My emotions are very near the surface. Always have been. Ask my kids. I'm a crier. I mean I don't boo hoo at the drop of a hat but I am, as my mother has always said, sensitive.
Not that I'm a marshmallow. To the contrary...I'm Mother Courage, baby. My upbringing galvanized me. I consider myself a very strong person. But I am inordinately sensitive.
My emotions poke through at the most inopportune times...church...the Star Spangled Banner...and that damn Edelweiss. The old eyes start brimming up.
Why is this? Why am I so sensitive? I think a lot of it is just my personality. And a lot of it is my experiencing an emotional grenade in my childhood and NEVER having my grief - my fears and emotions, aired. Unreconciled grief I believe is the term.
Recently I attended training necessary to work as a group facilitator for a non-profit for bereavement counseling, specifically for children. It is my fledging effort to give back, to help those, who like me have suffered a loss.
The training was small and intimate, about a dozen people. Myself and another gentleman were by far the oldest participants. The majority of my classmates were attending to satisfy a degree requirement for their counseling license. All young women and they all looked like they had received the same memo about dress code. All slim, all impeccably dressed, legs crossed at the ankles, demure, educated...controlled. I could tell their emotions were in control. I was in trouble.
As I sat and scanned the agenda for the first day, my eyes zeroed in on a line about midway down the 'morning' portion of the agenda. The words gave me pause...Circle time...Sharing our stories.
Now why on earth did I not think that we were all going to need to share our stories??? It was training for grief counseling, for crying out loud! Still, there I was, shaking in my boots over the prospect of telling my story.
Not that I hadn't told it before...and not that I didn't know exactly how that was going to go down. I can write about it just fine - no live audience; no sets of eyeballs trained on you, watching your every move. If asked details about the death, I usually shut down because I can't get it out all the way through without my voice catching and my eyes welling up. That started immediately when I returned to first grade after "The Death", after the Christmas holidays. We lived in a fairly small town so my father's head on car crash death made for big news among the families of my classmates. First graders are especially insensitive to something they can't totally comprehend so I can harbor no ill will toward the group of three or four of my male classmates who relentlessly dogged me at the lunch table for details in those early days after "The Death".
"Was there alot of blood?!" this particular little ghoul asked. Feral little mouth breather...he invaded my personal space waiting for my answer, his two equally miscreant cronies looming close behind him. I distinctly remember not being able to respond, not being able to find the right words or even how to begin. And NOT wanting to share with this particular person. Panicked. I remember feeling trapped; cornered. I didn't speak but I dissolved into tears. The first of many instances in that first year where I felt cornered...desperate...alone...devastated...and different. If the floor could have just opened and swallowed me up, it would have done me an enormous favor.
I soon learned to push the grief down; to bury the sadness and to steer clear of any conversation regarding "The Death" of my father. Over the years, starting with day one - the day of "The Death", I knew that talking about it made others uncomfortable. Particularly my mother. And I never spoke of my father with my mother in those early days. It was too raw and I loved my mom and did not like to see her cry. So we didn't talk about it...or him.
With others, as I got older I generally did not share gratuituously. It would come out in conversation, usually during the 'getting to know you' stage of any relationship: friend, boyfriend, etc. When I was older I just couldn't hack the look of pity I invariably got when telling of my loss. Well meaning people trying to be nice but just reinforcing what I all too painfully knew: that my life was deficit; I would have to do without; I was without a parent; without a father.
So there I was in group share. The way it went: we were to go around the circle and each introduce ourselves and say why we were there, why we were training to be facilitators. They asked for volunteers. Pause...pause. Up went my hand. I wanted to go first. Wanted to get it over quickly.
I told them my name and where I worked. That I had two kids and was looking for something 'to feed my soul'.
And...
"I lost my father when I was six years old".
I barely got that out. And I choked. I could feel my throat closing and my voice caught as I said that last sentence.
Fini. I sat there in awkward silence signaling THE END of my story. The moderator sat for a split second searching my face. Nope, lady...that's it. On to the next victim.
Thank God the next person, the older gentleman, delivered. Big time. Not only did he weep, he did so with wracked sobs. I felt badly for him and his recounting of his loss but he took the heat off.
So around we went in the circle. After the older gentleman there was the remainder of the group, all the clones introducing themselves and telling their story of loss. One young woman lost her grammy...OK sad but Grammy was 80 years old. Then one young woman had lost her mom to cancer when she was eleven. I listened intently and I was impressed by her. No tears. Looking at her, I put her age at around 25 or 26 so I put her loss at happening about 15 years ago or so. Look at me, in my fifties, and I still could not share my story; here she was and her demeanor was poised and purposeful. She went on to say that she actually had attended the non-profit for which we were now all training. She said the facility helped immensely and that her dad had been there for her and gently encouraged her to explore her grief.
