You would think by now, in my 55 years of life, that I would have found some peace in the fact that I will ALWAYS be the outsider. I was born never quite fitting in. I do remember at a very young age, my grandmother (Baba) lived wtih us and she truly was the only security I ever felt as a child. Unfortunately she died when I was only 4 years old. I remember hiding in her bed with her when my mother would come looking for me - usually over something stupid like playing with the knobs on the stereo. We'd giggle and she'd defend me and I felt safe there. The rest of the house didn't feel near as safe. I didn't know the details, but I did know that my mom and dad were not getting along. They were both alcoholics and not very nice ones at that. I spent a lot of time hiding behind Baba until the day she died. A year after my Baba died, my dad decided to leave and filed for a divorce. My mother was caught off guard. She always attributed his moodiness to his stint in the war and figured he'd get better. His idea of getting better was finding somenone else - someone close to the family.
For about a year before he left, my mom and dad used to be in a bowling league with Jim and Jane at Sims Bowl in Des Plaines. They'd laugh, drink, have fun, do all the things parents did back in those days. My mom and dad had my older brother, Dick, me and my younger brother, Kent. Jim and Jane had the twins - Jim and John - who were 2 years older than I. We would see them once in a while but most times it was just the three of us at home, sometimes with a sitter, sometimes not. Dick was a teen so he was old enough to watch Kent and I. Somewhere during that year, Jane caught my dad's eye and well, the rest is history. She became pregnant before the divorce was final and my mom was gonna make sure the divorce wasn't final in time. It was a rough period. Divorce or not, Janie came along. A big bubbly smile attached to chubby cheeks and the most gorgeous dark hair. I liked her. I was excited to be getting a sister (especially being the middle child between two boys) even if she wasn't going to be living in the same house. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out like I planned. I was allowed to look at her but could not touch her or get near her. They were afraid I'd hurt her - even came out and said it - which hurt me terribly. I was not a "hurt people" child. I had nothing to do with the messy divorce, I was just a child. So I had to obey and just make up dreams of the times I wished I could have spent with her.
At home, things weren't much better. I was treated like an outsider because I still loved my dad. I didn't understand the hardships it put on my mother - despite Dick's best attempts to advise me on them. I just knew I felt like I felt. I was his princess - just not in the same castle. At first I was still treated as such when we would go for visits but it didn't take long for Janie to usurp that role and become the apple in my dad's eyes. I felt like I was torn between two worlds and not quite fitting into either. Then came school. Being a child of divorced parents carried wtih it quite the stigma back in those days. Parents would hustle their children away from you if you were caught talking to their cherubs, like something was going to jump off of you and contaminate their families. Mother/Daughter days and Father/Daughter days were not to be attended by those of us with separated parents. Mom was too busy working and Dad was, well, Dad. Parent/Teacher Conferences became another battle ground. A half-hearted B in the class would start world war three with the blame going from one parent to another when the truth was, I didn't care. School didn't mean much to me because my focus was on trying to creat a feeling of security in a hostile environment. School was for those with parents at home who would help with homework and not be drinking themselves into oblivion and leaving you to find something to eat on your own. To this day I will not have a pot pie. Nope, not me. Too many bad memories.
I'm a competetive person, always have been. I felt that by doing the absolute best that I could at whatever I was attempting, that I would ensure that I wouldn't be picked last for any team line-ups. For the most part it worked, although I did have my days of being picked dead last and all the pain and hurt that goes with that. I was teased a lot by the neighborhood kids. I never was invited to their play dates and spent many an afternoon gazing at them having a good time over the fence that was built around my yard, all the while buidling a fence of my own around my heart. I had my Barbies and I'd get lost in my own little world under the tree in the front, hoping and praying that someday I'd have someone to play dolls with. Occassionally my younger brother would grab a Ken doll and join in. It would make me smile but was never the same.
I couldn't sing and I couldn't dance but somehow I fell in with the Drama crowd in high school. I could swing a mean make-up brush and once in a while was allowed to be on stage. I loved these people and all their quirkiness. Then on the other hand, I was very involved with the youth programs at a church in town and had some friends there. They were always gracious and let me tag along. It was awkward as we got older and they were pairing up and I was the odd one out. I didn't go to any of my proms - I was never asked. So I'd sit home with my mom pasting S&H green stamps into books and trying not to cry. It was hard. On my sixteenth birthday my mom was in the hospital and had asked a lady from church if she would get a cake for me. We had youth night that night and bless Mary Lou's heart, she had the most beautiful 16th birthday cake I had ever seen there for me to share with all the rest of the youth. For the first time since my grandmother had died, I felt special... that is until some of the other parents started complaining that I was getting preferential treatment and that if they were going to have a cake for me, then they should for everyone else. After that, the fun was gone, the smile turned to tears and I hid in the bathroom. Mary Lou "handled" the other parents - no doubt about that - but I felt bad that she had to. Like I had done something wrong. I hadn't. I was just trying to be a kid who wanted to feel special on their birthday and fit in - and for a few moments, thanks to Mary Lou, I did.
Once I started working, because of my attention to detail and my work ethics, I was quickly promoted to management positions and y'all know how well that can work out. I had a few close friends during high school but always felt like I was held at arms length. After my mom died, I truly had nobody to talk to. I never had anyone that I could sit down and hash things out with or get direction or mentoring or advice or anything. The day I graduated from high school, I was an island onto myself. My friends were looking forward to their proms and fun times and I was looking to court dates and probates and estate settlements. My own "family" was treating me like an enemy. Somehow all the anger and frustrations they had felt against each other for all those years got transferred on to me. Somewhere along the line, they forgot that I had been the child in all this - not an adult - and yet they were looking to me for answers I couldn't give. It hurt. I was seventeen and all on my own. Totally. My mom had taught be basics like laundry, some cooking, but I certainly knew nothing about handling money or budgeting or anything like that. I didn't know about college grants and financial aid because I was too busy being a caregiver to my mom to "worry" about the normal high school things and where to go from there. I still believed in the Knight in shining armor swooping in to save the day.
After more devastating events in my life during those times, I holed up alone in my apartment. I'd go to work and then come home and read. In books I could escape and be anyone I wanted to be. I tried the nightlife but having come from an alcoholic background, it just wasn't my thing. I became known as the "7-up and cherry juice" drinker. I always figured someone had to be responsible enough to drive home. Always me - the responsible one. Truly because I didn't know how to NOT be responsible. At work it was always hard to get close to co-workers because of the positions I held. Funny that I ended up marrying one of my bosses. Talk about ironic. While my inlaws were great about accepting me into the family, I never felt like I quite fit. Some of Oliver's siblings would tease that I was just a passing distraction for him, etc. When chips were down, I was always reminded that I was an inlaw and not family. It stung - still does, but doesn't happen near as much - mostly because we're out of touch since his mom and dad died.
Moving around in company transfers hasn't helped much either. Seems like as soon as we were settling in, a transfer would come along and we'd be heading to a different area of the country. I do have friends all across these great United States over the span of decades, but not that few close ones that I can be "me" with. I did have one in the last place we lived - but she died. Makes it kind of hard to have those one on one talks into the night. I can still hold up my end but it's not the same without the feedback. It's been a long time since I have been able to sit and cry and talk and laugh in the same sentence - sometimes without a word having had been said. Girls understand this - guys just roll their eyes.
I thought I had found a real home with real friends when we moved down here to Tennessee. For the first 6 months I was welcomed and included and felt like this was IT. Then Oliver lost his job and things changed. I was no longer invited out to go shopping or for lunch or to even help out at the church. My health started to take a turn for the worse about the same time. I guess it is embarassing to be around someone who has to wear tubing in their nose to help them breathe. I can understand that but it still doesn't stop the sting of being left out. At first everyone would keep in touch on facebook and make me feel like they cared but even that has dwindled off. Now the posts I get are from new friends with Pulmonary Fibrosis or old friends from back in the day that I've hooked up wtih again. Family occassionally will pipe in but those times are rare. And I have to say - it hurts. Abandonment and rejection are the two biggest issues I've had to face in my life... the issues that just won't go away. They are probably unimportant to the majority of people in this world. People who have families and security and are surrounded by love. And yet here I am at 55 with the same insecurities and hurts and no closer now to remedy them than I was at 5 or 15 or 40.
