The night was blistering cold. There didn't seem to be enough heat to even keep the rats warm in my rundown apartment.

Where the heating pipes in my apartment didn't work half the time.
Because half the time, I didn't have the money to get my heat turned on.

I was cold and I was miserable even with a jacket and a blanket wrapped around me I was freezing.
My fingers and toes were numb. My bones were aching and cracking.

I didn't dare go to my cabinets or to my refrigerator looking for food because I knew a such trip would only end in vain for me.

The only thing I had to eat was a 3 day eviction notice from my landlord and a telegram asking me to attend my grandfather's funeral in the morning.

I will admit I had become nothing, but a drunkard going from job to job.
Only bothering to work so that my rent was paid and my mouth had some liquor to drink.

I knew good and well I had no business going to my grandfather's funeral.
My appearance would only embarrass my family and the men and women who had worked so diligently over the years with him.

I was every bit the coward and the procrastinator all rolled up in one.

I had already made up my mind not to attend my grandfather's funeral.

I would had done so, only if, along with the telegram notifying me of my grandfather's death.

My grandmother had a suit of clothes sent over to me making sure I would be looking half way presentable in the morning.

All I needed to do was not to drink, get dressed in the morning and catch the Taxi to the church in the morning.

To be honest I didn't know if I could do it.
I hadn't seen my family for 17 years and the time away from them I had done nothing to make them proud.

Yet I knew I had to see my grandfather before the preacher put him in the ground.

Being Reminded of Who I am

As my grandfather's funeral ended I had tried to quietly thank my grandmother for the clothes she had given me.

Then I was attempting to slip out the side door of the church as my luck would have it my oldest brother would spot me

"Look who the wind blew in. The garbage that use to call himself my brother"

"I see Dave you haven't stop being the A- hole I always knew you could be"

"Call me what you want little brother, but when I leave this funeral I will be going home in my horseless carriage and you.... my brother don't even know where you're going!"

"Of course Sam knows where he's going"
He's coming over for dinner"

I don't know why, but no matter how lousy a human being I was.
My grandmother never stopped being there for me.

Especially since my parents had cut my expense account off after failing to make an honest effort to graduate College.

Along with refusing to marry the snot nose little arrogant Mary B Miller.

God knows if ever a woman was so utterly full of herself.

It was Mary B Miller!

There was no way in Hell ! I was walking down the aisle and saying I do and being led by the nose the rest of my life.

My manhood and my pride wasn't for sale.

Yet for the sake of my family.
Dave my brother his manhood and pride was always up for sale.

Three months after publicly rejecting Mary's family's proposal to marry their daughter.
My brother Dave saved the family from financial ruined and married Marry B Miller.

Thirty days after that I was put on a train with $500.00 dollars heading to Michigan.

If ever two people deserve each other it was my brother Dave and Mary B Miller.

That was 17 years ago.

What did I have to show for not...