So it was possible...to actually move on, move forward - still sad and with a sense of loss, mind you, - but continue to progress with your life, your journey.
After we went all around and everyone contributed with their stories, we adjourned from our circle formation and returned to our tables to listen to our guest instructor. Let's call him Mark. Mark had just sat in circle time with us and listened to all our stories. He lectured, briefly, on factors which affect the grieving process. Then he proceeded to tell his own story.
He told of a perfectly normal workday morning. His wife, a teacher, had just left for work - a less than three mile commute. He told of getting their second grader ready for school. He told of hearing the sirens not long after his wife left...of the call he received telling him he needed to get to the hospital - FAST. The sirens he heard were from the emergency vehicles attending to the car accident that involved his wife.
He spoke eloquently and very thoughtfully of how he numbly moved through the worst scenario of his life. Arriving at the hospital...of the doctor coming to tell him his wife didn't make it. His feeling of disbelief, of total devastation, of anguish. He spoke of pulling himself together to do the hardest thing he would ever have to do: tell his young daughter her mother was gone.
He looked over at me then and our eyes met. "My daughter was seven years old. You said you were six when you lost your father. When I talk to school groups I ask the second graders to stand up...so people can see them. See how a second grader looks, how they stand. They are so little. And they only comprehend so much."
I felt the cloud move over me. Oh God, please, please not now. I didn't want to lose it. Not in front of all these people. I quickly glanced around the room. No one else was crying. How in the fuck could they not be moved?! I felt the emotions just kick in, bubble up to the surface. I felt that rush of vulnerability. And then I did something I hadn't done in over 45 years. I tightly clamped my mouth shut and plastered my tongue to the roof of my mouth. And self pacified. I essentially was sucking way back in throat, like sucking my thumb but without the thumb. That actually gave me pause. It shocked me. I prayed no one could tell.
Oh I was crying alright. Sitting rock still, staring straight ahead at our speaker. The tears were brimming and then diving out of my eyes. The more I blinked seemed to produce MORE tears. Our speaker's voice caught and he had to stop while he yielded to his own emotions at the remembrance. That destroyed me.
The rest of his story was straightforward and inspiring. Mark spoke of love and loss and moving forward but never, never forgetting. That's the fallacy...that we 'get over things'. The loss of a loved one you never get over. You learn to live with it but you never get over it. It was good to hear this spoken.
So Mark's session ended and we proceeded with the rest of our training for that day. I remained a passionate observer, listening and learning. One of the things we learned is that you never 'call' on someone in group; they should only participate if they are willing to...if they are up to it. Group is meant to be a safe place to share and listen and learn copying skills. We closed our training for the weekend and I left feeling good. Even though most of what we covered in group was no news flash, hearing it - having it out there on the table - certainly validated any feelings and emotions that I have suppressed or felt for my entire life. I left wanting to learn more on enabling others to feel as enlightened and I also knew I needed to share my own story in the next training session.
So for the week in between sessions, I started taking my anti-depressants again. These I had not taken, nor needed, since my divorce nine months hence. But I recognized that I would need them to help, at least for the one day that I would be in the spotlight, help to keep my emotions in check.
The next Saturday we were back in training and I was feeling strong and confident and had clarity of mind. My time to share was about to happen...and quite unscripted as it turned out.
The topic we were discussing was how a child may turn inward with their emotions as to not upset the surviving parent. Fight or flight, I think it is called. How one child may act out because of their grief and one child may seem to be calmly dealing with it, with little to no outward personality changes. The child acting out is ministered to with the thought that they are not dealing with their situation when, in fact, acting out is dealing with it, is expressing their grief, their emotions. I was the classic flight example. I turned inward, way inward. I became even more quiet; more reserved. I was shy to begin with but my loss took my shyness to a new level. I also became very dutiful. I excelled in school, becoming the top student in my class, year after year. I strived to be the best, so much that starting in second grade, each year some teacher would write on my report card that "__________ needs to relax. __________ needs to feel less of the need to be perfect in every area." I sucked up all my insecurities until I was about ready to pop. Then my sadness and my worry and any other negative feeling would come bubbling up to the surface. But I tried to hold it together for my mother. I guess in a way it caused me to grow up at age six. I, in a way, looked out for my mother by not giving in to my grief; by suppressing it for as long as I could.
Our facilitator lead our discussion along the path of the feeling that the loss of one parent is almost like losing two because of how the surviving parent fares, how they cope. I guess I looked open to that concept, looked like I recognized that trait, looked like I had experience in that area.
"What would you like to contribute to that?" our moderator looked right at me. Hey...I thought 'calling' on people was a no-no?