Tomorrow I'll be ok. I'll pick myself up, dust myself off, smile and move on. It's what I've always done. It's hard to fight the urge to put the walls back up and retreat into my own little world where I can't feel and therefore can't get hurt. Very hard. But I won't. It's hard not to become angry and bitter and lash out. But I won't. I cry out of hurt and frustration but then I brush the tears away and move on. It's in my genes - the way I'm wired. And it makes me far more aware when I see the hurt in others. I cannot change the world, but I can make a change in someone's life by accepting them and listening to them and holding their hand. I never was one of the pretty ones, or the popular ones, or the leadership ones, I was me. I still am me. And it's taken a lifetime to see that I'm the me I'm meant to be - God has worked it out that way. He's been with me every step. He sees the tears, he hears the cries of my heart, He knows and He'll be sure to put people in my path where He can use what I've been through to touch.
So while I may not like the hurt as it's happening, face it, most times I hate it, I will survive through it and I will come out stronger ready to do the work God has set aside for me to do. I realize that once more I am in a place I don't belong. I tried to fit in - even tried to learn the language and love the food - but it's not me and the me I am is not what they are looking for. So we're figuring that God is getting ready to move us on. Not sure where or how - we're in a hell of a pickle financially, but He has that all worked out too. It'll be hard to leave because I had so many hopes and dreams for this place and I will cry a sea of tears I'm sure, but I will move forward - always looking for that place where I will finally belong and have some peace. The sicker I get, the more I realize that it may not be on this side of glory, but the hope is still there that I will find it. That the day will come when I will be able to say - Today, life doesn't hurt. What an awesome day that will be - for me.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Father's Day
Wow, Sunday is Father's Day. I've been reading post after post of the wonderful fathers my friends have. I've wept when I've read the heartfelt tributes to those fathers who have passed on and are so dearly missed by their families. I've read some incredibly touching stories and I've felt the love expressed between little kids, adult children and their fathers - the way it all should be.
Then I think of mine and somehow, despite my best attempts, I cannot come up with any warm and fuzzy feelings. I have had two dads in my life - my biological dad, Richard and my step-dad, Robert. I'll start with Robert because his time in my life was short lived. He blew into it in January of 1967 when I was only 10 years old. By February, he and my mother were married. By that time I had been without a father for over 5 years. At first it was fun having a dad around the house. I had always wanted a normal "family" and this was my new chance at just that. The week after they were married, my older brother, Dick, left for the Army. I had the distinct impression that the two of them didn't get along too well, but nothing was ever really said. Robert was a lazy man. He couldn't hold a job and he would do nothing around the house, except act as a drill sergeant to make my younger brother, Ken, and I clean up the house, including washing the floors with toothbrushes. He ruled the roost with an iron fist, mostly because he was the one there - mom was too busy working to try and make ends meet.
He didn't like having children in the house without his name, so it was decided that he would adopt us (at my mother's expense, of course). Since my biological father had not paid child support in years, it was an easy negotiation. The back child support payments would be waived if he'd sign the dotted line. For him it was an easy trade off and a month later, Ken and I went back to school with a different last name. It took some adjustment but for the most part, our friends were cool with it. Once we became "his" in name, he became a slave master and treated us awful. He'd send us to bed at 5 pm so that he could watch tv and drink scotch and water. We couldn't watch tv, read or do anything. Ken and I both had transistor radios that we'd gotten from our aunt and uncle the year before. We found that we could hide them under our pillows and listen to the Cubs games and not get caught. For the most part, we had a media blackout for a few years. It's funny now when people will post something from that 1967 to 1971 period and I honestly have no idea what they are talking about. We had no contact with any media outside those Cubs games and a few radio talk shows. And we had no contact with people. We were not allowed to go to friend's homes and they were not allowed to come over. We were isolated.
By January of 1971, my mother had finally had enough of him just freeloading off of her. She was working her tail off and he wouldn't even go look for a job. He had one when they first got married but quit it 2 days after the honeymoon. Apparently one day while we were in school, they got into quite a tiff on the phone when my mom called home at lunchtime and woke him up. He hadn't even gotten up to get us off to school - Ken and I managed on our own and walked. When I got home from school, she called and asked if he was home. I checked all the rooms and saw no signs of him. She asked if his clothes were in the closet - they were. She said ok and that she'd be home soon. We'd had a significant amount of snow that week and it was quite built up on the driveway. It was too heavy for me to handle and my mom had wanted Robert to do it - um yeah, that went over well. Needless to say it wasn't done. There were ruts in the snow from the street to the garage and from the garage to the street. Both cars were similar in size, so the difference in tracks was negligible. You really couldn't tell who came and went and when. Just before mom was due to come home, Ken went out to open the garage door so mom could pull in. Next thing I know, he was running back towards the house and fell twice in the snow. Silly boy. As he came flying in, he brushed right past me and went to his room. That was odd behavior even for a little brother. I looked out the window again to see my mom running towards the house herself. Now both times, I had seen Robert's car in the garage and just figured he'd gotten home from whatever bar he had been gracing that day. All the scotch bottles in the house were empty - including the special stash ones. I had checked those earlier - after my mom's call.
My mom brushed past me and went directly to the phone and dialed the police. This was before 911 and in those days, the police were our friends and neighbors. It didn't take long for them to get there and pronounce Robert dead by his own hands - carbon monoxide poisoning. He had started the car and sat in the closed garage with the car windows open. He had enough scotch in him to pass out and not know what happened. There was an inquest but that was the final ruling as well. He had committed suicide, knowing that the odds were one of the children - myself or my brother - would find him. He left a note for my mom and truth be told, I never knew what all it said. It was a shocking time. It wasn't our first brush with death - we'd had grandparents die and close family friends, but this was the first time suicide had crossed our paths. We spent a long time feeling guilty and thinkng we should have done something. I wasn't really sad he was gone. I had come to really dislike him immensely over the years he was in our lives. I did feel bad that he was tortured enough in his own mind to believe that suicide was the answer, but even at the young age of 14, I knew his demons were far deeper than any of us knew. We were not the cause, but that still didn't make sleeping at night any easier.
Now let's talk about dear old dad. He left my mother, older brother, Dick, myself and younger brother, Ken, when I was 5 years old. He had fallen for a lady across town who owned a house where he had done work putting in her driveway. He was a hard worker, I will give him that. He owned and operated a very successful (for Des Plaines standards) Blacktop and Paving Company - Buchanan Blacktop and Paving. I remember the younger years when he would let me crawl up on his lap and help "drive" one of the dump trucks or a tractor or a steam roller. I felt like the Queen of the world. I remember playing hide and seek and hiding in the big tire wells or behind the mud flaps. We had fun. Then one day the fun just stopped. I was sitting on my usual perch - the milkbox on the front porch - waiting for my dad to come home so that I could take up my place as princess, but he didn't come home. This went on for days until it got dark out and finally my mother or Dick would tell me it was bedtime. Occasionally I would come in for dinner but most days I waited for my dad - I'd eat with the king. Finally one day I was sitting there and I could hear my mom crying on the phone. I guess she was telling my dad that I had been sitting there waiting for him. Dick came out of the house and proceeded to yell at me for making mom cry. I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't know he had "left" - I just thought he was working hard. I knew nobody who had divorced parents - not in Des Plaines in 1961.
It was a long time before I saw his face again. By then the divorce was final. As a matter of fact, I was in the hospital having my tonsils out and I was 6. I remember being upset because I was missing my first grade field trip to Hawthorn Melody Farms. I was really bummed. My mom was there trying to ease the pain from the surgery and ease the pain of missing the trip when in walked my dad with a brand new bike. It was a Schwinn with little streamers coming out of the handle bars. I was ecstatic... my mom, not so much. Next thing I knew they were out in the hall talking - loudly - and after only a few moments of being excited about a brand new bike, I was back to having to make do with the green hand me down from my older brother. My dad had not paid any child support and my mother told him to take it back and give her the money so that she could actually feed us.
