My cousin (actually double first cousin, so almost a brother biologically. His mom is my mom’s sister and his dad is my dad’s brother) had a fuuuucked up childhood.

His father was a severe alcoholic and abandoned him. I wasn’t allowed around his dad as a kid. I have two memories of him from when I was a kid. One time he bounced the muscles in his arms and legs and told my brother and I he had live frogs under his skin. In the other memory, he chased my father with a chainsaw and jumped through a window in an attempt to kill him. My father doesn’t associate with most of his family. My father abandoned me too, but I had a mom and a step dad who did their best.

His mother had him until he started school. She dropped him and is 1 year old sister off with my grandparents and disappeared. She popped back in when he was a teenager. I mean, she was around before that, but she tried to be a mom when he was around 15.

He thought his father didn’t even think about him. When I was in the 7th grade and he was in 5th grade, we snuck into the attic of my grandparents’ house to sneak a cigarette. We were snooping and found a box full of unopened letters from his father. Neither of us were even allowed to have pictures of our dads.

His dad had written him a letter at least once a month all of his life despite never getting a reply. That broke something in him. He went from thinking that he had a father who didn’t care at all to the harsh realization that our grandparents hid letters from him. The only people who loved him, in his world, had betrayed him in the worst way.

We sat there bawling our eyes out reading those letters. He found out he had two half siblings, Michael and Rebecca. His father had sent him pictures of every stage of their lives. Turns out that despite his problems, the woman he had his next two kids with had it worse and abandoned him to raise them as a single father.

I’m crying typing this. Lord.

Next day at school, he had a binder with their pictures glued on the front. He wrote underneath the photos. “Michael and Becca, I love them both.” He had never met them, but had read about their first words, their first steps, favorite foods, the ways in which they reminded their father of him. Goddamn.

I didn’t know anyone from my father’s family but him, and we were close all of our lives. We learned to play music together, wrote songs together, we did everything together.

I didn’t understand his interest in the whole juggalo thing when that came up and I thought it was cringe as fuck. I don’t feel that way now. As bad as I had it, he had it worse. When I was a kid I could only focus on my problems. My grandparents had it together. They had a nice house, money, and nice lives. I was dirt poor. I had nothing. I thought he got lucky and I envied him for having a real home to grow up in.

Only as an adult did I see that he had it worse than me. My mom had problems, but she was there. No one lied to me about my father. My father legit didn’t care, and even though he was doing better than my uncle, he didn’t write me any letters. Shit, I contact him today and he might reply three months from now. My cousin was lied to. He was told that his father a worthless drunk who didn’t care and didn’t even try. I’d rather learn that was true than learn they’d hid my father’s love from me.

My grandma died two days ago. I should message my cousin. Goddamn I’m mad at myself that I haven’t yet. Didn’t even cross my mind. Fuck.

But yeah, I can’t relate to the juggalos, but I get it. I get where they’re coming from.