This Diwali my uncle (dad’s brother) showed up in family photos at our place, especially the morning celebrations. I was amused because his own family stays in Bangalore so I’d assume he’d be spending Diwali with them and not us. I felt sorry for him for the first time in many many years that he was at our place and not his own home.
I grew up in his arms. He used to be my mom’s favorite brother-in-law ready to do anything for her. They shared a special relationship that could be best described as brother & sister. My brother grew up in arms as well, and in fact spent way more time with him than my dad. He taught me how to ride the bike growing up. So when things suddenly changed with him after several years of his marriage it never went back to being normal. He single handedly almost wrecked my dad & mom’s relationship because of his jealousy. He went out of his way to mentally harass my mom in her later years, so much so that she swore a curse on him that he would never be happy in his life. She worked to keep me and my brother out of his radar completely, and while she succeeded with me, my brother was unlucky, so much so that he developed a hatred towards the city we grew up in and moved away. I spent two years of my formative teenage years in his house because my family had moved to Middle East and my dad/mom did not want to break my pivotal educational years, and those two years still haunt me. The nonstop yelling matches he had with his wife that stressed my grandma, the nonstop backbiting about me to dad & mom, or his complete lack of support for anything I did. Needless to say by the time both me and brother were done with our education in different countries, all of us including my mom had developed hatred towards him.
My mom’s death only made it worse. I swore to never speak with him again and cut him and his family off. I eventually reconciled with his kids because they are great and had no part in any of this and we are close now, but I kept him at bay. I stopped bothering to figure out what went on in his life. In the last decade or so though my mom’s curse seems to have come home for him. His relationship with his wife never improved to the point that she treats him like a discarded vegetable, unable to cut off. His kids hate him for reasons unknown but I am not even going to bother figuring out. One of his kids in-laws hate him because of his antics he created. My dad hates him now because he has finally realized in the last few years how much damage he did to our family, especially his wife. But my dad still tolerates him because what he sees today is a helpless man who has now been just universally rejected by one and all around him. So he still talks to him and invites him over to festivals because he knows there is nothing for him in his own family anymore. My uncle knows it too now that there really is no one for him anymore. He does not have a job because he quit out of his ego and now relies on my aunt. He started multiple businesses in his life all of which failed because of his lack of business skills. He had to move away from our hometown where he built his life to another city because his wife just packed and left home. His wife cut us off as well because she didnt want to do anything with us, leaving him dry between choosing his own extended family or his own.
For as long as I have remembered I have blamed him for a lot of things that went wrong with my mom. So my empathies for him were at zero, and even though my brother and his family have largely moved on, I did not forgive him for the trauma I faced. This Diwali though when I talked to him, I saw a man completely devoid of any life or joy. He looked exhausted and thin, and largely pale. He’s had health scares in last 2 years but I didnt bother much with keeping check. He looked like someone full of regret of his life gone by. Later my brother mentioned how his own son wouldn’t be bothered to check on him, nor would his wife that he spent Diwali at ours (as cousins we are close knit than our own parents). I dont know why, but I finally felt bad for him this time. I finally felt it was enough. I said a prayer in my mind for my mom to forgive him. I forgave him for whatever happened in our lives because I want to keep the memories of the happier part of my childhood growing years with him. I think it is time to move on and I hope he finally finds the peace in his life that has eluded him for years - and I hope he has finally learnt what my mom went through in the last decade of her life.