D. Dowd Muska is a hard, hard man.
At conception, he got a heavy dose of the depressive-disorder DNA that makes the Hibernian people so much fun to be around. Raised by mean Irish-American women in cold, gray, and flinty New England, he preferred books and politics to sports and girls. Big shock, to be sure, but he was not popular in high school. More toughness followed. Upon attaining adulthood, he pursued a profession that doesn’t really exist — i.e., telling the truth. As a result, for most of his working life, the minimum wage has been something to aspire to. (Alas, no trust fund to fall back on.)
Yes, folks, I’m a thinker, not a feeler. I don’t suffer fools gladly and I’m glad to see fools suffer. Being in constant survival mode, fighting every major institution in the nation, doesn’t leave room for emotional indulgences.
That all changed in the spring of 2004. That’s when D. Dowd Muska became Uncle Dee-Dee, and my life veered off down a path I didn’t know existed.
Always hated children. Hell, hated being a child. But holding my nephew for the first time … I still don’t know what, exactly, happened. I immediately became a giddy lunatic, eager to inform strangers that I was now an uncle. (The MS-13 goons weren’t amused, but the other occupants of the Saint Barnabas elevator were.)
Yeah, yeah — biology. I get it. But I’d like to think, however baselessly, that something more was at work. Perhaps I needed to put my needs and wants aside and grow a little through a bit of self-sacrifice.
My mother, my father, and I decided that daycare was unthinkable for The Boy, and we did whatever we could to keep him away from low-wage, non-relative employees who weren’t willing to lay down their lives for the li’l guy. That meant countless hours of commuting on I-91 and the Merritt Parkway, but we didn’t mind. (Everyone’s favorite German madman-genius put it best: “When one has one’s wherefore of life, one gets along with almost every how.”)
Grandma “Mimi” was the primary caregiver in the early days, and I was regularly on site to back her up. But in fairly short order, I was able to accomplish what “Dee-Dee” once considered anathema: competently supervise a baby/toddler/boy, solo. Changed some diapers (okay, not that many), learned the difference between a Boohbah and a Teletubby, and discovered that you haven’t been truly tired until you’ve been taken-care-of-a-child-for-several-straight-days tired.
For whatever reason(s), uncle and nephew bonded, tightly. One rainy evening in late November 2005, The Boy’s mother returned from work in Manhattan. We greeted her at the door, and she asked her son, “Who came to see you?” I assumed she was referring to herself. I was mistaken. The Boy slapped me twice on the shoulder, smiled, and squealed, “Dee-Dee!”
That was the happiest moment of my life.
Turns out, even a merciless, cynical, caustic ogre as detestable as D. Dowd Muska has a reservoir of nurturing instincts that can be put to use, in the proper circumstances.
The Boy was, well, unique. IQ of 195 or so, and to put in charitably, sort of in his own world. No food was consumed unless it was cold. Blankets, and stuffed animals, had to be in precise order before sleep. At restaurants, he didn’t color on a kiddie menu, he used the crayons to work on algebra problems. He had a lot of questions. (Why are Timmy the Toad’s eyes gold? Does Mars have moons? Does lava float?) His chemistry lab included his father’s med-school microscope. (He called it “my professional microscope.”) A few weeks before he tuned six, he asked me to teach him to play chess on a board my other sister had bought me in Hong Kong. The pieces look quite similar, the squares are largely obscured by a painting of a dragon. “Disaster,” I thought. He soaked it all up, without any struggles, instantly. (Stopped playing him long ago — it’s no fun when you always lose.)
LEGOs. Millions and millions of LEGOs. Thousands of hours of wildlife, space, and engineering documentaries. And reading, out loud, The Three Investigators.
The perfect — and gloriously, non-government — school gave him time to grow into his skin. Friendships developed. Meals at or exceeding room temperature were permitted. Finally started to pick his laundry up off the floor. (That made Grandma Mimi much calmer.) Learned to swim, learned to ride a bike, learned to read. Performed in the class play (every year), and began Taekwondo lessons.
The Boy was getting older. And I realized that the future wouldn’t resemble the past. I saw him less and less, as school commitments and his social life crowded out the old activities. Natural, of course, and quite healthy. But not for me. I was a god — or at least a demigod — falling to Earth. Maybe I hadn’t become unimportant, but I didn’t matter the way I used to.
Every day kids get older. Now, that’s a law.
A few months before The Boy turned 11, I left the Northeast, headed back to the part of the country that I love. (Mountains, sunny skies, no blizzards.) Let’s avoid the ugly details, and simply say that I didn’t handle the transition well. There was talk, probably justified, of the boys in the white coats swinging by to take me to a rubber room. Lost a good chunk of my life, trying to come to terms with not being Uncle Dee-Dee, 24/7, anymore. Dark days. Brutally dark.
In 2018, right about the time I got my mind right, I was fired by the human zilch who runs the phony-baloney think tank I had (rather stupidly) associated myself with. That began a four-and-a-half-year adventure bringing us up to the present day. I’ve had a pretty full plate, keeping the bill-collectors at bay while living in a nation controlled by stupid children who have lost the capacity for rational thought due to multiple moral panics. It’s been over four years since I’ve seen The Boy. (My parents, too.) He graduates on Sunday, and I plan to be there for the ceremony. Taking two jets home to the family’s apple orchard, and as many of you know, I am not a comfortable flyer. But some things are more important than enduring a day of white-knuckle jitteriness.
Returning to New Mexico via terra firma. Taking a lengthy roadtrip with The Boy’s Scotland-based aunt and uncle, and that promises to be much fun. So NDAI will be “on hiatus” for most of June. (Opportunities and Wi-Fi permitting, I’ll post updates as I head west.)
With an average of 43 pieces of content a month since NDAI launched last fall, I figured I’m due for a break. Hope the subscribers don’t mind. Talk to you all again soon.
Best,
DDM
Thanks for sharing your story. Four years is a long time to not see your nephew. Enjoy the visit and the road trip back, Looking forward to the updates. Enjoy the break.
Safe travels and enjoy your family! Congratulations on your nefiew's graduation! You deserve the break.