As I look back at the times we did get to spend with him, it wasn't really because he wanted the time with Ken and I (Dick refused to go and since he was a teen, he could do that), but it was because he wanted to hurt my mom. He'd come and take us on holidays, leaving her many times alone because Dick had to work to help with expenses. He always took us for Mother's Day and Father's Day. Christmas Day - his house. Thanksgiving - it depended. Easter - his house. It was easy to go there... there were built in playmates. We had two step brothers - Jim and John (the twins) who were two years older than I and then along came Janie - the new princess in my dad's story. At first I was thrilled - I had always wanted a sister. I loved my brothers but they didn't like painting nails and playing with Barbies. I liked the Tonka trucks alright but I wanted a companion who would play dress up with me and talk about boys with me. The excitement didn't last. My dad and his wife, Jane, wouldn't let me play with Janie. If I tried to sneak in some time, I was met with a slap to the back of the head (much like Gibbs does to DiNozzo on NCIS). I could play with the boys though. Problem with that was they were hellions on wheels. If there was any kind of trouble they could get into within a three mile radius, they'd find it. My mother had taught me better and my conscience was not one to live with if I'd have gone along. So most times I just sat and spent the holidays reading and trying to stay out of everyone's way until it was time to go home. Many times we were due home at 6 and it would be 10 pm before my dad decided to roll into our driveway with us.
Once he even tried to run my mother down with his truck. He had me on his lap "letting me" drive when he saw her at the mailbox. Instead of slowing down, he hit the gas and aimed right towards her. I tried to turn the wheel, thinking I had lost control of it, but he overpowered me. My mom threw herself into the ditch and the truck barreled over her. She was shaken up but not seriously injured. Needless to say, I didn't go on anymore trips with my dad for quite awhile. In hindsight, through the eyes of an adult, I can see how he just used Ken and I as pawns in his game against my mother and how mean he truly was. They had a bitter divorce. As a child you like to think that they still love you but that isn't always the case. For years I put my dad on a pedestal - especially when Robert came into the picture. "MY DAD" wouldn't do this and "MY DAD" wouldn't do that - you know the scenarios. I honestly don't know of one time after I was five that I felt secure and loved by my father. My mother did the best that she could and she and I were very close. There is just something about a father's love that a little girl needs. My brothers didn't seem to care one way or another. It's like there was some kind of genetic coding that had been passed down to them not to care. Family never meant anything to them - still doesn't for all I know.
When Robert committed suicide, my biological father, Richard, decided it would be "fun" to come to the wake and funeral and rile things up. He would sit there and introduce himself to the people who were coming to pay respects to us for the death of my "legal" father (Robert had adopted us and Richard had signed us away). I spent most of those days trying to explain to people our family dynamics instead of being able to mourn the death. I was 14, scared, insecure, trying to be strong for my mom, trying to keep Dick from choking Richard (he'd come home on leave from the Army), and trying to be the big sis to Ken. It was stressful and here was my real father trying to just add to the stress under the auspices of having some fun. Yeah, funny guy. But still for some reason I thought it was "JUST" against my mother - didn't really realize that he was alienating me as well.
It wasn't until my mom started getting real sick that I sought him out. I don't know what I was thinking but I thought that maybe he'd have some ideas of what I could do to get some help. His wife was in nursing school part time and he was gainfully employed as a mechanic. After school one day, I took the bus into town instead of the bus that went to our neighborhood. I went into the dealership where he worked. I inquired about my dad and when he came out - he denied knowing me. He stood there looking straight into my face, saying he'd never seen me before and I must have been a nut case. Oh I was a nut case alright - for ever believing that he cared. I turned and left in a ball of tears and walked the 10 miles or so home. By the time I got home, mom was sitting on the couch crying - one because she knew I'd be hurting and two because she was so angry at the bastard. In all the years up until then, she never bad-mouthed him. She always played up his good points and never the negative. She felt bad that I had to learn the hard way. Anyway it turns out he had called her and yelled at her for me embarassing him at work. We were in his past and he didn't want anything to do with that. So that's how we left it. In January of 1974, my graduation day, my mother, my best friend, my only parent, passed away. I was 17 years old and had spent the last 2-3 years caring for her every medical, emotional, spiritual, financial and physical need. Somewhere in those years our roles had changed. I became the adult and she becamse the needy child. She died on the couch in our living room as I was at graduation practice. I called the fire department and they sent and ambulance to transport her to the hospital morgue. I had to follow to fill out some paperwork. After I came home from the hospital, I called the phone company and asked them to call my dad and have him call me - it was an emergency. He had an unlisted number and I had no other way to get a hold of him. They did just that and shortly later the phone rang. I told him that she had died and he immediately proceeded to yell at me on the phone for bothering him yet again. By now I was 17 and had built up quite the teenage backbone and mouth to go with it. I firmly told him that "you were married to her for 18 years, she had three of your children, I felt it was the right thing to let you know - I didn't think you wanted to read about it in the Chicago Tribune" and I hung up on him.
I had a graduation to get to and had to drop Ken off at a good friend's house so that I could go. There was nothing more to do that night anyway. After coming home from graduation and getting Ken settled down enough to fall asleep in the chair with me, the phone rang. It was our dad. He wanted to talk to Ken and proceeded to say God knows what... all I know is that it took me another 2 hours to calm Ken down again. Finally at 4 am I was able to sleep for 2 hours. By 7 am I was back at the school I had just graduated from and in a counselor's office asking for help. I had to drive Ken there anyway for school - there was nothing for us to do at home - and I didn't know where to turn. My mother had wanted to be cremated, etc. and we had discussed what she wanted at length. My dad, in his phone call the night before, had said HE wanted to bury her on a hill, under a tree, etc. etc. etc. I didn't know what legal rights I had and wanted to find out before meeting with the funeral director at 10 am.
My counselor knew a lawyer in town and called him. He came right over to the school and accompanied me to the funeral home. My dad, his wife, Jane, along with my aunt and uncle, were all there when I came walking in with a lawyer. They didn't expect that. For once not one of them said a word. They let me do all the planning that I had been so well rehearsed in by my mother. They never even stood by my side as I went to pick out a casket. They left me to do it all alone - which was hard but better than fighting. Afterwards we all went to lunch and he tried to be nice. He invited Ken and I to come stay at his house out on the lake. I welcomed the chance to get away from the phone calls and quite frankly from my hysterical aunt. I loved her, but she was a handful. So the next day we moved out by him. It was awkward but it seemed like we were falling into a routine. I had just gotten a promotion at work so I was working long, crazy hours. After a week or so of being out there, Jane decided she could get back at my mom by causing trouble with her kids. I would call her and say not to hold dinner because I had to work late and she would tell my dad I never called and would hold dinner until it was cold for everyone. Then I'd come in and get reamed. If I tried to defend myself, well then I was calling his wife a liar. It was a no-win situation. Finally on Easter Sunday, just a few weeks after turning 18 and two months of being there, my dad kicked me out because I looked and acted like my mom and it bothered his wife. Fine. I packed the clothes I had there in my car and was getting ready to leave when one of my step brothers, John, came home. He had seen what was going on and he proceeded to put my dad in his place. He even yelled at him for charging his own daughter dealer rates to do a tune-up on my car in his driveway. Needless to say, John was packing his car right behind me. We met at a restaurant down the street to decide what to do. I had the keys to the old house in Des Plaines that I had grown up in, so we went there.
I trusted John and quite frankly he was the only person in my life that seemed to be acting like an adult. He was great - at first. After awhile, we decided we just couldn't stay in that house. Too many ghosts for me. My mother had just died in that house, my step father had committed suicide in the garage and my grandmother had died in my bedroom just a few years before. So we moved into an apartment up closer to where John worked. We settled in nicely and I signed up for classes at the local college and was going to make something of my life. I worked all day and attended classes a couple nights a week. Then the phone calls started. My dad would get drunk and call to start in on me. He'd call me a whore and said I should put a red light out my door, etc. etc. etc. He was downright mean. One time he irritated me so much that I actually pulled the panel phone out of the wall, kicked the bathroom door so hard the hinges broke and it ended up in the bathtub and stormed out of the house. My friday night pizza friends went looking for me, but I had climbed a tree, too scared to drive because I had never been so angry. At that time, I had only been on one date in my life and was still a virgin - which was my plan until I was married.
