Today, I received my umpteenth graduation card from my aunt Cheri. There have been about a thousand before it, for several reasons, this card actually hit me.
We didn't know that my aunt Cheri existed until I was thirteen and she approached my grandmother in a restauraunt. My grandmother had my father when she was sixteen-years-old, so, obviuosly, my biological grandfather went on like my grandmother to make a family of his own.
Cheri is my half-aunt who I've only known for five years now. Cheri and her husband don't have a lot of money, yet they still had it in their hearts to respond to my graduation announcement with a greeting card and a money order of twenty dollars that they don't have.
Maybe it's because all of the friends and relatives I've received congrats from thusfar are pretty well-off, but I hadn't really up to this point considered the gifts sent to me as anything less than deserved and natural. And for what? What have I done to deserve these generous gifts? Managed to put up with four years of test and busywork? Big deal. Sure, it's an impotrant milestone, but that doesn't equal entitlement.
Until now, I've been ripping open cards, ignoring the heartfelt congrats in the cards in favor of the checks and bills inside of them. What's wrong with me? Is this the sort of person that i'm going into the world to become? Someone that values the resources made available by her family rather than the people behind the? Am I becoming my father?
Not only that but this part of my life really has ended not with a bang but a whisper. Should I be tingling in anticipation over the impending starting line of my life? Should I be mourning more the closing chapter of my childhood?
02 July 2009
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