Without hesitation I delivered.
"In a way, when I lost my father, I lost my mother too. My father went out one evening after my mother and I had gone to bed. He was involved in an car accident. He was driving on the wrong side of the road. He took out a whole carload of people. To say my mother was decimated is an understatement.
I was six years old.
And it was Christmas Eve."
With those words, I heard a cacophony of anguished groans rise up to the left of me.
I had told my long awaited story.
I guess you could say I killed at group that day.
So my eyes are moist writing this. It is my story and mine alone. Nearly fifty years after the fact, someone was actually interested in hearing it. I understand now the importance of talking about it; of not dwelling on it but rather, sharing so maybe someone else will relate. My fears, sadness and loss were never addressed, never validated. I hold no resentment to those in charge of me in my childhood; we were all just finding our way I guess through an unimaginable time. I'm wondering what my teachers thought? I do remember my mother being defensive in relating a story about my second grade teacher telling her I was acting very isolated; standing way apart from my classmates on the playground, not joining in with the others. I guess she had tried to address my demeanor, which at best could be described as withdrawn. My mother, who is not and has never been a great communicator, took umbrage at her words and therein ended, I imagine, any outside influence intervening on my behalf.
Someone has written that grief never goes away really; that it can be suppressed; lie dormant.
And then it can come back and make it's presence known and be a wolf at the door.
Not to play the blame game but I believe my difficulty with relationships has a great deal to do with my father's death. I had - have - relationship fears, I guess. Fears of abandonment, lack of trust, lack of intimacy. And the fears were never addressed.
I am a master mason - I can throw up a brick wall in no time flat. Back in my single days, I was very adept at squelching any decent suitor fairly early on in the relationship. Curiously, I never slept with any of the good prospects. And why was that?? Why did I nip in the bud any nice, caring young man? I always, always dismissed it as not having chemistry with whatever guy. That they would bore me. Really? What was behind my lack of commitment to even explore a relationship? Fear of perhaps having something good and then losing it? Or perhaps my own feelings of inadequacy and not wanting to built a relationship only to have the guy find out - find out that I was lacking in the trust department, in the intimacy department; of me generally thinking I was not good enough because I was so abysmally lacking in the most basic of life's fruits. My family was so fractured, sadly even before my father's death. His exit just cemented that fact.
So I am continuing onward...slowly, minutely making strides in self expression, self exploration. The revealing isn't really that egregious actually. Time has told me that there's always someone worse off than me. In a way, I'm proud of my struggles, of my twisted family background. My history makes me uniquely me. I actually have to chuckle to myself when thinking about some of the shit that has gone down in my family tree. A lesser person would buckle under the mental and emotional strain. In a weird kind of way, I can actually withstand a lot because - and in spite - of it. I have learned to use it to my advantage, I guess. Keeps me sane...
Thursday, July 17, 2014
My Life as a Liability
I've always been a good girl. Always on the straight and narrow. Never making waves.
I've spent my entire life proving I'm worth it.
You see for most of my life I have felt like a liability to those who should hold me dear. Namely my mother and my former husband.
And why on earth would I have this feeling? With my mother, since my earliest recollection I have always been the source of worry. My father was a drunk who couldn't hold a job and my mother was the sole breadwinner. Mom was upfront with me when I was sixteen. She told me she had never wanted children, never intended to have any. Life with my father didn't exactly create an environment of stability. A child - me - complicated things. With my birth, my mother not only had to worry about her own financial stability but that of mine as well.
My father brought the whole instability thing to fruition when he died at age 37. Mom was stressed out during our life alone together and I don't remember a whole lot of joy, just existence.
Mom remarried when I was eleven. My life as a liability hit an all time high because then was I not only my mother's little liability, I was a leftover, a residual, a reminder to her and my stepfather of her past unhappy first marriage. She and my new stepfather were so devoted to making us a family unit that I wasn't even included, wasn't even invited, to their wedding. I was left behind to stay with my grandmother. I soon learned first hand what it truly meant to be the proverbial third wheel.
As I matured, the fear of my potential liability took on new concerns for my mother. I was a naive girl, frightened of boys, actually. I was never boy crazy and really never gave my mother any concern about my impressional teenage years. Still in all she worried. Well she needn't...I didn't date. I was afraid of men. Actually I felt intimidated by the opposite sex. I wasn't good at the attraction thing, the flirting. Funny but I'm still not. Guess my lack of self esteem comes into play here.
Still she worried about me bringing shame on the family I guess. Screwing up. Basically she worried that I'd become my father.
She actually came out and said to me once - warned me once - that she "wouldn't be able to handle" me "having a baby without being married". Looking back, I don't even know what precipitated that whole admonishment other than the fact that I was a young adult and living on my own. I had moved out at 21 and instead of applauding my sense of independence she said that "Girls stay home til they're married. People talk about girls who have their own apartments." Really?
