Chapter 1 of F*ck A Memoir
1. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS
Some things just start out bad. Stories, songs, lives. It happens. Welcome to the real world.
Those might have been the first words I ever heard in my life. Well, aside from “It’s a boy!!” I’m sure my mother had tons of emotions coursing through her when she finally heard those words. I was her Jewish Christmas present.
I was born to Sarah Leibowitz on December 25th, 1975 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The Jewish bastard is what I was known as in my family, the result of an affair between my mother and father. My father had already skipped town shortly after my conception.
I of course don’t have many memories of my first years. I’m sure there’s stories out there about how I was such a cute child and never cried or fussed. I’d like to assume I was the hellion that I dreamt about as a child, precocious and tearing hell at every turn. It certainly makes for better imagery.
My first real memory of life was Star Wars, opening day
of 1977. It’s probably more of a sense memory. My mother took me, a less than 2 year old, to an opening night showing of a sci-fi flick that no one knew.
Little did my undeveloped mind know that it was to be the only time my mother took me anywhere.
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My mother passed away 3 months after that movie debuted. It was lymphoma. She worked at a company that handled asbestos. I don’t remember her funeral or her last days.
I don’t know much about my mother. I’ve never seen pictures of her so, I can’t even describe her. I’ve been told that she was a vivacious and life-loving person. I hold that description in my mind.
Immediately after her funeral my grandparents took me in. I vaguely remember my grandmother as a stern, guilt inflicting, old Jewish lady. And my grandfather, who I am told loved me quite a lot, was a tiny Jewish man, the receiver of my grandmother’s guilt. In the late stages of Alzheimer’s, he often forgot that I was there, or thought that I was one of his kids. (My mother being an only child.)
It’s funny what your mind remembers for you, or pieces
together, or plants false memories of in your mind. I remember my grandfather taking me for a walk to the park on one of his more “lucid” days, only to get lost. I of course was loving it.
One thing my grandmother imparted to me was my love of literature. I grew up with her reading me Dylan Thomas poems until she got so sick of reading them to me that she taught me how to read when I was around 4 years old. If anything has stuck with me through all my years, it’s my love of reading.
I lived with my grandparents until I was almost 5 years old. Eventually the Alzheimer's got so advanced that my grandmother couldn’t take care of both of us. She began searching for my birth father. It was common knowledge of who he was, having grown up in the same town.
She sought out his relatives only to find that he was living in the states with his wife of ten years, as well as their 7 year old son. Explaining that his options were to get me and bring me to the States to live with him, or put me in foster care (a horrible idea in the late 70’s,) he decided to come pick me up.
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I should take a moment to introduce my lifelong abandonment issue. Born with no father, mother having passed away so early, grandparents too old to be able to care for me, it seemed to be a trend that would continue for my whole life. You’ll see a common theme throughout these pages. I do not bring this up as sympathy but as an explanation.
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So here I am, a little hellion of not yet 5 years old on the grand adventure of moving to Michigan. My father picked me up by himself. I was not excited, but I was anticipating both the trip and meeting him. Even at that young age I harbored resentment for him. I of course was too young to understand that feeling but I was it was surely there.
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A little bit about my father, Willard Royce Griffin.
Not an overly educated man, he was born in Berlin, Germany in 1940, the son of a Jewish mother and German/ Austrian father. When it was obvious that all hell was breaking loose, he stole away as a baby with my Great Aunt and Uncle to Canada. Being Jewish in Canada in the 40’s wasn’t a great accomplishment. Menial jobs and stereotypical lives were all that they had to look forward
to. They changed their surname to a less ethnic Irish name,
hence me being a Jew from Canada with an Irish moniker.