Take Your Love, I'll Take the FortuneAll the relatives knew I had a "backward cousin."
For my birthday, she gave me a grocery-store pound cake.
When I ran a marathon, she presented me with a pair of worn-out canvas sneakers.
At my graduate school acceptance party, she even sent a funeral wreath of white lilies with a sash that read "In Sympathy," wishing me an early departure to the afterlife.
In my previous life, I slapped her so hard she tumbled down the porch steps.
My brother took her side and plotted revenge, falsely reporting to the university that I had cheated on my SATs. My admission was revoked.
"You're so modern. You know how things work," he sneered. "Plenty of people take a gap year. Just apply again."
My father also defended her, cutting off all my financial support.
"You've had so much schooling. You're so educated," he said coldly. "Support yourself."
Alone in a city eighteen hundred miles from home, I fought to survive. I called my brother and my father again and again—only to be blocked.
I delivered food while renting a room and studying to reapply.
At my lowest, my hands were raw and cracked from frostbite, scrambling for delivery shifts at four in the morning just to earn a small bonus.
Worn down by the cold and exhaustion, I suffered cardiac arrest at twenty-three and collapsed in a snowdrift in that unfamiliar city. No one ever came to claim me.
This time, I chose to let it go and accepted the wreath with a gracious smile.
To fully integrate myself into this family.
After all, what is a moment of pride compared to a lifetime's inheritance?