Shortly after school let out for the summer in 1953 (my sister, Helen, was eight; I was five but not yet a student) in Dayton, Ohio, my parents loaded all five of us kids into Dad’s new ‘53 Buick. Dad was ill and had scheduled surgery so he wanted to let his father know about it. (None of us kids knew.)
Dad’s father, Brack, a ‘mountain man’ whose livelihood was being a fur-trapper/trader, lived in Middlesboro, Kentucky with the last of his five wives. Dad’s mother, a Cherokee Indian squaw, daughter of their tribe’s Medicine Man, died giving birth to his brother, Adam in 1915. Dad was then five and his sister, Beatrice, was three.
Mom greatly disliked Brack, considered him brutal and crude, so we’d had nothing to do with him prior to that occasion (nor afterwards). Dad told us about his family during the many hours we drove. I fantasized he’d be a bearded man wearing buckskins, a raccoon hat, and leather boots with a rifle in his hand.
Alas, when we arrived Mom made us children wait in the car while Dad went inside the old, haphazard cabin that appeared to be condemned. It was warm in the car but she wouldn’t let us roll the windows down. In fact, she’d made us lock the doors after Dad got out. What was she afraid of?
Before long Dad and another man came walking toward the car but kept their distance. Brack knew Mom well thus didn’t directly approach us. He stood, though it was June, wearing a long, brown coat that completely enveloped him. His face was clean-shaven but weathered, his eyes wandering--perhaps trying to see the grandchildren he’d been denied the pleasure of knowing. There was no Davy Crockett in the man I saw. He seem like a deflated tire that had been punctured, driven some distance and then discarded by the road--unwanted and unnecessary.
I ached to get out of the car, to run up and hug him . . . my father’s father, my grandfather . . . but we didn’t dare disobey Mom. She was five months pregnant with their sixth child--her tenth pregnancy. They were hoping for another boy (already had four girls) so we had to behave lest she have another miscarriage. (She’d lost two already--years before us--plus one stillborn and another who died shortly after birth.).
Momma kept her eye on me as if she could read my mind. “Don’t even think about it, Missy!” She knew!
As my heart broke, Dad hugged the frail, old man. Dad loved him, for whatever it was worth, so maybe his childhood wasn’t as bad as Mom later claimed. Tears slid down my cheek.
Something was wrong? Would we ever get to know grandpa? I thought it was grandpa who was ill, didn’t read it right. Then Dad went into the hospital days later.
Before he entered the hospital though Dad gave Mom a new television set (the latest model), surprised me with a bicycle with training wheels and gave sister, Dee Dee, 4, a tricycle. (Helen already had a bicycle.) I don’t remember what Helen the other two kids got but there was also a puppy for us to share . . . which we named Brownie.
Dad and I had been inseparable as Mom and I never really bonded well--she’d wanted a boy! So Dad made me promised NOT to bother Mom, to listen and to learn to ride the bike . . . that he’d be home in no time to watch me ride. I promised.
Dad had been going to doctor after doctor since January of 1953 but no one seemed to know what was wrong with him. He was scheduled for exploratory surgery but, when they opened him up, they found and removed a tumor in his abdomen that was the size of a football. He had advanced, terminal, cancer of the abdomen. Unfortunately it had already spread and there was nothing left for them to do but make him comfortable.
He requested to see us children. Mom had no problem with taking my siblings in but she steadfastly refused to bring me in . . . said I was too emotional and she didn’t want him upset. Dad was as adamant about seeing me as she was against it.
Fortunately our neighbors, the Cottle’s, were involved. Mom couldn’t drive then so Perry and his wife, Maude, were taking her to and from the hospital. Their son, Jimmy, would baby-sit us while they were gone. Obviously they became aware of this disagreement between my parents.
Jimmy and I got along super so he volunteered to escort me in and out Dad’s room, swearing that he could keep things under control. The next day we ALL went to see Dad.
All the other kids had been in, then it was my turn. Jimmy held my hand as we went into the ward. Though there were many men in the room, all swathed in white gowns and blankets, I soon spotted Dad and broke away.
"Daddy, you don’t have to stay here. I can ride the bike!” I was breathless by the time I grabbed his hand. “You said you’d come home when I learned to ride. I did it!”
My dad, forty-two then and with pattern baldness, was 6’2” and 200 lbs. when he went in the hospital. It failed to see how thin he was, how frail. He just looked weary and old. Tears welled in his eyes before falling, streaming down his pale face.
I touched them with my fingers. “Don’t cry, Daddy, it’s okay. Jimmy took the wheels off and everything’s fine.”
Several of the nurses turned away but Mom’s reaction was rage. “Get her out of here! Right now, do it!” She fumed at Jimmy, her brows drawn in a scowl . . . as only she seemed capable of doing. Her arms, however, cradled my eighteen month old brother or I’m sure she would’ve grabbed me by the nape of my neck and dragged me away. Cats do that you know. I didn’t want to go!
Dad gently squeezed my hand. “Wherever I go I will watch you, but you might not see me.”
“Daddy!” I protested, “You promised! Please come home!”
Jimmy stood behind me ready to sweep me aside but respected my dad’s nod to ‘leave me be’. He wouldn’t let Mom past either; Dad and I had a right to our moment.
