, your new wife will embrace Brad and Dawn, and wish to include them in your new family group. I regret that I have been poorly integrated into your life, yet I am powerless over the past. The future is yours, and ours, however, should the choice for enhanced connections be made in your adulthood.
We saw much too little of you growing up.
Have a great adulthood! Maybe we will see you there.
Love and success to you,
(your illegitimate Grandpa) Bruce (your father used to call me his “illegitimate father”)
Working title: Penetrating The Conspiracy Of Silence-My Miracle Experiment (or, How I Lived Beyond My Expiration Date)
https://brucepaullinrecoveryandspirituality.com/chapter-thirty-two-conclusion-moon-landings-2/
