Aunt C0ññ!e

The only reason I’m able to tell y’all about her today is because she’s finally (*thankfully,* to be honest) already d3@d.

Her last name would change depending on whichever simp a$$ dude she tricked into marrying her cr@zy self, but her original name was C0ñst@ñçe.

C0ñst@ñçe came from a large family in which she was eternally “the baby,” as the youngest & most fiery-tempered of her *many* siblings.

As such, regardless of the person’s actual relationship to her, C0ñst@ñçe was forever known as “Aunt C0ññ!e,” even by her many kids & descendants.

Anyways, there was no more having kids for S@d!e Y0üñg-T@yl0r after Aunt C0ññ!e was born. Legend goes, C0ññ!e was her birth mom’s very last child because she took the woman’s uterus right out the womb with her--purposefully--upon delivery 😳

To hear C0ññ!e’s last remaining & second-eldest sibling Sally tell it: 

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“It’s like she was determined to be the baby, always. Even as a newborn. Ain’t seen nothin’ like it!”

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Aunt C0ññ!e made her dramatic entry into the world circa January (or June? She'd never verify her *actual* birthdate 🙄) of ~1941, the very last of nine siblings made up of six sisters: 

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Rüth, Sally, L!z, Irm@, P@t, & C0ññ!e herself, 

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And three brothers: 

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Gi!b3rt, D0ll, & Baby Brother, who died in infancy before even getting a name.

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It’s worth mentioning again that C0ññ!e had been an aunt for a long time; her eldest siblings started having kids when she was around eight years old.

Ergo everyone--including her own children--referred to her as “Aunt C0ññ!e,” mostly because no one wanted to claim her as Mom *OR* Grandma, ok??? 😑

Growing up in a chaotic, dysfunctional household with limited resources, one could say C0ññ!e came out the womb fighting:

Fighting to be seen; fighting to be heard. Fighting to exist in a world that barely acknowledged her unique status as the “baby” of her very large family, much less her existence as a little Black girl growing up in the Nation’s Capital.

An aggressively cute baby, C0ññ!e’s innocent look paired with her devious behavior was remarkable from the start. When first brought home, every last one of C0ññ!e’s older sisters, in addition to their mother S@d!e, would try to comfort baby C0ññ!e’s cries to no avail.

Strangely, the infant only truly calmed down--even smiling & cooing herself to sleep--when being held exclusively by boys or men 🤦🏾‍♀️ #sigh

“I was only in middle school at the time,” says her sister Sally, 

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“[B]ut I’d never seen a baby flirt before” 👀⚠️🚩

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A trailblazer from the very beginning, “*A LOT* of things C0ññ!e did I’d never seen done before she did ‘em,” Sally says. 

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“That C0ññ!e was somethin’ else.”

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If having a lusty baby girl that could only be soothed by a male's touch wasn’t enough, C0ññ!e & Sally’s mom, S@d!e, had to quickly recover--not just from birthing C0ññ!e, but also from the total hysterectomy that accompanied her birth--& go right back to working as a domestic in “rich YT people’s homes” (Sally’s words) to support their family.

Amidst the excitement & despair of having her absolute last child--plus the dread of having to return to grueling domestic work so soon after giving birth--actually bestowing a name upon the little one was almost an afterthought.

When S@d!e asked a then-13-year-old Sally what to name her fifth & final sister just a few weeks after the baby’s birth, Sally--in her trademark deadpan voice--said the baby should be named C0ñst@ñçe, as within mere weeks of being delivered & brought home to the family, 

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“[S]he was already a constant pain in my a$$” 🤭😆

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C0ññ!e was raised among a rotating cast of siblings, aunties, uncles, & other extended family whose interpersonal drama she thrived on--& *most definitely* contributed to--as the youngest of the family.

According to popular theory on birth order psychology, the youngest child “tends to be more rebellious & attention-seeking, creative, social, & outgoing,” & C0ññ!e was certainly that.

With young C0ññ!e's penchant for “being in the streets,” as Sally says, accumulating an endless stream of associates & male friends of her own accord, the girl’s personality was essentially destined to be as over-the-top outrageous as it was.

By the time she was a young adult, Aunt C0ññ!e had amassed a reputation for spreading her personal traumas far & wide amongst her relatives, many of whom were present the night of her only publicly-claimed son Cüzz0’s birth.

My cousin-dad (🩸🧬) Ray’s entry into the world was a most tragic one, having been delivered at-home, into a toilet basin, after a botched procedure meant to ensure he was never born alive in the first place.

Our relatives had come to expect all sorts of unspeakable behavior from C0ññ!e over the years--but even for her, this was a new low.

Though so many people were witness to the phenomenon of Cüzz0 being birthed into a toilet that evening, Aunt C0ññ!e refused to ever acknowledge the event, taking her thoughts & motives surrounding the situation to her grave.

From the few details relatives have pieced together over the years, it’s said the baby boy born that night was taken to a hospital & subsequently placed in foster care, where he remained for the next three or so years of his life.

In Cüzz0’s third year of existence, Aunt C0ññ!e swooped back into the toddler’s life a changed woman. 

*A lot* can happen in three years; in C0ññ!e’s case, she’d managed to dupe a wealthy suitor into marrying her.

As such, C0ññ!e was living a completely different lifestyle--under a completely different last name--than she originally had at the time of my cousin-dad’s birth 🙄😕

Instantly, it seemed, Cüzz0 went from bouncing from unfamiliar home to unfamiliar home to traveling the world with this flashy, erratic, beautiful-yet-deeply-troubled, & apparently *very* rich woman who kept calling herself his “real mom” & a “Bad B!tch in the flesh” ready to rescue her baby boy from a lifetime spent ensnared in the infernal depths of the American foster care system.

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Basically, at just three years of age, young Cüzz0 was introduced to The Life... ✨ 

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#ToBeContinued

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