I have a drunk auntie, as I’m sure most people do. My drunk auntie is one who we have been hesitant to invite to cookouts or other family gatherings, simply because we never know what the heck she’s going to say. She “reads” people on the regular, because as sure as you think others have forgotten from whence you came, she is here to remind you that nope! It’s never a quiet read, and it’s always rife with profanity and colorful metaphors that equally embarrass the victim and entertain any onlookers. She gives me my entire life every time I see her. I want to be the person physically closest to her so that when she gets that unction to make her observations and frustrations  publicly known, I will have the best seat. She is a joy.

I started calling my auntie pretty regularly a couple of years ago. Not regularly enough for her, tho, as I have to bite the bullet for the first 7-10 minutes of the conversation while she calls me names, scolds me for not calling her for such a long time and tells me I’m good for nothing and disrespectful. I realize she is mostly joking, but if I’m keeping it real, I definitely could do better. But then we get into the meat of our conversation. It’s always fun and I end up with my face and belly literally aching from smiling and laughing. Except for one conversation in particular, when she deconstructed the drunk auntie narrative I had been sold and had actually bought into for all these decades.

Auntie grew up in the projects, in poverty and facing more challenges than opportunity as a Black girl. She grew up near my dad (here I will clarify that my auntie is really my father’s first cousin, but due to age, we have always called her “aunt”), and was a self described ” wild child.” She told me she had a best friend who lived across the street from her. They were the same age and grew up like sisters. If one got in trouble, the other was right there in that same trouble. She loved her with all her heart, she said. They even both fell in love with two guys and became pregnant around the same time. Their babies were born a month apart. They were together for some part of every day, especially after their children were born; my aunt had a girl, her friend, a boy. Every day, they rode the same bus to work together…they didn’t work in the same place, but their jobs were next door to each other.

One day, they went to work together, catching the bus as they always had. When they got to their stop, they hugged and promised to take their regular break together later to eat their lunches. Auntie went into her building and had been working only about 15 minutes when a guy from her friend’s job ran in, in a complete panic.

“Hurry over!” he screamed, “(your friend) has been hurt!” Without thinking, Auntie ran as fast as she could. She expected to find her friend laying in the floor with a broken leg or arm, or having bumped her head on something. “What I walked into was something no one should have to see,” she said. Her voice quivered. I don’t think I was breathing at that point.

She found her friend lying in the floor with the top part of her head and part of her face completely missing. There was blood, brains and bone particles on the counters, floor and walls. She had been shot during a robbery she walked in on when she arrived at work.

“I have never been the same. I can see that scene clearly in my mind as though it happened this morning. The feeling I get when I think about is just like it was on that day.” She started drinking after that day. She was so incapacitated by PTSD (as she would likely be diagnosed with in these times) that she could not care for her daughter. Her mother sent her away. “But I never got any help. Nobody tried to help me!! Why do you think no one helped me? I needed help!” I had no answers. I was too busy trying to cry silently so she didn’t hear me. I regret that. I should have let her hear my crying. I should have joined her as she trusted me and relived that experience on the phone. I hate that I didn’t, and I feel that I, too, failed her in that moment.

We talked for about 90 minutes that afternoon, and everything I thought I knew about this drunk auntie was dismantled. The mystery and clouds that had been around her dissipated, and I saw her not as a drunk or “wino” as the family joked, but as a broken, misunderstood woman who didn’t have access to mental health care due to her economic and social status. “These things happen in the ghetto. You just have to move on and get over it,” she was told time and again. As though people living in the “ghetto” are supposed to always be strong, resilient and not psychologically affected by tragedy and trauma, simply because such types of events are “expected” and “normal” for them…? People around her failed her. I’m not blaming them, because I don’t think they knew of a different way to handle her situation. There were no discussions of PTSD, counseling and therapy being held in her neighborhood or schools. Still…

I’m glad my drunk auntie talked to me. I knew then how much she must love me to let me hold this memory with her. If it’s possible, I love her even more now. And at the next gathering, I will be sitting even closer to her, perhaps with my head leaned on her shoulder. At that meeting, if tears come, I  will let them flow freely.