Well she needn't have worried. My missteps, my worries and issues were always borne totally on my shoulders...always. Whether that be money problems or domestic problems. I never went to my mother with my issues. Never felt I could.
I also, apparently, was the reason I'm an only child. Anyone who knows me knows I would LOVE to have had a sibling. Never a question. I hated being an only child. A few years back my mother told me that my stepfather "would have loved to have had a child of his own" but that she was nearly 40 when they married and, besides, she was afraid I'd "go off the deep end." Again - really?? Why not be honest with herself that she was 40, she wasn't really a kid person to begin with and she did say that she wouldn't have had anyone to take care of baby #2. I would have been 11 or older if she had of had another child. My aunt, her sister, provided care for me for 15 years - FREE OF CHARGE. Yep. She never paid my aunt, even when my mother could have afforded it, she never paid her. And she never even acted thankful - blessed - to have such great care for me. My mother always has had an entitled demeanor of sorts - but that's a whole another post.
And they say that women marry men like their fathers. Well, I didn't really have a point of reference there insofar as a relationship is concerned so I did the next logical thing...I married a man like my mother.
For starters, things weren't always awful in my marriage. We started out with some promise, had some great times. But as the years wore on I began to sense a familiar pattern. Familiar interactions...very familiar. The whole 'because of you' or 'if it wasn't for you' dialogue.
Example:
I was very upfront before we even married that I wanted children (he already had two considerably older children) and that I wanted to stay at home with them. My mother was never able to stay home with me and it was something I was adamant about when planning my own family. So when our daughter was born I did stay home and we were entirely on his salary. It became contentious. I was told by him about "this thing that you're doing to our family." Really? How about how we were now also raising my 13 year old stepson because his mother said she couldn't handle him but oh, she didn't want to leave the house that my husband let her stay in because of their son and she wanted assurance that we wouldn't expect any financial support from her for her child. F.S. consented to all because he wanted his son so badly. And I was putting financial strain on our family?
The topper was four years later when I gave birth to our second child. I'll never forget holding L.P. right after delivery. He was so different from L.B. So tiny, so different looks wise. I was in awe of our new little sweetie. My baby daddy? Oh he too sat beside my hospital bed gazing upon our new bundle. Tears in his eyes.
"I could have been home free."
Wow. That remark was the lament that here was his youngest child and his youngest child from the first marriage was about to graduate high school - hence the 'could have been home free.' Heartwarming.
The indifference I get/got from both ex hubs and mom is not lost on my children. L.B. even said several years ago: "Mom you need to divorce Dad and Grandma needs to kick the bucket." Ah from your mouth to God's ears, Sweetie. LOL. I did take care of the Dad part.
I have a good sense of self. My wonderful grandmother and aunt made sure of that. They filled my world with love, support and kindness. Mom? Not so much. Oh well. If anything it made me the polar opposite in dealing with my own two children. Hopefully they know by my words and actions how absolutely priceless they are to me and how over the moon I am at having them in my life.
I've spent my entire life proving I'm worth it.
You see for most of my life I have felt like a liability to those who should hold me dear. Namely my mother and my former husband.
And why on earth would I have this feeling? With my mother, since my earliest recollection I have always been the source of worry. My father was a drunk who couldn't hold a job and my mother was the sole breadwinner. Mom was upfront with me when I was sixteen. She told me she had never wanted children, never intended to have any. Life with my father didn't exactly create an environment of stability. A child - me - complicated things. With my birth, my mother not only had to worry about her own financial stability but that of mine as well.
My father brought the whole instability thing to fruition when he died at age 37. Mom was stressed out during our life alone together and I don't remember a whole lot of joy, just existence.
Mom remarried when I was eleven. My life as a liability hit an all time high because then was I not only my mother's little liability, I was a leftover, a residual, a reminder to her and my stepfather of her past unhappy first marriage. She and my new stepfather were so devoted to making us a family unit that I wasn't even included, wasn't even invited, to their wedding. I was left behind to stay with my grandmother. I soon learned first hand what it truly meant to be the proverbial third wheel.
As I matured, the fear of my potential liability took on new concerns for my mother. I was a naive girl, frightened of boys, actually. I was never boy crazy and really never gave my mother any concern about my impressional teenage years. Still in all she worried. Well she needn't...I didn't date. I was afraid of men. Actually I felt intimidated by the opposite sex. I wasn't good at the attraction thing, the flirting. Funny but I'm still not. Guess my lack of self esteem comes into play here.
Still she worried about me bringing shame on the family I guess. Screwing up. Basically she worried that I'd become my father.
