my father was a good man...
an honest... honorable... hard-working man...
who
yearned... all his life to be loved...
but always knew himself to be... unworthy ...
he worked very hard... outside...
every day... in all kinds of weather...
his body
wracked with the pain of arthritis...
he didn't drink, gamble or do drugs...
he never hit any of us...
nor would he have ever allowed the thought...
of molestation or child abuse to enter his mind...
he was a very good man...
who held us all
hostage ...with his anger...
today...it would be thought of
as "domestic violence"...
"extreme verbal abuse"...
we thought of it as... "Dad's mad again..."
yelling and swearing...
like being slapped, hard...over and over...
because it always got louder...
and more violent...
once in a while... escalating to
throwing and breaking...
we lived in fear of "setting him off"...
we "tip-toed" around him...
let him control the TV... dinner menus...
family schedules and activities...
we never "went" anywhere...
because he didn't want to go...
no one ever came over...
because he didn't want anyone around...
and it was easier to do things his way...
he never went to any performance...
graduation or other event of mine...
my brother played football in high school...
like Dad had...
and told me that he sometimes saw Dad's pick-up at games...
parked near the fence...
so Dad could watch, without being with people...
Dad's way of "relating", was with sarcasm...
"what's that stink ?" would greet me, if I wore anything with a scent...
only shortcomings and "issues" were worth a comment...
if I got an A-...it was,"Why not an A ?"...
if I got an A ...it was, "Why not an A+ ?"
I actually got an A+ a couple of times ...
he had nothing at all to say about that...
walking from my room, past him, into the bathroom...
was always stressful...because he'd always say
something...generally a put-down...
always sarcastic...
I don't EVER remember being told that he was proud of me...
my first, and only "date" in high school
was a "Winter Formal Dance"...
with a very nice guy I knew in band...
who like me, took "French", when the school dropped "Latin"...
Dad's comment to my relatives on Christmas Eve...
"Yeah, she's studying French ...
and went to a dance with a Mexican..."
that brought a sudden silence to the gathering...
but Dad was good at that...
he could be funny and very likable...
when he was in the mood...
but he was so often deep in melancholy...
and self-loathing, that those times
were few and far between...
he was volatile... he could, and would...
explode in anger at any moment...
sometimes, he would be quiet for days...
but we knew that, like a volcano... he was going to blow-up...
it was only a matter of time...
an argument...or even loud conversations...
a phone call, disturbing his isolation...
or his "show" on TV... or if he didn't like what he saw...
or the food wasn't right...
or, God forbid, someone had to go somewhere...
for some reason, I could nearly always calm him down...
so at an early age...I became the peacemaker...
the one who was
sent into the enraged lion's den...
to sit with him... watching TV... eating things I didn't need...
providing him with the companionship he yearned for...
but pushed away with both hands....
of course, as in most families... there were the oft repeated mantras...
and stories...oral traditions passed down...
my Dad was a story-teller...
from a long line of story tellers and musicians...
"there's one in each generation...",he used to say...
"my father, his father before him and now, me..."
and he was good... jokes, stories, poetry...
all remembered in great detail... and told with high drama...
to me, the sponge...the next generation...
"you're just like him," Mom used to say...
she meant, mostly, the good things she loved in him,
before life kicked him enough times to make him bitter...
and withdrawn into his private hell...where we were fellow inmates...
as I grew older and found it difficult to relate to my peers...
she began to say that I had Dad's "curse" as well...
being always misunderstood...having a quick temper...
and being happiest away from others...
[after all, if they can't get to you...they can't hurt you...]
when our Japanese neighbors were being "interned"
during WW II...my parents helped them all they could...
"they have always been our friends and neighbors...
something that a foreign country has done doesn't change that.."
this was not a popular sentiment at the time,
and our barn "mysteriously" burned down...
after the camps, when our neighbors returned to their ranches
that my Dad had kept going for them...
they had their homes and property...
many returning Japanese had nothing to come "home" to...
having been victimized by the greedy...
they couldn't get gasoline ration stamps...
so Mom would drive them to the store...
many stores refused to trade with the Japanese...
so as a result, my Mom refused to shop there too..
when Dad died, 20 years ago...
there was no memorial service...
just an obituary notice...
that was his choice...
and then...
they started coming to the house...
the now elderly, Japanese people...
who had been the children of the families my folks helped...
I had grown up knowing several of the families...
as friends and neighbors....
but there were some who came ...
that I had never heard of...
and they all said the same things to my Mom...
"without [my Dad] and you...
our family would have lost everything...
we will never forget you..."
this came as a
total surprise to me...
how like Dad and Mom...
to
never share something
that we could have
really been proud of them for...
as Dad lay in his hospital bed, dying of prostrate cancer...
hooked-up to morphine...
out of pain for the first time in my life...
but completely lucid...
all his regrets overwhelmed him...
the last time I saw him, I told him that I loved him...
