Earlier in this posting, I talked about my strained relationship with my father in law. My wife is black. Does that matter? Not to most educated and civilized people in the world. But some people are assholes and race relations mean so much to them, that they’d prefer not to deal with people whose skin color is different. My father was a racist at heart, and I believe my father in law is too. Nothing I’ve done has ever been good enough for him.
I could go through a whole list of things he never liked about me, but it would be pointless and unnecessary. Imagine having someone in your life that, no matter what you do, it’s never good enough - whether it’s an ex girlfriend, or family member, or boss - it’s never good enough, and you’re always the problem ... never them ... you. Okay ... enough of that.
My religious background was never good enough for my in laws. Mind you, they were never dedicated church goers, but as far back as I can remember, I was always in church - twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday, prayer meetings, revivals, you name it. The reason I’m bringing this up is because even though my father in law was never really into church, he always knew more about the bible than I did, and my ways of raising the children was wrong. Plain and simple. Oh yeah, my beliefs were wrong too.
A few years ago, he started going to church and became a regular church goer. At the same time, he began studying on the side with a Jehovah’s Witness - gotta love those people. In time, his pastor was wrong too ... my father in law knew more than the man who was preaching.
At this time, I had quit going to church, as I realized the belief system I’d been taught was bullshit. By this time, my father in law was full on Jehovah’s Witness. Just for those of you who are not Jehovah’s Witness, they’re very anti politics, anti military, just absolute weirdos. Nice people ... just weird.
Remember how I said that most of my early professional work was political and military related? Yeah ... father in law was given a lot of it. But now that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, he could no longer have that stuff in his house. Anything political and military related artwork was thrown in the trash.
I’ll let that sink in.
When I give someone my artwork or sell it to them, I have this attitude that, it’s theirs. They can do with it whatever they like. I’m not attached to it. It belongs to them. It wasn’t that my father in law had trashed the artwork that bothered me the most. Of course, it bothered me greatly, but the fact that I’d put him in charge of my artwork upon an untimely death. Imagine if I’d passed and an entire legacy of work, years and years of training, thrown in the trash. It’s no different than what ISIS did to the art from the city of Nimrud. Those artists who will never be known - their legacy reduced to rubble.
That’s what would’ve happened to my legacy had he obtained my work. And everything I worked a lifetime to achieve would be shit now. Everything.
The saddest part of the whole thing ... the part that really pisses me off, is that he later realized that some of the beliefs he had were bullshit. He didn’t even have the audacity to call. He put a posting on Facebook to apologize. Imagine that - imagine he had obtained all that artwork, destroyed it, and then realized he shouldn’t have done it.
The feeling I have in my stomach is so empty. I wish I could end this post off in a positive note, but I can’t. It’s just ... empty.
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