“In a family where love and envy dine together, absence becomes its own kind of freedom.” — The Deadbeat Cousin’s Confession
The Stranger in the Family Portrait
They call me the deadbeat cousin.
The one who never shows up unless there’s a burial. The one who’s “too busy,” “too proud,” or “too educated” to sit through a family gathering.
But if you knew my family, you’d understand.
Our reunions are not filled with laughter or nostalgic storytelling, they’re battlegrounds draped in plastic smiles. Feuds bloom like weeds between graves. People arrive with grudges older than their children, and every conversation is laced with invisible barbs.
And at the center of every storm stands Aunt Wam, the self-appointed matriarch of chaos.
Aunt Wam — Matriarch of Chaos
She wasn’t always this way.
When I was a kid, she was my favorite aunt — the one who’d sneak me extra soda, who’d call me “smart boy” when others mocked my silence. I adored her. But people change. Or maybe life just peels off their good layers until all that’s left is the bitterness they’ve been hiding.
These days, Aunt Wam thrives on disruption. Now she runs the family like a general commanding a tired army. Every family meeting becomes a performance of authority. She dictates, commands, rewrites the family script as she pleases. Her alliance with her elder sister — yes, the other troublemaker — only amplifies the noise.
Their latest act?
Claiming they sold my late uncle’s land to “help fund his cancer treatment.”
We all know that’s a lie. Before my uncle passed, he’d quietly told us everything he’d sold to fund his care. That land wasn’t part of it. The truth died with him, and now greed sits where love used to live.
My mum, the last born, soft-spoken but fiercely principled, called them out. “Tumbo lisilo shiba,”(“a stomach that never gets full.”) my mum once muttered after another exhausting meeting, And it’s true. Greed, in our family, doesn’t retire. It just changes tactics.
She dared to speak truth in a family allergic to honesty. That’s when their hatred solidified. Aunt Wam’s resentment toward her became volcanic, spilling over even to me, her son’s favorite cousin, once her “smart boy.”
The Education That Offended
Maybe my education only made things worse.
I’m the only graduate in the family, something that should’ve been a collective pride but instead became a quiet threat.
During my grandma’s burial preparations I was trying to juggle grief and an upcoming Cyber Security Analyst exam, when Aunt Wam sneered:
“Kwani hii masomo yako hua unasoma haikusaidii? Sasa ni ya nini?”
(All that studying of yours — what good has it done you?)
At the time, I was preparing for an exam and i was very sick and broke — broke than the church mice, and honestly, those mice had better prospects than me. It was a Cyber Security Analyst exam through USIU and the Kenya Bankers Association. It couldn’t be postponed, not even for my beloved Grandma’s funeral.
She didn’t celebrate my main graduation either. Not once.
And yet, her children, especially her eldest son, remain some of my favorite cousins. The irony is almost poetic: loving the fruits of the same tree that throws stones at you.
Kijana ya Shosho (Grandma’s Boy)
If there was one person who ever made me feel seen, it was Grandma.
I think I was her favorite grandchild, and I don’t say that with pride, but with a grief that still catches in my throat. Every school holiday, I’d pack my little bag and head to ushago to stay with her. She’d make me tea with more milk than water, tell me stories about resilience, about kindness. She’d say, “Usiogope kuwa tofauti, mjukuu wangu — some hearts are born to stand alone.”
Maybe that’s why Aunt Wam and her sister despised me even more. Grandma’s love wasn’t quiet; she defended me, bragged about me, called me her light. In their eyes, I had taken a place they thought was theirs.
When she died, something in me dimmed. The glue that held our family together dissolved. Suddenly, there was no one left to soften the edges, no one to tell the truth with love. Her grave became the last place that ever felt like home.
Since then, I’ve drifted further and further from the people who share my blood but not my peace.
The Sick Kid Who Grew Up Watching Silence
As a child, I was sickly. Hospitals were my second home, and my mum, my warrior, carried that weight alone.
Aunt Wam and her sister never once showed up to help. Not even when I was admitted. Not when Mum had to sleep on cold benches beside my hospital bed.
But somehow, they’re the loudest voices now in family matters.
The irony is exhausting.
Maybe that’s why I built walls early. You learn to stop expecting care from people who never offered it when you needed it most. You learn to stop showing up, not because you stopped caring, but because you can no longer pretend the love was ever mutual.
Grief, GREED, and Growing Apart
We lost my uncle to cancer a month ago. The eldest son of the eight siblings. He was the quiet one, who used to calm everyone down. His death unbalanced the fragile peace that was left.
Family meetings now feel like auctions disguised as prayers. My mum stands her ground, unwavering in her truth. I stand quietly beside her, knowing that my silence is safer than honesty, I sometimes ask myself, “Why was I born in this family?”.
This is what family becomes when greed goes unchallenged, a house full of ghosts still arguing over who owns the walls.
Funerals — The ‘Golden’ Reunions
We never gather for joy anymore. The tents go up only when someone goes down — Funerals!
That’s when we suddenly “remember” to call, to care, to act like blood still means something.
For those few days, we become the illusion of a family again hugging, crying, forgiving temporarily. And Aunt Wam? She weeps loudest. She always does. But her tears feel rehearsed, like an actress who knows the audience expects emotion, not truth.
But when the casket closes and the tents come down, so does the window for connection. We scatter again, like ashes, until the next tragedy forces us into proximity. Damn!
Mr Deadbeat’s Defense
I’ve learned that you don’t have to sit under the same tent to love someone. You can pray for them quietly, wish them peace from afar, or simply hold their memory gently without the noise, without the guilt.
Maybe one day, I’ll show up again; unannounced, unguarded. Maybe I’ll laugh genuinely when they say, “Long time, cousin.” Maybe I’ll tell them the truth, that I missed them in my own way.
Until then, I’ll keep loving them from a distance the only way I know how.
So yes, maybe I’m the deadbeat cousin. The ghost who doesn’t show up. The one who skips reunions.
But absence isn’t always neglect. Sometimes it’s survival.
Sometimes peace costs you proximity.
I still love them, even the ones who can’t stand me. I love them quietly, from afar, without needing their approval or applause.
Because I’ve learned this: you don’t need to sit at the table to belong to the story.
The Empty Seat
Every reunion has one chair that stays empty: for the brother who couldn’t make it, the uncle who’s gone, the one no one talks about, but everyone notices. The cousin who stopped coming. The one who doesn’t pick sides anymore. The one who learned peace doesn’t require permission.
That’s me now. The empty seat that still carries love, just not the kind that demands pain as proof.
Grandma would have understood. She always did.
If you’ve ever been the quiet one, the distant one, the so-called “deadbeat,” know this: your absence doesn’t mean you stopped loving your family. It just means you finally started loving yourself, too.
And sometimes, that’s the bravest reunion of all.
