Family
The War Took Everything From Him
JC’s Story
“The older you get the more you realize that it is not about the material things or pride or ego. It’s about our hearts and who they beat for.” — Riya
My parents owned a home when few Black people did. It was a big five-bedroom, two-story with 1.5 bathrooms.
My mother was an only child, but my grandmother was the youngest of nineteen children. We had aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and whoever staying with us at various times. My mother’s nomad father even stayed with us a few times.
Many of our relatives made an impression on me. My cousin JC was one of those people. JC served in Vietnam. My mom told us Vietnam stole him away from his family.
A Handsome Man
JC was a handsome man. Before he went to war, he was engaged to be married. When he came back, his fiancée broke off their engagement because of his obvious mental problems. She no longer wanted to be his wife. His illness changed JC from an independent man into a wanderer.
JC babysat me and my five brothers and sisters for room and board. He lived in the basement of our house. I remember playing games with him. He took good care of us.
He told jokes, laughed loudly and long; he appeared to have an appetite for life that was large and out there. It was an act. There were two cousin JCs. In real life, JC seldom left my parents’ home. The basement was his refuge.
It was my job to take JC his needs; I carried food, laundry, drinks, ice, etc. down the basement stairs. I got to see the “real” JC. Since I was a kid, I didn’t think it was unusual that there was a Basement JC and an Upstairs JC.
Basement JC would not come out of the basement for the entire weekend.
Basement JC drank to excess in the evenings and on weekends. He wouldn’t drink until my Mom got home. With my mother in the house, he considered himself to be “off duty”.
Basement JC did not talk. Upstairs JC read us stories while making funny noises. Basement JC drank to excess in the evenings and on weekends. He wouldn’t drink until my Mom got home. With my mother in the house, he considered himself to be “off duty”.
Upstairs JC would pick me up and spin me around while I laughed. Basement JC ignored me unless he needed something. The other kids weren’t allowed in the basement.
He would light a new cigarette from the smoldering butt of the previous cigarette.
JC was a Marine. The basement was always clean and swept — his bed was made with crisp corners. JC smelled because no amount of showering can wash away the scent of drinking every day.
My Mom told me that JC was traumatized. One of his friends died in his arms. JC refused to relinquish the man’s body, defending it like a wild dog for days.
After the War
When he returned home, they hospitalized him. He was in the VA hospital for two months, then honorably discharged with no follow-on mental health care recommendations. After his release from the hospital, he had nowhere to go. JC couch-surfed through his extended family, performing short-term work for room and board.
Twenty-plus years later, he was still doing short-term work. For my family, it meant babysitting me and my brothers and sisters: his life in the same tatters from many years ago.
How hard was it for him to function daily? His demons never left him. I don’t remember an evening when JC did not drink.
The day the twins went to kindergarten, JC left my parents’ house. By that time, I was old enough to care for my siblings after school. We didn’t need JC anymore, so he left. No handouts.
JC died in the 1970s. I don’t know when or where or how. One of my other cousins mentioned his death in a passing conversation.
The waves of sadness that overcame me surprised me. I always meant to look JC up; I never did. That night I sobbed like a little girl in my bathroom over a life half lived. I didn’t know I loved him until he was gone.
The Lesson
JC taught me you never know what is going on in people’s lives. Most people can put up a screen of normalcy long enough to work each day and make a living.
During the day, anyone who came to our house would not believe the chaos that lived in JC’s mind. The mental stress was enough to make him drink to excess every night to escape. His life also ended the day his friend died in his arms.
I learned that Life is a bitch. Life will come by and knock you in the head. Not everyone can fully recover from Life’s blows.
Kindness and patience are needed because you never know what someone else is going through. You can’t see their past from your position. You can’t see their home life. You can’t judge their actions. Be nice to strangers, the life you save may be your own.
As the leader of an organization, I could not buy into the facades that people displayed at work. The people that seemed the most together might have the worst problems. I could smell the alcohol on the ones that were functional alcoholics no matter how well put together they appeared to be.
I knew to look beyond the obvious to see my team. Being able to peer beyond the window dressing made me deal with two types of people: those who loved me for what I saw and those that hated me for what I saw.
This lesson served me well as I was not easily fooled but also made me a target for those with something ugly to hide. Such is the cost of Leadership.
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Toni Crowe retired as the Vice President of Operations of a division of a multi-billion-dollar UK aerospace company to pursue her dream of being a writer. Toni has written six books, two of which have won Reader’s Choice Gold Awards. Her bestselling business book, ‘Bullets and Bosses Don’t Have Friends: How Do You Manage A Man Sitting With His Dick in His Hand?’ was one of the winners. Her first book, “Never a $7 Whore” was the other.