She actually came out and said to me once - warned me once - that she "wouldn't be able to handle" me "having a baby without being married". Looking back, I don't even know what precipitated that whole admonishment other than the fact that I was a young adult and living on my own. I had moved out at 21 and instead of applauding my sense of independence she said that "Girls stay home til they're married. People talk about girls who have their own apartments." Really?
Well she needn't have worried. My missteps, my worries and issues were always borne totally on my shoulders...always. Whether that be money problems or domestic problems. I never went to my mother with my issues. Never felt I could.
I also, apparently, was the reason I'm an only child. Anyone who knows me knows I would LOVE to have had a sibling. Never a question. I hated being an only child. A few years back my mother told me that my stepfather "would have loved to have had a child of his own" but that she was nearly 40 when they married and, besides, she was afraid I'd "go off the deep end." Again - really?? Why not be honest with herself that she was 40, she wasn't really a kid person to begin with and she did say that she wouldn't have had anyone to take care of baby #2. I would have been 11 or older if she had of had another child. My aunt, her sister, provided care for me for 15 years - FREE OF CHARGE. Yep. She never paid my aunt, even when my mother could have afforded it, she never paid her. And she never even acted thankful - blessed - to have such great care for me. My mother always has had an entitled demeanor of sorts - but that's a whole another post.
And they say that women marry men like their fathers. Well, I didn't really have a point of reference there insofar as a relationship is concerned so I did the next logical thing...I married a man like my mother.
For starters, things weren't always awful in my marriage. We started out with some promise, had some great times. But as the years wore on I began to sense a familiar pattern. Familiar interactions...very familiar. The whole 'because of you' or 'if it wasn't for you' dialogue.
Example:
I was very upfront before we even married that I wanted children (he already had two considerably older children) and that I wanted to stay at home with them. My mother was never able to stay home with me and it was something I was adamant about when planning my own family. So when our daughter was born I did stay home and we were entirely on his salary. It became contentious. I was told by him about "this thing that you're doing to our family." Really? How about how we were now also raising my 13 year old stepson because his mother said she couldn't handle him but oh, she didn't want to leave the house that my husband let her stay in because of their son and she wanted assurance that we wouldn't expect any financial support from her for her child. F.S. consented to all because he wanted his son so badly. And I was putting financial strain on our family?
The topper was four years later when I gave birth to our second child. I'll never forget holding L.P. right after delivery. He was so different from L.B. So tiny, so different looks wise. I was in awe of our new little sweetie. My baby daddy? Oh he too sat beside my hospital bed gazing upon our new bundle. Tears in his eyes.
"I could have been home free."
Wow. That remark was the lament that here was his youngest child and his youngest child from the first marriage was about to graduate high school - hence the 'could have been home free.' Heartwarming.
The indifference I get/got from both ex hubs and mom is not lost on my children. L.B. even said several years ago: "Mom you need to divorce Dad and Grandma needs to kick the bucket." Ah from your mouth to God's ears, Sweetie. LOL. I did take care of the Dad part.
I have a good sense of self. My wonderful grandmother and aunt made sure of that. They filled my world with love, support and kindness. Mom? Not so much. Oh well. If anything it made me the polar opposite in dealing with my own two children. Hopefully they know by my words and actions how absolutely priceless they are to me and how over the moon I am at having them in my life.
Friday, July 4, 2014
What Falls Away
In my training to become a group facilitator for children's grief and bereavement counseling, the presiding concept is that we, as facilitators, are to be 'companions' to those grieving. We are not there to 'fix'; we are not there to make everything better. We are not even there to alleviate the grief. We are working with the premise that grief is permanent; that those affected learn how to coexist with it.
I embraced this concept. And wish to God someone - anyone - could have companioned me when I was a child.
It was emphasized to us in class that the approach to counseling grief is not a one size fits all scenario. Basically a minimum of four factors impact the grief process:
I embraced this concept. And wish to God someone - anyone - could have companioned me when I was a child.
It was emphasized to us in class that the approach to counseling grief is not a one size fits all scenario. Basically a minimum of four factors impact the grief process:
- The age of the person experiencing the loss;
- The age of the person who has died;
- The relationship between the deceased and the person experiencing the loss; and
- The nature of the death, specifically sudden or long illness.
So regarding #1, a six year old is going to experience - is going to process - a death differently than say a teen. Whereas, a first grader may not even comprehend the permanence of death, a teen understands the finality, understands that their life is forever changed.
In my own experience, and I honestly cannot say that I remember my father's death, I am told that when my mother finally got around to sitting me down and putting into words that my father was dead, that he was in heaven just like her father, my immediate question was 'can I get another one?' A response such as this demonstrates that I was old enough to sense that my life was changed. That I was now 'different' and my immediate reaction was I wanted to 'get another one' to reset my life to that norm.