I had been around alcoholics all my life. My mom was one, my older brother was one, my stepdad was one, my aunt and uncle were and obviously my father. It wasn't anything new but this was the first time I had been the object of such drunken meaness and anger. It wasn't long before John started drinking too and turned into a carbon copy of my dad. He was mean and beligerant and scared me to death. I did all I could do to avoid him when he was drinking but it was hard when you share an apartment - in a town where I had few friends. One night we had been at a party at a friend's house in town and I had left early when the party was getting out of hand. I was not a drinker - didn't want any part of it - so I walked the few blocks home. I was sound asleep when I was awakened by John on top of me tearing at my nightclothes. When I protested and tried to stop him, he pulled a pair of scissors and held them at my throat. I'm sure I don't need to go into the details of what happened next. After he passed out, I dressed and left. He had hidden my car keys so I had to leave on foot. I started to go back to the house where the party had been but it was dark and everybody was gone. I knew of another, older couple, that lived across town so I figured I'd head towards there. Every time I saw headlights coming up behind me, I'd duck behind a house or into some bushes so as not to be seen. I was scared, I was hurt, I was bleeding, I was in shock. About halfway to Tom and Betty's I heard the emergency sirens go off. The town we lived in had a volunteer fire department so that is how they were alerted that they were needed. It was a Saturday night, so hearing those sirens go off was not that unusual. There were many bars in town and many accidents each weekend. Plus it was a slightly rainy night. The kind of rain that just made the roads slippery.
I finally made it to Betty and Tom's and they let me crash on their couch, no questions asked... at least not at 3 am. Tom went to the gas station where he worked with John at 6 am. By 6:30 am he was waking me up and telling me that John had been in a terrible accident and wrapped his car around a tree. Because of the scratches I had on me, etc. they at first thought that I had been in the car but didn't know how I could have made it out alive. I said that I hadn't been in the car but offered no more info. He was hospitalized in critical condition and everyone wanted to drive me over there. That was the last place I wanted to go. The police got a hold of my dad and told him so he and Jane went running up to the hospital. My dad called Tom and demanded he bring me up there. Nobody ever argued or stood up to my dad so I was brought up there. John had regained consciousness enough to tell them that we had had a fight and that I left. He said he went out lookng for me and lost control of his car and wrapped it around that huge tree because the streets were wet. He either left out the part where he raped me first or didn't remember it and the part where he was drunker than a skunk. He was a great liar and actor so to this day I really am not sure if he remembers or not. Anyway, my dad stood there in the hospital yelling at me for almost killing John. Not once did he ask "why" I left. Leaving in the middle of the night, in the rain, to literally run across town to get away from an extremely dangerous situation didn't raise any flags in that man's head. Tom saw I was just about ready to have a nervous breakdown and took me back to his house.
It was two more days before I finally told Tom and Betty the real reason I had left. My dad didn't want to hear it, I was the bad seed of the family in his eyes anyway. Tom and Betty helped me get a new place until I could decide what to do. One of the girls at the bank I worked with was looking to move so we got an apartment together and I had nothing to do with John or my dad after that. I ran into him once at a restaurant in Libertyville and said "hi". He just grunted and went back to reading the paper, like he didn't know me at all. Everyone in that restaurant knew he was my dad. I poured a glass of water on his head and walked out. My friends laughed, my dad did nothing. He wouldn't even come to my wedding - despite being invited (Oliver's idea, not mine). I was grateful he declined. It wasn't until the week of the wedding that he finally decided it would be ok if Ken came. So my little brother walked me down the aisle in his 1970's leisure suit. Looked great with all the tuxedoed guys in the pics... lol. Oh well. After Danny, my son, was born, I was very sick. I was in the hospital for over a month and almost didn't make it. Turns out that Jane worked in the hospital and my name kept coming up in their meetings because I was in such bad shape. Apparently she had a change of heart somewhere along the line and she'd come visit me during the night shift on her break. Most of the time I was comatose, but occasionally I would wake up to the smell her perfume. Finally I managed to stay awake one night and caught her. After that we had long talks and rebuilt bridges that had been blown to smithereens.
She adored Danny and worked on trying to patch things up. She brought Janie one night to see me and the little girl with pig tails had grown into a beautiful, but shy, teen. She was sweet and she loved Danny. The biggest hurdle was getting my dad and I in the same room. She was working on my dad and Oliver was working on me. Oliver came from a loud, passionate family that fought all the time and then got over it. He coudn't understand me being so "stubborn" about it. Finally I gave in to the pressure and I figured that Danny had a right to know his grandfather. The same grandfather who sued me for custody of my brother and wouldn't let me see him again for four years. Yep, that grandfather. Anyway, we set up the meeting at their house. Oliver, Danny and I got there and Jane greeted us at the door. As I walked in, I saw an old man sitting in the chair by the window and it took me a few minutes to realize that it was my dad. He had aged tremendously and no longer was the big, threatening man that I had known. And he was as sweet as pie - as if nothing had ever happened - like it was all in my head. I was cordial but I just couldn't let my guard down. We found out that night that Jane had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be starting chemo treatments the next week. I felt bad for her. In our midnight talks, we had become friends. That night went without any incidents but I just didn't trust that my dad's niceness would last. Every flag in my head was flapping to beat the band. I had to "hear it" from Oliver all the way home of how nice he was and that maybe everything I had told him was all in my head. Um, yeah.
Jane lived for two years and I helped as best as I could until Oliver's job took us to Memphis. Danny was a great distraction for her and she loved him dearly - that was real. During our times together as she was battling the cancer, she made me promise that I would be there for my dad. I really tried to not agree to do that. I had every reason in the world NOT to be there for him but she played on my compassion one too many times and I reluctantly agreed. So while she was dying, I was there for him. She was in hospice and held on for weeks. We were living in Memphis at the time and had to go back up to Chicago to be there for them. Oliver, Danny and I stayed with my in-laws until Oliver had to get back to work in Memphis. My dad agreed to buy my plane ticket home and I wisely made him do that before Oliver left so that I had it in hand... still I couldn't trust him. He was leaning on me very hard and I was not healthy myself. I had just gotten out of the hospital - against my doctor's advice - after having some testing done on my lungs. I had now had a third blood clot in my lungs and was on heavy medications and blood thinners with my doctors in Memphis and me in Waukegan, IL. The hospice nurses kept as close of an eye on me as they did on Jane. They made sure I took my meds and ate, etc. They were wonderful and a Godsend. Jane died peacefully in the night and we got the call in the morning. I went and picked up my dad and we went to the hospital. In those days, hospice was still done in a wing of the hospital, not at home. I held his hand as he made all the arrangements. He dragged me into that same room to pick out a casket and I had to relive that horror all over again - with him telling me how hard it was to do - the same man that let his 17 year old daughter pick out her mother's casket. But I did it. Danny stayed with my in-laws and I split my time between their apartment and my dad's house. I spent the days with my dad, through dinner, and then went to their place to play with Danny a bit and get him to bed. The stress was wearing me down.
Finally after a phone call with Oliver, he decided I needed a break so he called his oldest sister, Pat, to come and meet me at the Denny's across from my in-laws for coffee so that I could have someone to talk to. We sat there for a couple of hours and she let me vent. She had seen my dad lose it one time and she truly understood and believed that I was not making this all up. I loved her for being there for me. She went back home and I walked back across the street to my in-laws. As I walked in, I noticed my mother-in-law was in tears. It was the only time in my life I ever saw her cry. She was not a crying person. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that my dad had called looking for me and had proceeded to call me every name in the book, etc. She said he and Oliver had talked on the phone while I was gone and they had gotten into a real bad fight. I called Oliver first and got his side then called my dad - you mess with me, fine, I'm used to it, but you do NOT mess with my mother-in-law. Turns out that my dad got it in his drunken head that I was out messing around with some guy and leaving my son with Oliver's mother, etc. He went on and on. Oliver told him he knew exactly where I was and with whom. Dad called Oliver a liar and an idiot for believing that story. Except Oliver was the one who set it all up. Anyway, Oliver had enough and when my dad threw out the "I buried my wife today" card - Oliver said that he was sorry that he had to go through that but it did NOT give him the right to bury his wife right along with her. More threats passed between them before the phones were slammed down. My flight to go home was the following evening and I couldn't wait.