“I want to come home, honey,” Dad’s voice cracked, “ but I can’t.”
Only then did I realize that he was saying good-bye, that he’d never come back home. Why? Tears began to race down my face too. I didn’t want to live without him; he was my entire world . . . not just my father but my friend, my confidant, my playmate.
He smiled between tears. tears. “Remember how we used to imagine that we were birds and we’d close our eyes to soar with them?”
“Yes,” I sniffled.
“Whenever you see a bird, it’s wings outstretched and cawing as it circles around you, look up. Close your eyes and be one with me again.” I laid my head on his shoulder. “These bodies don’t last forever but our spirits do. I’ll always be with you, so long as you remember me, in your heart, in your spirit. I love you.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“Be a good girl. Listen to your mom, help her. You’re a big girl!”
Feeling beloved, I promised. Dad calmed me, as only he could. We kissed each other one last time before Jimmy picked me up and carried me, tearfully, from the room. Dad’s tears were still falling as well the last time I saw him.
When Mom came out her stifled anger burst free. She cursed, stomped and threw a hissy fit all aimed at me, but Jimmy stood between us . . . wouldn’t let her touch me.
“Get a hold of yourself, Laura.” Perry, elderly and a Christian, wasn’t pleased with the way she was talking to or about me and his son. “She’s five years old and was Lee’s constant companion. It’s over with, let it go. Your children are hurting too!”
I curled in Jimmy’s arms in the backseat with two of my siblings. Mom rode in the front seat with Mike in her arms and another child between her and Perry. She simmered all the way home and then called friends of theirs--another couple with kids--to come pick me up for a few days.
That next day the couple took me and their children to an amusement park--it was the Fourth of July. We had a long, tiring day filled with activities. I was on the Ferris Wheel, fireworks flashing all around us, when an incredible feeling wiggled through my bones. Suddenly I wanted to go home and told my hosts ‘something had happened’.
When we got to their house, the phone rang. Immediately we all rushed to the car and they drove me home. Though it was way past midnight the house was all lit up. People--friends and relatives--sat scattered about on the front porch. Before I got out of the car I knew Dad had passed away.
As I went through the throng of people on the porch several arms reached out to embrace me. Only I had been absent; only I hadn’t been here for Dad. It bothered me. Why? What had I done?
The folks thinned out the next day--coming and going in confusion. In a moment of empathy, while we were alone, I found Mom sprawled, face down and in tears, on their bed. I crawled alongside of her, threw my arm over her and began crying too. I’d been too numb to cry before. It’d been late and there’d been too much commotion.
With the ferociousness of a tamed one turned, Mom angrily turned over. “YOU!” I’d hidden many times behind Dad to escape her fury. Quite simply said, Mom didn’t like me. “How dare you come bother me!”
She nearly jumped off the bed as if my touch burnt. “He never loved you! Nobody ever loved you! I don’t!” Her words stung. “Mourn him if you want but he’s better off without you. You’re nothing but trouble so stay out of my way!” Then the ultimate statement of betrayal eased out. “Or do you want to kill me too?”
“I didn’t!” I couldn’t even say the words.
“You wanted too much, always bugging him, clinging to him.” She spat out her words furiously. “You wouldn’t let him take care of himself. Stay out of my sight, out of my way and leave me alone or you’ll be sorry.” Her last statement as she sashayed out of the room was the most horrific. “I wish you’d never been born!”
Right then and there, so did I! Within 24 hours that warm, sultry summer I’d shed not only sweat and tears but my innocence. I’d lost both parents.
In early August, Brownie began foaming at the mouth so Mom called the dog catcher.
"When will Brownie come back?" I innocently asked as the dog catcher loaded him into the back of his vehicle.
"Never!" Mom didn't like animals anyway, said they were too much trouble. "He's going to put Brownine to sleep."
"What about when he wakes up?" I didn't understand.
"He won't wake up ever!"
I darted for the door with every intention of darting behind the truck, stopping the execution of my pet, but Mom blocked my way.
"If you don't straighten up, he'll come back for you!" Mom looked straight at me. "Is that what you want?"
I gasped, backed off and sat down to cry. I was scared to go to sleep for a while afterwards . . . and then, after a while, it didn't matter.
Incorrectly I thought of myself as an orphan but, instead, I was now her scapegoat. Often Mom would grab her belt or a switch (twig off a tree) and whip me ‘til the blood ran. Why? Because she was angry at being stuck with six kids, mad at the world, hungry, tired. At first I made excuses for her behavior, then I learned to hide . . . even for shadows . . . as it hurt less. Her anger and abuse never stopped though it was mostly me whom she hurt.
Even now I sometimes ponder why?
i am sorry you had to endure this hell. i did, too, and years later, i still feel the pain. except it wasn't so much my parents; it was my two older sisters who inflicted the abuse on me; and mental and emotional abuse is just as bad as the physical side, if not, even more so. >tears < heartbreaking write! :( (((HUGS)))
A collection of love poetry both relatable and unique.. Poems both joyful, playfu , yearning and romantic. The Poet has exposed his heart and soul in words of love and admiration. Take a journey through the thoughts of a Contempary poet of love. Poet
Eight e-books regarding Pathological Narcissism, relationships with abusive
narcissists and psychopaths, and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