Insofar as factor #2, the untimely death of a parent is going to be inherently more profound than say the death of an aged grandparent. While the death of a grandparent is nonetheless sad and mournful, there is relative comfort in the fact that the death came after the person lived their full life. The untimely death of a parent warrants sadness in a life unrealized; in the robbing of futures - both the deceased and the child(ren) of - and of the change in the survivors' lifestyle.
Factor #3, I believe, is the most profound of the four determining factors: the relationship between the deceased and the mourner.
For me, it wasn't only that I lost my father. I lost any potential relationship/involvement with him. Sadly, my father was not around much when he was alive. He wasn't a very reliable person; not a very responsible parent. Because of his ill health and his alcoholism, he rarely held onto a job for long. My mother, in a time when mothers really did not work outside the home, was the sole breadwinner in our family. My father was pretty footloose and fancy free. If he felt like hitting the road and traveling from DC to Alabama to visit his family, he just up and did so. No thought as to how it impacted my mother...or me.
I really don't remember my father. I'm not sure if this was because I was so young when he died or the unfortunate fact that he really didn't parent me. I don't ever remember sitting on his lap. Or having fun with him. Or him hugging or kissing me. I don't remember him playing with me. There are only four instances that I remember about my father: 1) that I, as a little girl, was amazed that I could push his grown up self down onto the bed. This, of course, was owing to the fact that he was totally plowed. I do recall that I thought it great fun; 2) that I hated him rubbing his stubbly face against my soft little cheek; 3) I recall the time that I sat between he and my mother on our couch and he was telling me that he was going to punch my mother and give her a black eye. I was horrified. He was messing around with me; my mother was neither amused nor scared and I remember her sitting there and assuring me that he 'was just kidding'. And, finally, I remember him threatening to beat me with his belt if I didn't eat my dinner. My parents had real eating problems with me. For whatever reason, I just didn't want to eat. I remember my doctor prescribed a big bottle of red tonic for me because I didn't eat enough. I remember this particular evening in our apartment where my mother and father were long done and I was just sitting there, slouched down, my little face staring into my plate. I just couldn't eat it. I remember my father putting his folded up belt on the table, as an incentive, I guess, to goad me into eating. Well I didn't get beat but I really don't remember chowing down either. My mother must have rescued me.
But I don't remember anything about being his child; about being or feeling loved. And this pretty much destroys me.
But I don't remember anything about being his child; about being or feeling loved. And this pretty much destroys me.
We learned in our class that not all survivors have 'good' memories nor healthy relationships prior to the death. So we need to be mindful of how we refer to the deceased. My moderator related to our group how she once slipped and referred to the deceased of one child as 'your loved one'. She said this child very pointedly told her that his last remembrance of his father was him picking him up by his ears and throwing him against a wall. And that he did not regard his dead father as his loved one.
Factor #4...the nature of the death. This is a tough one. Is there a better death? A long illness where at least you know it's coming and perhaps have time to prepare, to say your goodbyes. Or sudden where one day you have life as you always have known it and then the next...well, you get the picture.
Christmas Day 1964 my life slammed into a brick wall. Full force. My own personal big bang. My life, my path immediately reset, course changed.
My father was dead. Killed in a head on car wreck in which he was driving on the wrong side of the road. He and the occupants of the other vehicle - all killed. I don't remember specifics. Just an overwhelming feeling that came that day and basically has never left me. The feeling of being alone. Abandoned. Adrift. Insecure. Sad. Different.
In my class we learned of the importance of talking to the child, of involving the child, in encouraging the child to talk and ask questions about the loss. Really?? I was basically in a vacuum with my father's death. Essentially I lost my mother that day too. I don't think Mom has ever been socially at ease. I mean her entire life she has not been friendly, never comfortable with social interaction. She has always considered herself 'shy'. Now that I'm an adult I recognize a lot of her personality traits could be characterized as borderline agoraphobic. In her entire life she has never cultivated nor enjoyed the company of friends. She has one friend from high school with whom she talks on the phone about once a month but she basically has lived her life in isolation. And she never has liked anything that would possibly call attention to her. Unfortunately, life with my father apparently was frequently played out very publicly. And the scenario that Christmas day just about did her in...
To say my mother was bereft is an understatement. She was the walking wounded. Life after my father's death was stressful. Sad. I remember needing my mother but trying my best not to bother her. On weekends she slept SO long into the day. Her hugs were so vacant, so wooden and they have remained such. And she smelled. I really hate to write this but she smelled like bed. I now recognize that as her probably being very depressed.
I learned very early on that I was not to talk about my father. Don't ask questions. Don't bring him up. It will upset Mommy. So I didn't. For years.