In the morning I got up and took the car back to my dad's. He had been letting me use Jane's car to get back and forth. When I got there, I picked the Sunday newspaper up off the porch and went in the house. I handed him the paper, the keys and the sweater I had borrowed from Ken (who was now going to be living with him). Oh and as a side note, the day of the funeral, I was not allowed to ride in the family car - Ken decided I wasn't family and dad went along with it. Even though I had been the one that had been there throughout the whole ordeal. I wasn't blood related to Jane. Um, neither was Ken, but that was different. Anyway, when I gave my dad the stuff, he started in with "that's some husband you have. When I told him I buried my wife, he said he didn't give a shit." Ok, gloves off.... that is not what he said. What he said was that I didn't deserve that shit from my own father, etc. Years and years of built up anger, frustration, hurt, you name it, came spewing out. No more. I was done playing his games. As far as I was concerned, he was just as dead to me as my mother and his wife were. I walked out the door and started to walk the 30 plus miles home. Ken followed me out and on a nice peaceful Sunday morning a battle royal erupted in the street. I was just as mad at Ken and didn't even know him anymore. I told him he was turning out just like that old man and as far as I was concerned, they could both rot in hell. I turned on my heels and just kept walking.
In my anger and yelling and talking to myself the whole way back to my in-laws, I had ripped open all the areas in my throat and bronchial tubes that had been so carefully stitched up just a few weeks earlier. My shirt was covered in blood and I lost Lord knows how much blood. When I walked into my in-laws, my mother-in-law shrieked (another act not part of her nature) and had my father-in-law take Danny into a back room so that he didn't see it. She thought I had been shot. After cleaning me up and getting me changed and making sure there were no holes in my body, she finally believed that I, in fact, had not been shot. Later that day, Danny and I flew home. Oliver immediately called my doctor and he had me on bed rest until he could get me admitted to the hospital the next morning. As I was laying there waiting for the phone call to come into the hospital, the phone rang. We didn't have caller id back then, so I just picked it up. It was my father. In a completely innocent voice, he asked "were you upset when you left yesterday?" I looked at the phone, trying to figure out if I was awake or dreaming, then looked at the receiver, looked at the phone again, and just hung up. Finally, after all those years, I just hung up. It felt good. The next call was Oliver telling me he was coming to bring me into the hospital where they proceeded to restitch all the damage. My doctor was not happy but he was glad I was back and that it was over. The next day my brother called. The switchboard had been instructed not to put through calls from my dad, but nothing had been said about my brother. Anyway, turns out his girlfriend, who he had just proposed to the night I had gone home, was in a terrible car accident and was killed. I loved Kim and took it very hard. I was so upset that once again, I broke open all the stitches.
A nurse had heard me wail and came running in. My doctor was paged, Oliver was called, and Ken was left dangling on the other end of the phone. Wisely he hung up before Oliver got there. All I could get out was that Ken had called but couldn't say what had happened. Oliver was ready to buy a gun and head to Chicago and take care of my family once and for all. Finally my doctor gave me a shot and got everyone else quieted down and I was able to explain. Oliver was still mad at Ken for telling me and my doctor was trying to tell Oliver that it was good timing because if this had happened while I was at home, my blood loss had been so significant that I may not have made it through.
Kim's funeral was in Texas, her home state, and Ken was the only one to go. The night of the accident, she had been riding home from a concert with Ken's best friend, Pete. Ken was supposed to take her but he had missed so much time at work with Jane's funeral and all that he couldn't get off. Pete had volunteered to take her because she really wanted to go. Somehow he lost control of the car and hit a tree. Kim was killed instantly and Pete was paralyzed. Ken was devastated. He'd lost a step mom, his fiancee and his best friend was paralyzed all in one week. When he came home from the funeral, he walked in the door of my dad's house and as he put his suitcase down, dad started in. "What were they doing that he lost control of the car? What kind of a girl was she anyway, screwing around with your best friend? Some best friend Pete turned out to be... etc." Ken picked up his suitcase without saying a word and walked out that door. He never talked to the man again.
Sometimes I admire him for doing that. I wish I had. Nope, not me. I had to go back for more - all the time. After awhile when my dad's emphysema started getting real bad he reached out for help. This time is was Janie, me and her husband who were there for him. He was not an easy patient. Parts of me wanted to throttle him but part of me wanted to nurture him. It was a constant struggle. Somewhere in those hours, we managed to talk and resolve most of the bad stuff... not all of it, but in his way, he apologized and blamed it on the alcohol. Two days before he died, we had a long talk. It was my birthday. By this time he had decided he wanted to be in a nursing home and I was there visiting. He told me that he was amazed that I was there for him after all he had done to me and how mean he had been. I told him that it was God's grace that had me there and had it not been for that, I wouldn't have been. The Bible tells us to honor our mothers and fathers and since I knew the day would come when I would have to answer to that higher authority, I knew I had to do the best that I could. He cried and for the first time I saw him as a wounded child that had been lashing out. I forgave him for all he had done and he thanked me. Two days later Janie and I were there holding his hands as he took his last breath. I felt nothing. I was glad his struggling was over and I was glad that he could no longer hurt me, but I certainly couldn't cry. Those tears didn't come until years later. Until many counseling sessions to help me understand. I loved him, I hated him. Nobody has drawn more negative emotions out of me before or since.
So as Father's Day rolls around, it's hard. I read all those testaments to great fathers and the stories of those who have gone on to heaven. I can't relate to either because I just don't know where he is. I don't know what decisions he made regarding Jesus in his life. Same with my step father. Don't know about him either. What I do know is that Father's Day does not draw up in me any warm fuzzy feelings. I've seen great examples of fathers in my life and I've had wonderful mentors. Oliver was an awesome father to Danny. For them I will smile on that day. I will smile because I have a heavenly Father that loves me without a doubt, unconditionally. I will smile because I will have just a small tinge of jealousy for those girls who are princesses in their father's eyes and who have a father that has and will do anything for them. I'm happy for them - truly - but I just wish I knew what that felt like.
So for all of you who have had wonderful fathers and Sunday will be day of celebration - whether he still walks this earth or not - I tip my hat and I smile. And for those of you who have fathers who more resemble mine - I smile for you too, knowingly, as a sisterhood that none of us wanted to be in. ((Hugs)) Have a great weekend and to all you fathers out there - Happy Fathers Day. Be good to your children. Believe it or not, the things you say or do will either leave love prints in their hearts or bruises on their psyche. Make the right choice.
Then I think of mine and somehow, despite my best attempts, I cannot come up with any warm and fuzzy feelings. I have had two dads in my life - my biological dad, Richard and my step-dad, Robert. I'll start with Robert because his time in my life was short lived. He blew into it in January of 1967 when I was only 10 years old. By February, he and my mother were married. By that time I had been without a father for over 5 years. At first it was fun having a dad around the house. I had always wanted a normal "family" and this was my new chance at just that. The week after they were married, my older brother, Dick, left for the Army. I had the distinct impression that the two of them didn't get along too well, but nothing was ever really said. Robert was a lazy man. He couldn't hold a job and he would do nothing around the house, except act as a drill sergeant to make my younger brother, Ken, and I clean up the house, including washing the floors with toothbrushes. He ruled the roost with an iron fist, mostly because he was the one there - mom was too busy working to try and make ends meet.
He didn't like having children in the house without his name, so it was decided that he would adopt us (at my mother's expense, of course). Since my biological father had not paid child support in years, it was an easy negotiation. The back child support payments would be waived if he'd sign the dotted line. For him it was an easy trade off and a month later, Ken and I went back to school with a different last name. It took some adjustment but for the most part, our friends were cool with it. Once we became "his" in name, he became a slave master and treated us awful. He'd send us to bed at 5 pm so that he could watch tv and drink scotch and water. We couldn't watch tv, read or do anything. Ken and I both had transistor radios that we'd gotten from our aunt and uncle the year before. We found that we could hide them under our pillows and listen to the Cubs games and not get caught. For the most part, we had a media blackout for a few years. It's funny now when people will post something from that 1967 to 1971 period and I honestly have no idea what they are talking about. We had no contact with any media outside those Cubs games and a few radio talk shows. And we had no contact with people. We were not allowed to go to friend's homes and they were not allowed to come over. We were isolated.
