Open Windows

My uncle fell out of a two-story window when he was seven. He’d been suspended in the air with my mom’s feet on his hip bones, his arms outstretched, pretending he was flying. He was Superman above the bed until Mom’s humanity ended it all. She’s always been petite, so the weight of her older brother on her short legs soon became too much. Forgetting that the window to their left was open, she rolled in that direction to relieve the weight and my uncle disappeared out of the window.

Telling the story years later, Mom said, “I thought I killed him.” The fear in her eyes still lingered there when she recalled the memory. “I fully expected to look out the window and see him motionless on the ground,”she added.

Luckily, my grandmother always wanted their houses to look nice so, instead of colliding with the ground, he landed in some of the tall decorative bushes that ran along the foundation of the house.

The game that almost ended my Uncle’s life is one I frequently played with Mom as a kid. We always played “Airplane” on the living room floor and she always held my hands. If I close my eyes, I can still feel my mom’s fingers interlocked with mine, the bottoms of her feet pressing against my hips, and the slight dizziness that accompanies the thrill of hovering over the ground. This is one of the only things my childhood has in common with Mom’s.

My mom’s youth is full of stories like that one about my uncle, stories that make you wonder how all ten of my grandmother’s children survived their childhood. Unfortunately, falling out of windows was the least of what they had to endure.

My Grandmother had an affinity for men that were fixer-uppers, or maybe they had an affinity for her, either way, her children often paid the price for her bad decisions. As an older teenager, I discovered that this included my Mom, whose father left when she was seven. She often jokes that her parents hated each other so much that she spent her childhood believing her Dad’s name was shithead. His departure was the predictable ending of years of violent fights, which often resulted in 911 calls and my Grandmother wearing dark sunglasses around town. Even at seven, Mom says she was relieved when her dad left because she knew the fighting would stop, but that’s when things went off the rails for my uncle.

Uncle Brian was always challenging, but he became self-destructive once his father left. He started getting into fights and being a general nuisance to his teachers in school. Another story about my uncle that my Mom likes to tell happened on a school bus.

“There was this one kid, Petey, who was always aggravating other people. He just liked to cause trouble and talk crap.” Mom explained. “I don’t remember what he said to Brian that day, but Brian pulled his fist back and launched it right into the kid’s face like a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em robot.” She laughed at the memory and shock her head. “And, in those days, they threw you off the bus for fighting, so the driver stopped, opened the bus doors and just pointed. ‘Both of you out!’” She sighed. “Brian walked home a lot.”

“What did Grandma do when he got there?” I asked already suspecting I knew the answer. I knew my grandmother ,and I knew the violent nature of her relationship with all of her kids, especially my uncle.

“She’d try to beat his ass, but he was too big for her by then. She’d bitch at him until he got tired of hearing it and he would leave the house. She’d lock the door behind him and wouldn’t allow anyone else to let him back in.” Mom just shook her head at the memories. “And this was when we lived in New York, so her young teenage son is outside, in the freezing cold, and, somehow, it didn’t seem to bother her.” She paused for a moment before adding. “And Pete got back on the bus the next day with crooked, duct-taped glasses.”

My grandmother sent my uncle away a few times for psychiatric treatment. “I don’t remember exactly what he was diagnosed with, but I remember they gave him medication, but he wouldn’t take it,” Mom recounted. “He said it made him feel numb, so he stopped taking it.”

My grandmother kicked my uncle out when he was sixteen. I’ve never heard that it was the result of anything specific that he did or some cataclysmic fight. I just think sixteen years under the same roof was all either one of them could stand.

I wish I could say that life got better for my uncle after he got away from his mother, that he found a way to turn his shit upbringing into an unbelievable success story, but I’d be telling you a lie. The truth is, my uncle never recovered from his childhood.

He spent the majority of his adult life either high or in jail. He had four kids, none of whom he raised, and two failed marriages. Of course, there were small gaps in his life where he managed to be okay. He was even able to come to our family’s Christmas gathering a few times, and I was able to observe the man I’d heard so many stories about.

He was exactly as I suspected, blunt and cynical with a raw anger brewing just below the surface of his sad eyes. He was friendly, and always gave me and my sister hugs when he saw us, but he kept a permanent emotional distance between himself and everyone else. I guess that becomes a habit when you grow up the way he did.

I only have one story about my uncle that I witnessed myself. Years ago, my mom’s side of the family all traveled to Greenville for Christmas. While we were catching up in my aunt’s living room, my mom told my uncle about the ancestry research she’d been doing.

“We are descended from a king,” My mom explained excitedly,“Uí Néill Dynasty.” I could see that she wanted him to reciprocate her excitement or, at least, act interested.

My uncle just shook his head. “Well, didn’t we go from sugar to shit.”

Everyone else laughed, but he just kept shaking his head. I guess he figured his blood never did him many favors, so he had no reason to be excited about some ancient king he was supposedly related to.

Of all the stories I have about him, that one is probably my favorite. For so long, I only knew my uncle through someone else’s stories, but I have one of my own now. It’s also possible that memory sticks out because that was the last time I saw him.

July 2020, I received a text message from Mom. “Uncle Brian is dead.” I’ve lost family members before, ones that I loved deeply, and I knew how that was supposed to feel. I was supposed to be devastated, unable to control my emotions, but I didn’t feel that for my uncle. I was sad, of course, and worried about Mom and all my aunts, but I didn’t feel a great loss.

In that moment, I feel that I left him out in the cold too.

Brian O’Neil died three months ago in an old, ratty recliner with drug paraphernalia scattered along the floor around him. He lay there for days before anyone found him. Officially, he died from heart failure, but I can’t help but wonder if, throughout his life of abuse, accidents, and bad decisions, he just came across one too many open windows.