curses, be damned

I am Justin Christopher, son of John Charles and the father of Johannes Christian. There's a bit of a pattern here, as you can see, but the story behind this goes really far back; to a Czech Bohemian town and a 'curse' that plagued the Jelinek family. See, generations of Jelinek men named their first born son after their initials, well sort of. My great great grandfather was CJJ, my great grand father JCJ, my grandfather (Popo) CJJ, and my father JCJ. This goes back as far as I can see in the family tree and as far back as the story goes, so goes the 'curse': every other generation of first born Jelineks (bearing the namesake initials) is set to suffer some unspeakable tragedy.

My father, not wanting to carry on the 'curse' but wanting to carry on some form of family tradition decided that he could surpass it by having me carry on his own initials. He being the first Jelinek to be fully of America, it made perfect sense to he, and to Popo that this would be the best way to carry on the family name, without passing on the family curse. I seem to have turned out OK, eh? Curse be damned.

And what happened to Johannes? It's still unclear, though we'll have autopsy results in two weeks. I do know that the autopsy will not conclude that there is some mysterious curse, which I pay little to no credence to anyhow, but I do find this to be a curious sidenote to our tale.

I guess, ultimately, that I am grieving a bit for myself. Something that I've done little of since we lost our boy. It's really selfish grieving, mind you, it's a grieving that I will/may not ever carry on the Jelinek name in the way that I had imagined. Macho bullshit, I know, but my feelings none the less.