You're going to be an uncle!

 Christmas break 1999.  I was in the 8th grade and enjoying my break from school. After spending some time at a friend's, I walked into my Dad's house and took my shoes off at the door. Hearing my arrival, my Dad popped his head out of the living room and said, "get in here." 

By the tone of his voice, I knew this meant get in here as quickly as possible. I walked into the living room confused and scared. He was obviously angry about something.  I started thinking about what it could possibly be. I had been doing well in school. I hadn't done anything that I thought would constitute such a reaction. 

"Sit down!"

Now I was really worried.  I watched him pace back and forth on the living room floor.  One end of the room to the other. When he did that, you knew you had really messed up. You were about to get it.  I still had no idea what I had done, but I knew even without knowing what it was, I already regretted it. 

"I'm going to ask you a question, and you better not lie to me," he said. 

"Ok," I responded. 

"You better not lie to me when I ask you this question," he repeated. "I'm telling you right now, Jack, you do NOT want to lie to me about this." 

If Dad was calling you Jack, you knew he meant business. It was his way of letting you know that on a scale of 1-10 on how much trouble you were in, you were sitting at a 15. What could this possibly be about? What was this horrible thing that I had done? 

"Did you know your sister was pregnant?" 

That was not the question I was expecting from him. 

"No," I answered. 

"You better pray that you didn't know anything about it." 

He sat down in his blue recliner and began rocking back in forth. I didn't know anything about it. My sister had graduated high school early and moved out of the house. The first time I heard anything about her being pregnant was my Dad asking me about it. I wasn't even sure if my mom and my stepdad were aware of it. 

He continued rocking back and forth for a while.  He'd shake his head, mumble something to himself and smirk. That was the pouring of the gasoline. The collecting of the grenades.  It was only a matter of time before the match was lit and the pens were pulled. 

"I found out from guys at work," He said. "Can you believe that? My coworkers knew before I did." 

His fist came down fast and hard on the night stand next to his chair. He stood up and as I froze in fear, inches from my face he began screaming at me at the top of his lungs. 

"I told you!" He screamed. "I told you!  I f'n told you, Jack!" 

He grabbed some magazines that sat on a coffee table, ripped them in half and then threw them against the wall. 

"I told you!!" His voice was at a shriek by this point. "I told you that your sister would end up dead, in jail or pregnant! I told you! Didn't I tell you!" 

At this point you never knew what your best response was going to be.  Sometimes responding to him pissed him off. He saw it as a sign of disrespect, as if you were mouthing off to him. Yet sometimes being silent pissed him off even more. He sat back down in his chair, taking a quick breather from his rant.  

All I could think of was how thankful I was that my sister was pregnant, all things considered. If the only other two options were either death or prison, it was the best of the three. As much as I hated sitting on that couch getting screamed at by my father, for my sister's actions, it sure beat the Hell out of the alternatives. 

The next three hours I got hear all about an assortment of fun topics. How this all came about as a result of my mom and stepdad's shitty parenting. How if I had any brains in my head and if I didn't want to end up like my sister, I'd move in with him and have nothing to do with them. My sister had it made and now her life was going to be nothing but challenge and struggle till the day she died. This was going to prevent her from getting a four-year college degree, and without that, your life has no choice but to amount to didly shit. I better not F up. If my Dad knew anything, his daughter f'd up and his son wasn't going to. 

9 months later, one of the greatest things to ever happen in my family's life took place on August 12th, 2000.  My nephew Garrett Steven Rosenow was born. (For clarification his middle name has nothing to do with me. His Dad's middle name is Steven.)  His birth truly was a blessing in so many ways.  While my sister will always remain bitter and jealous over not getting to chase her dreams of becoming a fashion designer, Garrett truly is the best thing that ever happened in her life. She was an outstanding mother (as she also is to her two daughters) to him and raised him to become an outstanding person, that I couldn't be more proud of.  My mom was still sore from having lost my other sister 2 and a half years earlier, and Garrett coming into her life was a windfall.  Before Garrett was born, my Grandpa had talked about getting a dog to cope with loneliness. Instead, he got a great grandson, and if anything kept him happy, healthy and young, that was it.  Garrett's Dad hadn't spoken to his Dad in many years, and Garrett was the one that reconstructed what seemed to be an unrepairable bridge.  I don't know if Garrett is aware of it or not, but he was the why of many good things happening in the lives of those around him. Including me. 

It wasn't long after Garrett's birth that my first year of high school was about to begin. My friend Clint had his mom drive him into town so we could walk to the first football game of the season together.  We'd drive him home after the game.  As Clint and I prepared to walk to the game, my Dad came up to us and asked Clint if he'd wait outside for me for a minute. 

"Sit down," he said to me. 

I sat. 

"You're a freshman in high school now," he said. "You're going to have a lot of temptations." 

He paused a moment and smiled. 

"You know," he began again. "I'm not even sure if I really need to say this to you or not, but I'm going to. You're gonna be tempted. Girls...all sorts of stuff." 

For a moment I thought the birds and the bees talk, which I'd already been through with my mom and stepdad was coming on. Instead, we were going to have a very clear understanding. 

"Hear me now," He said to me. "If I ever catch you drinking...If I ever catch you at a party...If I ever catch you doing anything sexual with a girl... That's it.  You'll never step on to a wrestling mat again.  You'll never step onto a stage again.  Wrestling, theatre, done.  You understand me?" 

I nodded. At that time in my life wrestling and theatre were the two most important things in the world to me. I wasn't going to get caught up in alcohol.  All the goals I had as a wrestler, I wasn't going to risk that.  As awkward and goofy looking as I was, I couldn't even remotely fathom any girls letting me within 5 feet of them. So, I wasn't too worried about that.  Besides after going through what I went through after my Dad found out my sister was pregnant, I didn't want to even imagine what it would've been like had it ever been me. I loved being an uncle to Garrett, but I was in no hurry to become a dad. 

I wonder sometimes if I had knocked up a girl while in high school if my Dad would've sat and screamed at my sister for hours about it.  I doubt it. I don't think he ever took out his anger over my actions on her.  He rarely ever took out his anger of her actions on her.  That was all saved for me.  Lucky me.