I
think he told me that he loved me too...
I know he
wanted to...
I had spent months talking to a councilor...
working through my anger issues regarding Dad...
and I was past the anger...
I had released it...
my brother never has...
and to this day, will boil up in sudden anger...
especially if Dad is mentioned...
he won't forgive... and can't forget...
I recognize the look of fear I see...
in my sister-in-law and my niece's eyes...
when his anger flares...
suddenly, I'm 14 again...and afraid...
I pray that my brother can conquer
his demons...
Mom and my brother were at the hospital
the morning Dad died...
I had returned to Mudville to make lesson plans
and arrange for a sub at school, when they called...
Dad had been awake when they arrived...
Mom asked him if he had anything he wanted to say...
in his typical fashion, he shook his head, "no"...
sighed ... and died...as he had lived...
everything left unsaid... full of pain...
all of this... the anger, self-loathing, hiding from pain...
believing myself to be worthless and inconsequential...
has been my legacy from Dad...
along with a memory for stories...
a soul full of melancholy...
being a conflicted, hopeless romantic...
doomed always to search...
without finding the love I can share...
an athlete's agility, poise and balance...
[I was, at one time, very athletic...
Dad, was a
superstar...]
a song in my heart ...
Dad was always singing...
if he was feeling OK...
an ability to feel at home...on any stage...
a strong sense of duty, loyalty and honor...
a willingness and the courage...
to do what has to be done...
no matter what it costs...
because it is the "
right thing to do" ...
Dad postponed college initially...
to help my grandfather during the Depression...
then gave up all hopes and a football scholarship,
to stay and work the ranch after he died...
supporting my grandmother and allowing Mom to finish college...
a well-written and visceral essay I've re-read recently ...
[a personal account of living with an abusive person...]
resonated quite strongly and very unexpectedly, with my buried memories...
bringing these early,
very formative years back...
back out of the dark places they were put...
so I could
try to forget them...
which was really about as effective ...
as covering a pile of nasty trash with a carpet...
and pretending that it's just
not there...
this was "just the way things were"...
the way "I was"... beyond help...or hope...
I had never thought of all of this as Dad's problem...
until I worked with the councilor a good friend sent me to...
nearly 30 years ago...
I had just figured that it was, all my fault...
that I didn't deserve anything better...
that I was really as worthless as he always made me feel...
that I deserved to be this miserable...
because I just couldn't
be with people...
without eventually annoying and driving them away...
and later, when I would continually fail to establish a satisfactory relationship
with someone whom I
desperately wanted to like me...
"you're just like your Dad"... would always ring in my ears...
accusing me... confirming my guilt...
my total
"wrongness"... completely
unlovable...the utter
hopelessness of it all...
pretty soon, I just
quit trying...
once in a while, someone would care enough to listen...
but the reaction was always the same...
"how could he.... ? "..."how could you...?"
never acceptance...always blame...
tacit...but still there...
things I had to do
differently...become different...
"you're ALL wrong...so
change yourself..."
"if you're not happy yet...you're NOT trying..."
if you KNOW you're worthless and there's never been a remedy...
hope dies...and all you want is for the pain to stop...
so I dug a hole, crawled in...
and waited to die...
at this point, it's almost as if God said to me...
"I understand ... My Son had this kind of sorrow...
but because He died for you...
you don't have to suffer and die alone..."
so He sent a couple of His
friends...they didn't stand apart from me and "tell" me what to do...
they were not there to judge...just to love ...
they weren't afraid...
they got down into that hole with me...
and showed me the way out...
they had been there themselves... and survived...
their complete acceptance of who I was and had been...
with all the pain and baggage...
pulled me out of that hole...
back into the "light" of Christ...
and would open the doors to the darkest places of my soul...
over the last 4 months or so...
I've cycled through dark corner after dark corner...
the light of Christ chasing all the shadowy demons out...
and the true miracle is that the demons exorcised from my soul...
do not come back...they go...and stay gone...
I've found acceptance from God for everything...
and expect that this will be no different...
I believe that all my abusive relationship baggage...
and all it's related issues...
will go too...
but I'm still working on this...
after all...it has just been "brought to my attention"...
a sure sign that it is the next "target" area...
I
know it's not my fault...
but since all thoughts of the pain and hopelessness
of
any abusive relationship that comes to mind...
brings me such pain...and so many memories flood back...
that I know there's
much work to be done...
the first step is always to acknowledge that there
is a problem...
I'm sure that's the reason I'm feeling this
now...then the light of Christ enters the dark corners...
eradicating all the shadowy spectres lurking there...
God will reveal it all to me ...
the plan... the method...
even "helpers"...if needed...
in His own time and way...
so, until then...
I'll wait...and pray...trusting in Him...
and then...like so many others of my "demons"
this too, shall be cast out ...
gone for good...
and I will be even more free...
God is so good...