By January of 1971, my mother had finally had enough of him just freeloading off of her. She was working her tail off and he wouldn't even go look for a job. He had one when they first got married but quit it 2 days after the honeymoon. Apparently one day while we were in school, they got into quite a tiff on the phone when my mom called home at lunchtime and woke him up. He hadn't even gotten up to get us off to school - Ken and I managed on our own and walked. When I got home from school, she called and asked if he was home. I checked all the rooms and saw no signs of him. She asked if his clothes were in the closet - they were. She said ok and that she'd be home soon. We'd had a significant amount of snow that week and it was quite built up on the driveway. It was too heavy for me to handle and my mom had wanted Robert to do it - um yeah, that went over well. Needless to say it wasn't done. There were ruts in the snow from the street to the garage and from the garage to the street. Both cars were similar in size, so the difference in tracks was negligible. You really couldn't tell who came and went and when. Just before mom was due to come home, Ken went out to open the garage door so mom could pull in. Next thing I know, he was running back towards the house and fell twice in the snow. Silly boy. As he came flying in, he brushed right past me and went to his room. That was odd behavior even for a little brother. I looked out the window again to see my mom running towards the house herself. Now both times, I had seen Robert's car in the garage and just figured he'd gotten home from whatever bar he had been gracing that day. All the scotch bottles in the house were empty - including the special stash ones. I had checked those earlier - after my mom's call.
My mom brushed past me and went directly to the phone and dialed the police. This was before 911 and in those days, the police were our friends and neighbors. It didn't take long for them to get there and pronounce Robert dead by his own hands - carbon monoxide poisoning. He had started the car and sat in the closed garage with the car windows open. He had enough scotch in him to pass out and not know what happened. There was an inquest but that was the final ruling as well. He had committed suicide, knowing that the odds were one of the children - myself or my brother - would find him. He left a note for my mom and truth be told, I never knew what all it said. It was a shocking time. It wasn't our first brush with death - we'd had grandparents die and close family friends, but this was the first time suicide had crossed our paths. We spent a long time feeling guilty and thinkng we should have done something. I wasn't really sad he was gone. I had come to really dislike him immensely over the years he was in our lives. I did feel bad that he was tortured enough in his own mind to believe that suicide was the answer, but even at the young age of 14, I knew his demons were far deeper than any of us knew. We were not the cause, but that still didn't make sleeping at night any easier.
Now let's talk about dear old dad. He left my mother, older brother, Dick, myself and younger brother, Ken, when I was 5 years old. He had fallen for a lady across town who owned a house where he had done work putting in her driveway. He was a hard worker, I will give him that. He owned and operated a very successful (for Des Plaines standards) Blacktop and Paving Company - Buchanan Blacktop and Paving. I remember the younger years when he would let me crawl up on his lap and help "drive" one of the dump trucks or a tractor or a steam roller. I felt like the Queen of the world. I remember playing hide and seek and hiding in the big tire wells or behind the mud flaps. We had fun. Then one day the fun just stopped. I was sitting on my usual perch - the milkbox on the front porch - waiting for my dad to come home so that I could take up my place as princess, but he didn't come home. This went on for days until it got dark out and finally my mother or Dick would tell me it was bedtime. Occasionally I would come in for dinner but most days I waited for my dad - I'd eat with the king. Finally one day I was sitting there and I could hear my mom crying on the phone. I guess she was telling my dad that I had been sitting there waiting for him. Dick came out of the house and proceeded to yell at me for making mom cry. I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't know he had "left" - I just thought he was working hard. I knew nobody who had divorced parents - not in Des Plaines in 1961.
It was a long time before I saw his face again. By then the divorce was final. As a matter of fact, I was in the hospital having my tonsils out and I was 6. I remember being upset because I was missing my first grade field trip to Hawthorn Melody Farms. I was really bummed. My mom was there trying to ease the pain from the surgery and ease the pain of missing the trip when in walked my dad with a brand new bike. It was a Schwinn with little streamers coming out of the handle bars. I was ecstatic... my mom, not so much. Next thing I knew they were out in the hall talking - loudly - and after only a few moments of being excited about a brand new bike, I was back to having to make do with the green hand me down from my older brother. My dad had not paid any child support and my mother told him to take it back and give her the money so that she could actually feed us.
As I look back at the times we did get to spend with him, it wasn't really because he wanted the time with Ken and I (Dick refused to go and since he was a teen, he could do that), but it was because he wanted to hurt my mom. He'd come and take us on holidays, leaving her many times alone because Dick had to work to help with expenses. He always took us for Mother's Day and Father's Day. Christmas Day - his house. Thanksgiving - it depended. Easter - his house. It was easy to go there... there were built in playmates. We had two step brothers - Jim and John (the twins) who were two years older than I and then along came Janie - the new princess in my dad's story. At first I was thrilled - I had always wanted a sister. I loved my brothers but they didn't like painting nails and playing with Barbies. I liked the Tonka trucks alright but I wanted a companion who would play dress up with me and talk about boys with me. The excitement didn't last. My dad and his wife, Jane, wouldn't let me play with Janie. If I tried to sneak in some time, I was met with a slap to the back of the head (much like Gibbs does to DiNozzo on NCIS). I could play with the boys though. Problem with that was they were hellions on wheels. If there was any kind of trouble they could get into within a three mile radius, they'd find it. My mother had taught me better and my conscience was not one to live with if I'd have gone along. So most times I just sat and spent the holidays reading and trying to stay out of everyone's way until it was time to go home. Many times we were due home at 6 and it would be 10 pm before my dad decided to roll into our driveway with us.
Once he even tried to run my mother down with his truck. He had me on his lap "letting me" drive when he saw her at the mailbox. Instead of slowing down, he hit the gas and aimed right towards her. I tried to turn the wheel, thinking I had lost control of it, but he overpowered me. My mom threw herself into the ditch and the truck barreled over her. She was shaken up but not seriously injured. Needless to say, I didn't go on anymore trips with my dad for quite awhile. In hindsight, through the eyes of an adult, I can see how he just used Ken and I as pawns in his game against my mother and how mean he truly was. They had a bitter divorce. As a child you like to think that they still love you but that isn't always the case. For years I put my dad on a pedestal - especially when Robert came into the picture. "MY DAD" wouldn't do this and "MY DAD" wouldn't do that - you know the scenarios. I honestly don't know of one time after I was five that I felt secure and loved by my father. My mother did the best that she could and she and I were very close. There is just something about a father's love that a little girl needs. My brothers didn't seem to care one way or another. It's like there was some kind of genetic coding that had been passed down to them not to care. Family never meant anything to them - still doesn't for all I know.
When Robert committed suicide, my biological father, Richard, decided it would be "fun" to come to the wake and funeral and rile things up. He would sit there and introduce himself to the people who were coming to pay respects to us for the death of my "legal" father (Robert had adopted us and Richard had signed us away). I spent most of those days trying to explain to people our family dynamics instead of being able to mourn the death. I was 14, scared, insecure, trying to be strong for my mom, trying to keep Dick from choking Richard (he'd come home on leave from the Army), and trying to be the big sis to Ken. It was stressful and here was my real father trying to just add to the stress under the auspices of having some fun. Yeah, funny guy. But still for some reason I thought it was "JUST" against my mother - didn't really realize that he was alienating me as well.
It wasn't until my mom started getting real sick that I sought him out. I don't know what I was thinking but I thought that maybe he'd have some ideas of what I could do to get some help. His wife was in nursing school part time and he was gainfully employed as a mechanic. After school one day, I took the bus into town instead of the bus that went to our neighborhood. I went into the dealership where he worked. I inquired about my dad and when he came out - he denied knowing me. He stood there looking straight into my face, saying he'd never seen me before and I must have been a nut case. Oh I was a nut case alright - for ever believing that he cared. I turned and left in a ball of tears and walked the 10 miles or so home. By the time I got home, mom was sitting on the couch crying - one because she knew I'd be hurting and two because she was so angry at the bastard. In all the years up until then, she never bad-mouthed him. She always played up his good points and never the negative. She felt bad that I had to learn the hard way. Anyway it turns out he had called her and yelled at her for me embarassing him at work. We were in his past and he didn't want anything to do with that. So that's how we left it. In January of 1974, my graduation day, my mother, my best friend, my only parent, passed away. I was 17 years old and had spent the last 2-3 years caring for her every medical, emotional, spiritual, financial and physical need. Somewhere in those years our roles had changed. I became the adult and she becamse the needy child. She died on the couch in our living room as I was at graduation practice. I called the fire department and they sent and ambulance to transport her to the hospital morgue. I had to follow to fill out some paperwork. After I came home from the hospital, I called the phone company and asked them to call my dad and have him call me - it was an emergency. He had an unlisted number and I had no other way to get a hold of him. They did just that and shortly later the phone rang. I told him that she had died and he immediately proceeded to yell at me on the phone for bothering him yet again. By now I was 17 and had built up quite the teenage backbone and mouth to go with it. I firmly told him that "you were married to her for 18 years, she had three of your children, I felt it was the right thing to let you know - I didn't think you wanted to read about it in the Chicago Tribune" and I hung up on him.
