50 forever.

Well, Tuesday would have been Scott’s 51st birthday.

But looks like he’ll be 50 forever.

Is he in a better place?

Nope.

Is he in a worse place?

Nope.

We didn’t believe in heaven or hell or the imaginary friend in the sky.

This existence is all we get.

In many ways I’m jealous of Scott.

For Scott, there’s no more pain and there’s no more suffering.

He’s no longer plagued by daemons of what could have been or what should have been.

No more memories of growing up, of the babysitter, of our grandmother, or of our father.

All that shit is gone.

What killed Scott?

Was it the ketamine, his epilepsy, or his heart condition?

Officially the Alberta Coroner will only say that his death was due to a ruptured spleen after a fall.

What caused the fall the medical examiner can’t say because his body was fairly decomposed when he was found.

2 weeks in an apartment in the Edmonton summer will cause a body to break down fairly quickly.

But if I had to speculate as to what the root cause of my brother’s death was, I’d have to say that the Indian Residential School System would probably factor in as a significant contributor. I’d also say that the desire of the Canadian Armed Forces to hide the true extent of Captain McRae’s child sexual abuse exploits on Canadian Forces Base Namao were also a significant contributor.

In life, every action has consequences.

Some consequences are felt immediately.

Some consequences appear as ripples at a later date.

Grandma was a very angry and disturbed woman from her time in Indian Residential school.

She was not a loving or caring woman, except for her alcohol. She loved and cared for her alcohol.

My father was not much better. He was already a heavy drinker at 16 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963.

Grandma should never have had children.

But she did.

My father should never have had children.

But he did.

Luckily neither Scott nor I reproduced, so the dysfunction ends with us.

From the time I left the house in 1987 when I was 16 until 2013 I never really had much dealings with Scott.

When I went up to Edmonton for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2013 I mentioned to him that I never thought that I would have ever spoken to him again.

Scott knew from reading my blog back then that I was having some dealings with a constable from the Morinville RCMP detachment and Scott asked me if I could arrange a meeting with this constable as he wanted to know if this constable could read his CPIC file to see if there was some explanation as to why he was frequently being pulled over for traffic stops.

I did arrange for a meeting between the three of us at a Tim Hortons in St. Albert on the St. Albert Trail. Just after my brother started asking about what his CPIC file contained the constable kinda feigned a radio call and said that he had to go.

When I talked to the constable by phone the next day he said that there were issues on Scott’s CPIC file that would have warranted his arrest, and that he didn’t want to do that as this constable was familiar with what we went through on CFB Namao.

When I collected my brother’s belongings and his remains last August, the one thing that I did notice in his passport was that he had tried to enter the United States of America but that he had voluntarily returned to Canada.

Scott had quite the criminal history.

Some people may say that Scott’s criminal history was his own doing.

But it wasn’t.

Scott’s criminal history was 100% Richard’s fault.

When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in North York, Ontario my brother started running with a bad crowd.

I think that was the difference between Scott and I.

Scott wanted to be popular and to have friends.

I was majorly depressed and just wanted to be left the fuck alone.

Scott wanted to hang out and belong.

I was the type of kid that the popular kids picked on for entertainment.

Richard had absolutely no interest in the either of us.

I had my after school and weekend jobs.

Scott had nothing to do but hang out with the thugs he called friends.

And these guys were literal thugs.

Auto thefts, B&E’s, robberies w/o weapons, credit card fraud, etc…..

And this was all before he was 16.

Richard, our illustrious father, was too busy kissing ass and polishing knobs in the Canadian Forces to climb the ranks to give a shit.

Scott’s troubles and his frequent stays in group homes and detention were solely due to Richard’s inability to give a fuck about anyone other than himself.

But to hear Richard tell it, Scott’s issues were solely due to:

• Grandma’s drinking
• Grandma’s cruelty
• Our mother’s absence
• Insanity that ran in out mother’s family tree
• Me not raising my brother properly
• Me letting the babysitter on CFB Namao molest Scott
• The parents of the other boys not raising their kids right.
• Schools not teaching Scott properly.
• The civilian public schools not using corporal punishment like the schools the Canadian Forces ran for the kids of military families.

Richard was a complete skinflint.

As he told his airforce buddy Jacques Choquette once after Jacques asked my father why he doesn’t just drop Scott and I off with our mother, “As long as I keep these kids under my roof, I control the costs. If I send these kids to their mother, then I’ll have to sign my fucking pay cheque over to that bitch, and that’s sure as fuck not happening”.

So no, there were no hobbies, no activities, no trips, no going to the movies, no going to sports games, no fucking nothing.

Scott’s legal troubles would plague him well into adult life.

It’s too bad that Richard died back in 2017.

It would have been nice to have seen Richard tortured and tormented by Scott’s death.