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10/04/2004 Entry: "Punkie's Earlier Years: "WJOK Junk: Side 1" - On Being a Swede" I describe some of my relatives, like my grandmother Edith and her nephew, Claude. I assume around the same time, December of 1984. This twanged a few heartstrings, as I bumbled through what I thought of them and my Swedish ancestry, which was still a "hush hush" topic in my house. Apparently, Claude was going to pick up Edith, and pay for my mother and I to go to Chicago to stay for the summer at one of Claude's summer homes, a "lakehouse." I had NO idea at the time, but I think this might have been an attempt at an "intervention" of my mom and her life, which was obviously out of control. In 25 months, she will be dead by her own hand, but at the time, we didn't have a clue she was suicidal. Okay, *I* did not have a clue. Maybe a lot of other people did, or at least guessed because she drank so much, and cried a lot. I recall Edith telling me, years later, that the last time they ever stayed over at out house, as she was hugging her father goodbye at the plane gate, she whispered, "Daddy... please help me... my life has gone so terribly wrong." I am still debating whether that was made more dramatic through her own eyes, but she said it happened, and so, I'll say it happened, too. Apparently, Karin (one of my second cousins), called (while possibly drunk), and when she found out about the trip, said she'd fly out to join us at the lakehouse, too. Karin was one of my mother's favorite cousins. I made a lot of comments about this side of the family, and how they laugh so much. I make a passing comment about my father's side as being mysterious and in dark shadows, but that was years before I met Uncle Charles. That trip never happened. I am not sure why, because I don't even remember planning for it. I am guessing my father said, "No," or something, but I don't know for sure. That trip might have saved my mother. I know that Karin said, "We TOLD her, LEAVE that man, TAKE your kid, and COME TO SWEDEN!" She also bitterly mentioned a dozen other attempts the family made to separate them, knowing how awful my father was, and how much in denial my mother was. This was probably one of those attempts. Goddamnit. Can't I see her again, just once, God? Fuck.