I had a graduation to get to and had to drop Ken off at a good friend's house so that I could go. There was nothing more to do that night anyway. After coming home from graduation and getting Ken settled down enough to fall asleep in the chair with me, the phone rang. It was our dad. He wanted to talk to Ken and proceeded to say God knows what... all I know is that it took me another 2 hours to calm Ken down again. Finally at 4 am I was able to sleep for 2 hours. By 7 am I was back at the school I had just graduated from and in a counselor's office asking for help. I had to drive Ken there anyway for school - there was nothing for us to do at home - and I didn't know where to turn. My mother had wanted to be cremated, etc. and we had discussed what she wanted at length. My dad, in his phone call the night before, had said HE wanted to bury her on a hill, under a tree, etc. etc. etc. I didn't know what legal rights I had and wanted to find out before meeting with the funeral director at 10 am.
My counselor knew a lawyer in town and called him. He came right over to the school and accompanied me to the funeral home. My dad, his wife, Jane, along with my aunt and uncle, were all there when I came walking in with a lawyer. They didn't expect that. For once not one of them said a word. They let me do all the planning that I had been so well rehearsed in by my mother. They never even stood by my side as I went to pick out a casket. They left me to do it all alone - which was hard but better than fighting. Afterwards we all went to lunch and he tried to be nice. He invited Ken and I to come stay at his house out on the lake. I welcomed the chance to get away from the phone calls and quite frankly from my hysterical aunt. I loved her, but she was a handful. So the next day we moved out by him. It was awkward but it seemed like we were falling into a routine. I had just gotten a promotion at work so I was working long, crazy hours. After a week or so of being out there, Jane decided she could get back at my mom by causing trouble with her kids. I would call her and say not to hold dinner because I had to work late and she would tell my dad I never called and would hold dinner until it was cold for everyone. Then I'd come in and get reamed. If I tried to defend myself, well then I was calling his wife a liar. It was a no-win situation. Finally on Easter Sunday, just a few weeks after turning 18 and two months of being there, my dad kicked me out because I looked and acted like my mom and it bothered his wife. Fine. I packed the clothes I had there in my car and was getting ready to leave when one of my step brothers, John, came home. He had seen what was going on and he proceeded to put my dad in his place. He even yelled at him for charging his own daughter dealer rates to do a tune-up on my car in his driveway. Needless to say, John was packing his car right behind me. We met at a restaurant down the street to decide what to do. I had the keys to the old house in Des Plaines that I had grown up in, so we went there.
I trusted John and quite frankly he was the only person in my life that seemed to be acting like an adult. He was great - at first. After awhile, we decided we just couldn't stay in that house. Too many ghosts for me. My mother had just died in that house, my step father had committed suicide in the garage and my grandmother had died in my bedroom just a few years before. So we moved into an apartment up closer to where John worked. We settled in nicely and I signed up for classes at the local college and was going to make something of my life. I worked all day and attended classes a couple nights a week. Then the phone calls started. My dad would get drunk and call to start in on me. He'd call me a whore and said I should put a red light out my door, etc. etc. etc. He was downright mean. One time he irritated me so much that I actually pulled the panel phone out of the wall, kicked the bathroom door so hard the hinges broke and it ended up in the bathtub and stormed out of the house. My friday night pizza friends went looking for me, but I had climbed a tree, too scared to drive because I had never been so angry. At that time, I had only been on one date in my life and was still a virgin - which was my plan until I was married.
I had been around alcoholics all my life. My mom was one, my older brother was one, my stepdad was one, my aunt and uncle were and obviously my father. It wasn't anything new but this was the first time I had been the object of such drunken meaness and anger. It wasn't long before John started drinking too and turned into a carbon copy of my dad. He was mean and beligerant and scared me to death. I did all I could do to avoid him when he was drinking but it was hard when you share an apartment - in a town where I had few friends. One night we had been at a party at a friend's house in town and I had left early when the party was getting out of hand. I was not a drinker - didn't want any part of it - so I walked the few blocks home. I was sound asleep when I was awakened by John on top of me tearing at my nightclothes. When I protested and tried to stop him, he pulled a pair of scissors and held them at my throat. I'm sure I don't need to go into the details of what happened next. After he passed out, I dressed and left. He had hidden my car keys so I had to leave on foot. I started to go back to the house where the party had been but it was dark and everybody was gone. I knew of another, older couple, that lived across town so I figured I'd head towards there. Every time I saw headlights coming up behind me, I'd duck behind a house or into some bushes so as not to be seen. I was scared, I was hurt, I was bleeding, I was in shock. About halfway to Tom and Betty's I heard the emergency sirens go off. The town we lived in had a volunteer fire department so that is how they were alerted that they were needed. It was a Saturday night, so hearing those sirens go off was not that unusual. There were many bars in town and many accidents each weekend. Plus it was a slightly rainy night. The kind of rain that just made the roads slippery.
I finally made it to Betty and Tom's and they let me crash on their couch, no questions asked... at least not at 3 am. Tom went to the gas station where he worked with John at 6 am. By 6:30 am he was waking me up and telling me that John had been in a terrible accident and wrapped his car around a tree. Because of the scratches I had on me, etc. they at first thought that I had been in the car but didn't know how I could have made it out alive. I said that I hadn't been in the car but offered no more info. He was hospitalized in critical condition and everyone wanted to drive me over there. That was the last place I wanted to go. The police got a hold of my dad and told him so he and Jane went running up to the hospital. My dad called Tom and demanded he bring me up there. Nobody ever argued or stood up to my dad so I was brought up there. John had regained consciousness enough to tell them that we had had a fight and that I left. He said he went out lookng for me and lost control of his car and wrapped it around that huge tree because the streets were wet. He either left out the part where he raped me first or didn't remember it and the part where he was drunker than a skunk. He was a great liar and actor so to this day I really am not sure if he remembers or not. Anyway, my dad stood there in the hospital yelling at me for almost killing John. Not once did he ask "why" I left. Leaving in the middle of the night, in the rain, to literally run across town to get away from an extremely dangerous situation didn't raise any flags in that man's head. Tom saw I was just about ready to have a nervous breakdown and took me back to his house.
It was two more days before I finally told Tom and Betty the real reason I had left. My dad didn't want to hear it, I was the bad seed of the family in his eyes anyway. Tom and Betty helped me get a new place until I could decide what to do. One of the girls at the bank I worked with was looking to move so we got an apartment together and I had nothing to do with John or my dad after that. I ran into him once at a restaurant in Libertyville and said "hi". He just grunted and went back to reading the paper, like he didn't know me at all. Everyone in that restaurant knew he was my dad. I poured a glass of water on his head and walked out. My friends laughed, my dad did nothing. He wouldn't even come to my wedding - despite being invited (Oliver's idea, not mine). I was grateful he declined. It wasn't until the week of the wedding that he finally decided it would be ok if Ken came. So my little brother walked me down the aisle in his 1970's leisure suit. Looked great with all the tuxedoed guys in the pics... lol. Oh well. After Danny, my son, was born, I was very sick. I was in the hospital for over a month and almost didn't make it. Turns out that Jane worked in the hospital and my name kept coming up in their meetings because I was in such bad shape. Apparently she had a change of heart somewhere along the line and she'd come visit me during the night shift on her break. Most of the time I was comatose, but occasionally I would wake up to the smell her perfume. Finally I managed to stay awake one night and caught her. After that we had long talks and rebuilt bridges that had been blown to smithereens.