The shitstorm my father left in his wake was daunting. Decades later I have pieced together details. Because of his numerous drunk driving busts, my father had lost his driver's license and therefore had been dropped off the car insurance held by my mother. So when he died, the insurance company PAID NOTHING. Which meant my mother was sued by Ford Motor Company for the money she owed on the brand new Falcon that my father had totaled. And she was sued by the family that was killed in the other vehicle.
How she managed to keep her sanity during those horrible, immediate months that dragged into years is beyond me. But she carried on. She had my grandmother to lean on. And her sister, my Aunt Catherine. Now my mother and her sister were textbook sibling rivalry. But still and all, Catherine and my grandmother kept my mother from total despair. We all were sleepwalking through life those days. My mother never missed a day of work, came through the lawsuits without losing our little house and carried on. Barely. We all kept the cone of silence regarding my father. Through the years, comments crept out from my mother about my dad...negative comments. Bad things about how irresponsible he was; how he would pawn her possessions for money to drink and how she and my grandmother would go around town to buy back her own stuff. Or about how he gave one of my dolls to one of his drinking buddies' daughter. Or how he just wouldn't behave in general.
So I have a feeling that this is not the recollecting that my instructors had in mind...
Besides drinking, smoking was another of my father's vices. Smoking in his fragile health (he had had tuberculosis) was just insane. A couple of months ago my now 84 year old mother and I were having a very benign conversation about cigarettes. We both agree on cigs - they're gross and nasty. And highly addictive.
'Yes, your father and his damn cigarettes' she said.
Me - 'Hmm??' How's that?
'Your father and his damn cigarettes' she went on.
'He would probably still be alive if it weren't for those damn cigarettes'
Huh? Come again? I pressed her for clarification.
'That night after we went to bed. Your father went out to try and find cigarettes because he was out. He left me a note.'
I felt as though someone had thrown ice cold water in my face. Shock. I looked at her incredulously.
'I thought he went out to a bar on Christmas Eve and that he was drunk...'
And my mother did something she had NEVER done before...she defended my father.
'He wasn't drunk! The fog was thick that night. He couldn't see the road...
I went on to explain that it was my understanding that the accident was because of drunk driving, his drunk driving.
'I never said he was drunk!'
I sat in silence for a moment. She was correct. Thinking back, I had never, ever heard those words from her...that he was drunk that night. Honestly, I had never heard any specifics about that night from her. No talking about it. Just bury it...with him. I just assumed because of his history and the scenario that he had gone out on a tear. And because that every rare word out of her mouth about my father for the past decades had been ones of frustration and negativity. For nearly fifty years I had carried the guilt and shame of my father. My father who willfully drove drunk on Christmas Eve and wiped out my family and another person's family.
With her words, those feelings of guilt and shame fell away. The heavy burden that my little six year old shoulders had been saddled with so long ago - GONE.
It was truly like being born again.
The first thing I did when I got home? I told my children. I could see my 19 year old son's relief that his grandfather's legacy was altered. That is was all just a tragic accident...just a tragic accident.
Over the phone, my daughter was skeptical.
'Do you think Grandma's going a little looney tunes? Do you think she's rewriting history a bit?'
I honestly did think that. Maybe she was rewriting our history to make it more palatable in her mind. So I set out to do a little research on my own.
I subscribed to a newspaper archive website and found an article from our local paper on several fatal wrecks on that Christmas Day in 1964, my father's being one of them.
'[name], apparently unable to see because of heavy fog, was driving south in the southbound lane...'
Unbelievable! So then, not to leave it even at that, I contacted my father's younger brother in Alabama and asked him. I was told yes, the state trooper had told the family that alcohol was NOT a factor.
Can you even imagine?? Communication is crucial no matter how painful. Though DECADES late, I am so thankful to FINALLY have clarity and some sort of closure to all my questions left unanswered for so long.
And now I can go about living the rest of my life with my head held a little higher...
Factor #4...the nature of the death. This is a tough one. Is there a better death? A long illness where at least you know it's coming and perhaps have time to prepare, to say your goodbyes. Or sudden where one day you have life as you always have known it and then the next...well, you get the picture.
Christmas Day 1964 my life slammed into a brick wall. Full force. My own personal big bang. My life, my path immediately reset, course changed.
My father was dead. Killed in a head on car wreck in which he was driving on the wrong side of the road. He and the occupants of the other vehicle - all killed. I don't remember specifics. Just an overwhelming feeling that came that day and basically has never left me. The feeling of being alone. Abandoned. Adrift. Insecure. Sad. Different.
