About 15 years ago, my mom’s cousin married into a Serbian family in the states with deep roots within their culture, including my cousin’s new father-in-law, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church. My cousin-once-removed converted, something that deeply upset his devoutly Catholic mother, but we do anything for love, right? They’re wonderful people, have been incredibly generous to me and my wife during our wedding and the birth of our son. But as much as I love my cousin once removed and his wife, one thing will always stick with me about the family he married into:
At one of the first big family functions that my mom was invited to after the marriage (maybe a baptism for one of the kids?), the father-in-law got everyone’s attention, raised his glass of vodka up, and toasted to Slobodan Milosevic.
My mom was a hardcore Reagan-ite republican, but she was also the daughter of a WWII Polish refugee (who returned briefly during Russian occupation and saw THAT firsthand as well) who hated authoritarian rulers with a deep seeded passion. When she told me this story, she had tears in her eyes.
She continued to see my cousin and that family regularly until her passing, as do I. But yeah, that’s something that I have trouble resolving in my head. Not surprisingly, it’s been reported to me that my cousin once removed frequently posted anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, and pro-Rod Blagojevich (!!!) items on Facebook over the last year.
I’m going to see him again on Sunday and will- as usual- do all I can to steer conversation away from things that will remind me of his political opinions.
