Nothing is more cruel that provoking child's tears.
A few had confided in the past of have had a childhood not worth to be mentioned but with the scars to remind them that it wasn't a nightmare, that coming morning they will wake up and the nightmare will be still there, imbedded in their soul.
Their parents put it there.
This short story is for them.
I wondered in my childhood where the shadows went when light came up, like all was a hide and seek kind of game played for my benefit.
In a way I was a weird kid.
I liked the shadows, the solitude and the silence.
The light did hurt my eyes because I could see things, which I didn’t wish to see.
The silence spared me of the shouting contest of my parents, of meals where dishes got slammed on the table with hostiles looks.
Or a front door getting shut, hard, like mortar shell made of anger exploding, loudly, until the next time.
The shadows and the silence had that special quality that only children and crazy people can recognize.
After all, one needs to be a little of both to avoid of be overwhelmed.
I thought then that smiles were made for other children.
The shadows I believed could hide me from an enraged mother looking for something or somebody to beat up.
The same shadows said goodnight every night, as a pathetic maternal substitute.
Sometimes the sky would be empty of clouds, and the moon, always trying to catch up with the sun, would go by my window, just behind the naked trees, and its light will play a kind of Chinese shadows-theatre of ever moving fingers on the wall in front of my bed.
Perhaps the wind wanted to play too by moving the branches.
Shadows didn’t scare me, they were my friends.
No monsters there, or under my bed.
But when the lights were switched ON…
I closed my eyes.
With the shadows gone, the fears came.
One day you discover, fear has been converted in something else, to a “never mind the torpedoes” kind of attitude were hate is the main engine from a “don’t you dare to do that one more time,” fear doesn’t work anymore.
As a child, my silences were the blessed absence of sound going sometimes along with a softly Beethoven’s adagio in the background or Paganini’s happy Campanella.
My big dream then, was to learn how to play the violin.
In that silence I could hear the wind’s almost inaudible rattling of the dry leaves of autumn or the ruffling of feathers, high up in a nest, a young bird trying to gain courage for its first fly.
The silence was my silence, only broken now and then by the loving sound of my father’s approaching steps, even if he didn’t pause to ruffle my hair or to look my way.
He never raised his hand to strike my face, he never raised his voice in anger, but he never broke our silence in between either.
I supposed he had nothing to say to me and I was afraid to switch the light ON and let him see what was hiding in my shadows, provoking with it the front door to slam one final time, leaving me alone, as always, but this time forever.
When he passed away I wasn’t given the chance to say goodbye but got the cruelest words “When the dog’s dead, the rabies are gone”.
I only can remember of my father one afternoon when he was back from one of his travels, eight years old I was trying desperately to call his attention by pulling his sleeve, say something to make him proud of me, to look at me, so I blurted “I cry no more when mother beats me up!”
To this day I don’t think he never heard me, he just kept on walking.
I have wondered in my adulthood why the lights came up at all.
Someone told me once that the holidays were just that, days, agonizing along without a taste of Christmas or New Year.
Just another day.
Like that moonless Christmas evening, near the front line with merry snipers on both sides, when a wounded soldier down in no man’s land was calling help for my mother.
Was he kidding?
Was he really expecting she to come?
Keep the shadows, without belonging somewhere or to somebody, until the catharsis overwhelms the soul and one wish to close the eyes and disappear.
I still deal with the crap that my parents many dysfunctions put in my soul. Do these things ever fade? Georg ... you have a very large, compassionate, and wise heart.
Blessings ...
Richard
A powerful write my friend, I see it often in the eyes of children inside my classroom. Some are better at covering up the abuse, others to innocent to realize to cover it...scared and do not trust adults. I have been able to help a few children out of abusive situations, others just enough to call it abuse, but not enough to convince social services to remove them! Sad situations, so sad to see children suffer at the hands of what is supposed to be their safety net, their parents...or an adult member of their family. I'll never understand how anyone can hurt a child or an elderly person...I recall before my mom left my father, I was only one year old when she left and went home where I was raised with a wonderful life. I wasn't spoiled with material things but with much love and affection from her and my grandparents. I admire my mother for pulling out of a situation with three small children a five year old, three year old, and a one year old. She did a great job raising us...but the sad thing is I was one year old, and one day as if an old black and white movie played before my eyes...I could see abuse that my father gave my mother...no, she never spoke of this, she never spoke negative about our father infront of us. I told her about it, she was amazed that I remembered it all. Trauma does something to children, leaves them with scars. I'm thankful that is the only scar I have, we were sheltered from the abuse, but imagine those that are in the center...the many scars, nightmares, the list could go on and on...sad...
Blessings,
Joyce B.
Reviewed by LadyJtalks LadyJzTalkZone
7/15/2007
Yes I remember to a day where my mother said "you have no shame in you, you don't even cry when I hit you" did she have it all screwed up somewhere also. Wow, to think we were proud of this wonderful thing we could do. thank you for sharing the story. Lady J
Reviewed by ~ Holly Harbridge
7/15/2007
My dear Georg, you have described well what abused children suffer; thost that have been abused.
Sadly, those that have not, do not understand. They just don't get! They rebuke you, tell you to stop whinning and living in the past!
Shameful people, for they do not know that a child that has been tramatized by the past walks every day with a limp and has to put forth ever effort just to get through the day. And to do it without obstacles is a giant feet, just the same as the war victims
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