In my class we learned of the importance of talking to the child, of involving the child, in encouraging the child to talk and ask questions about the loss. Really?? I was basically in a vacuum with my father's death. Essentially I lost my mother that day too. I don't think Mom has ever been socially at ease. I mean her entire life she has not been friendly, never comfortable with social interaction. She has always considered herself 'shy'. Now that I'm an adult I recognize a lot of her personality traits could be characterized as borderline agoraphobic. In her entire life she has never cultivated nor enjoyed the company of friends. She has one friend from high school with whom she talks on the phone about once a month but she basically has lived her life in isolation. And she never has liked anything that would possibly call attention to her. Unfortunately, life with my father apparently was frequently played out very publicly. And the scenario that Christmas day just about did her in...
To say my mother was bereft is an understatement. She was the walking wounded. Life after my father's death was stressful. Sad. I remember needing my mother but trying my best not to bother her. On weekends she slept SO long into the day. Her hugs were so vacant, so wooden and they have remained such. And she smelled. I really hate to write this but she smelled like bed. I now recognize that as her probably being very depressed.
I learned very early on that I was not to talk about my father. Don't ask questions. Don't bring him up. It will upset Mommy. So I didn't. For years.
The shitstorm my father left in his wake was daunting. Decades later I have pieced together details. Because of his numerous drunk driving busts, my father had lost his driver's license and therefore had been dropped off the car insurance held by my mother. So when he died, the insurance company PAID NOTHING. Which meant my mother was sued by Ford Motor Company for the money she owed on the brand new Falcon that my father had totaled. And she was sued by the family that was killed in the other vehicle.
How she managed to keep her sanity during those horrible, immediate months that dragged into years is beyond me. But she carried on. She had my grandmother to lean on. And her sister, my Aunt Catherine. Now my mother and her sister were textbook sibling rivalry. But still and all, Catherine and my grandmother kept my mother from total despair. We all were sleepwalking through life those days. My mother never missed a day of work, came through the lawsuits without losing our little house and carried on. Barely. We all kept the cone of silence regarding my father. Through the years, comments crept out from my mother about my dad...negative comments. Bad things about how irresponsible he was; how he would pawn her possessions for money to drink and how she and my grandmother would go around town to buy back her own stuff. Or about how he gave one of my dolls to one of his drinking buddies' daughter. Or how he just wouldn't behave in general.
So I have a feeling that this is not the recollecting that my instructors had in mind...
'Yes, your father and his damn cigarettes' she said.
Me - 'Hmm??' How's that?
'Your father and his damn cigarettes' she went on.
'He would probably still be alive if it weren't for those damn cigarettes'
Huh? Come again? I pressed her for clarification.
'That night after we went to bed. Your father went out to try and find cigarettes because he was out. He left me a note.'
I felt as though someone had thrown ice cold water in my face. Shock. I looked at her incredulously.
'I thought he went out to a bar on Christmas Eve and that he was drunk...'
And my mother did something she had NEVER done before...she defended my father.
'He wasn't drunk! The fog was thick that night. He couldn't see the road...
I went on to explain that it was my understanding that the accident was because of drunk driving, his drunk driving.
'I never said he was drunk!'
I sat in silence for a moment. She was correct. Thinking back, I had never, ever heard those words from her...that he was drunk that night. Honestly, I had never heard any specifics about that night from her. No talking about it. Just bury it...with him. I just assumed because of his history and the scenario that he had gone out on a tear. And because that every rare word out of her mouth about my father for the past decades had been ones of frustration and negativity. For nearly fifty years I had carried the guilt and shame of my father. My father who willfully drove drunk on Christmas Eve and wiped out my family and another person's family.
With her words, those feelings of guilt and shame fell away. The heavy burden that my little six year old shoulders had been saddled with so long ago - GONE.
It was truly like being born again.
The first thing I did when I got home? I told my children. I could see my 19 year old son's relief that his grandfather's legacy was altered. That is was all just a tragic accident...just a tragic accident.
Over the phone, my daughter was skeptical.
'Do you think Grandma's going a little looney tunes? Do you think she's rewriting history a bit?'
I honestly did think that. Maybe she was rewriting our history to make it more palatable in her mind. So I set out to do a little research on my own.
I subscribed to a newspaper archive website and found an article from our local paper on several fatal wrecks on that Christmas Day in 1964, my father's being one of them.
'[name], apparently unable to see because of heavy fog, was driving south in the southbound lane...'
Unbelievable! So then, not to leave it even at that, I contacted my father's younger brother in Alabama and asked him. I was told yes, the state trooper had told the family that alcohol was NOT a factor.
Can you even imagine?? Communication is crucial no matter how painful. Though DECADES late, I am so thankful to FINALLY have clarity and some sort of closure to all my questions left unanswered for so long.
And now I can go about living the rest of my life with my head held a little higher...
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