She adored Danny and worked on trying to patch things up. She brought Janie one night to see me and the little girl with pig tails had grown into a beautiful, but shy, teen. She was sweet and she loved Danny. The biggest hurdle was getting my dad and I in the same room. She was working on my dad and Oliver was working on me. Oliver came from a loud, passionate family that fought all the time and then got over it. He coudn't understand me being so "stubborn" about it. Finally I gave in to the pressure and I figured that Danny had a right to know his grandfather. The same grandfather who sued me for custody of my brother and wouldn't let me see him again for four years. Yep, that grandfather. Anyway, we set up the meeting at their house. Oliver, Danny and I got there and Jane greeted us at the door. As I walked in, I saw an old man sitting in the chair by the window and it took me a few minutes to realize that it was my dad. He had aged tremendously and no longer was the big, threatening man that I had known. And he was as sweet as pie - as if nothing had ever happened - like it was all in my head. I was cordial but I just couldn't let my guard down. We found out that night that Jane had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be starting chemo treatments the next week. I felt bad for her. In our midnight talks, we had become friends. That night went without any incidents but I just didn't trust that my dad's niceness would last. Every flag in my head was flapping to beat the band. I had to "hear it" from Oliver all the way home of how nice he was and that maybe everything I had told him was all in my head. Um, yeah.
Jane lived for two years and I helped as best as I could until Oliver's job took us to Memphis. Danny was a great distraction for her and she loved him dearly - that was real. During our times together as she was battling the cancer, she made me promise that I would be there for my dad. I really tried to not agree to do that. I had every reason in the world NOT to be there for him but she played on my compassion one too many times and I reluctantly agreed. So while she was dying, I was there for him. She was in hospice and held on for weeks. We were living in Memphis at the time and had to go back up to Chicago to be there for them. Oliver, Danny and I stayed with my in-laws until Oliver had to get back to work in Memphis. My dad agreed to buy my plane ticket home and I wisely made him do that before Oliver left so that I had it in hand... still I couldn't trust him. He was leaning on me very hard and I was not healthy myself. I had just gotten out of the hospital - against my doctor's advice - after having some testing done on my lungs. I had now had a third blood clot in my lungs and was on heavy medications and blood thinners with my doctors in Memphis and me in Waukegan, IL. The hospice nurses kept as close of an eye on me as they did on Jane. They made sure I took my meds and ate, etc. They were wonderful and a Godsend. Jane died peacefully in the night and we got the call in the morning. I went and picked up my dad and we went to the hospital. In those days, hospice was still done in a wing of the hospital, not at home. I held his hand as he made all the arrangements. He dragged me into that same room to pick out a casket and I had to relive that horror all over again - with him telling me how hard it was to do - the same man that let his 17 year old daughter pick out her mother's casket. But I did it. Danny stayed with my in-laws and I split my time between their apartment and my dad's house. I spent the days with my dad, through dinner, and then went to their place to play with Danny a bit and get him to bed. The stress was wearing me down.
Finally after a phone call with Oliver, he decided I needed a break so he called his oldest sister, Pat, to come and meet me at the Denny's across from my in-laws for coffee so that I could have someone to talk to. We sat there for a couple of hours and she let me vent. She had seen my dad lose it one time and she truly understood and believed that I was not making this all up. I loved her for being there for me. She went back home and I walked back across the street to my in-laws. As I walked in, I noticed my mother-in-law was in tears. It was the only time in my life I ever saw her cry. She was not a crying person. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that my dad had called looking for me and had proceeded to call me every name in the book, etc. She said he and Oliver had talked on the phone while I was gone and they had gotten into a real bad fight. I called Oliver first and got his side then called my dad - you mess with me, fine, I'm used to it, but you do NOT mess with my mother-in-law. Turns out that my dad got it in his drunken head that I was out messing around with some guy and leaving my son with Oliver's mother, etc. He went on and on. Oliver told him he knew exactly where I was and with whom. Dad called Oliver a liar and an idiot for believing that story. Except Oliver was the one who set it all up. Anyway, Oliver had enough and when my dad threw out the "I buried my wife today" card - Oliver said that he was sorry that he had to go through that but it did NOT give him the right to bury his wife right along with her. More threats passed between them before the phones were slammed down. My flight to go home was the following evening and I couldn't wait.
In the morning I got up and took the car back to my dad's. He had been letting me use Jane's car to get back and forth. When I got there, I picked the Sunday newspaper up off the porch and went in the house. I handed him the paper, the keys and the sweater I had borrowed from Ken (who was now going to be living with him). Oh and as a side note, the day of the funeral, I was not allowed to ride in the family car - Ken decided I wasn't family and dad went along with it. Even though I had been the one that had been there throughout the whole ordeal. I wasn't blood related to Jane. Um, neither was Ken, but that was different. Anyway, when I gave my dad the stuff, he started in with "that's some husband you have. When I told him I buried my wife, he said he didn't give a shit." Ok, gloves off.... that is not what he said. What he said was that I didn't deserve that shit from my own father, etc. Years and years of built up anger, frustration, hurt, you name it, came spewing out. No more. I was done playing his games. As far as I was concerned, he was just as dead to me as my mother and his wife were. I walked out the door and started to walk the 30 plus miles home. Ken followed me out and on a nice peaceful Sunday morning a battle royal erupted in the street. I was just as mad at Ken and didn't even know him anymore. I told him he was turning out just like that old man and as far as I was concerned, they could both rot in hell. I turned on my heels and just kept walking.
In my anger and yelling and talking to myself the whole way back to my in-laws, I had ripped open all the areas in my throat and bronchial tubes that had been so carefully stitched up just a few weeks earlier. My shirt was covered in blood and I lost Lord knows how much blood. When I walked into my in-laws, my mother-in-law shrieked (another act not part of her nature) and had my father-in-law take Danny into a back room so that he didn't see it. She thought I had been shot. After cleaning me up and getting me changed and making sure there were no holes in my body, she finally believed that I, in fact, had not been shot. Later that day, Danny and I flew home. Oliver immediately called my doctor and he had me on bed rest until he could get me admitted to the hospital the next morning. As I was laying there waiting for the phone call to come into the hospital, the phone rang. We didn't have caller id back then, so I just picked it up. It was my father. In a completely innocent voice, he asked "were you upset when you left yesterday?" I looked at the phone, trying to figure out if I was awake or dreaming, then looked at the receiver, looked at the phone again, and just hung up. Finally, after all those years, I just hung up. It felt good. The next call was Oliver telling me he was coming to bring me into the hospital where they proceeded to restitch all the damage. My doctor was not happy but he was glad I was back and that it was over. The next day my brother called. The switchboard had been instructed not to put through calls from my dad, but nothing had been said about my brother. Anyway, turns out his girlfriend, who he had just proposed to the night I had gone home, was in a terrible car accident and was killed. I loved Kim and took it very hard. I was so upset that once again, I broke open all the stitches.
A nurse had heard me wail and came running in. My doctor was paged, Oliver was called, and Ken was left dangling on the other end of the phone. Wisely he hung up before Oliver got there. All I could get out was that Ken had called but couldn't say what had happened. Oliver was ready to buy a gun and head to Chicago and take care of my family once and for all. Finally my doctor gave me a shot and got everyone else quieted down and I was able to explain. Oliver was still mad at Ken for telling me and my doctor was trying to tell Oliver that it was good timing because if this had happened while I was at home, my blood loss had been so significant that I may not have made it through.
Kim's funeral was in Texas, her home state, and Ken was the only one to go. The night of the accident, she had been riding home from a concert with Ken's best friend, Pete. Ken was supposed to take her but he had missed so much time at work with Jane's funeral and all that he couldn't get off. Pete had volunteered to take her because she really wanted to go. Somehow he lost control of the car and hit a tree. Kim was killed instantly and Pete was paralyzed. Ken was devastated. He'd lost a step mom, his fiancee and his best friend was paralyzed all in one week. When he came home from the funeral, he walked in the door of my dad's house and as he put his suitcase down, dad started in. "What were they doing that he lost control of the car? What kind of a girl was she anyway, screwing around with your best friend? Some best friend Pete turned out to be... etc." Ken picked up his suitcase without saying a word and walked out that door. He never talked to the man again.
Sometimes I admire him for doing that. I wish I had. Nope, not me. I had to go back for more - all the time. After awhile when my dad's emphysema started getting real bad he reached out for help. This time is was Janie, me and her husband who were there for him. He was not an easy patient. Parts of me wanted to throttle him but part of me wanted to nurture him. It was a constant struggle. Somewhere in those hours, we managed to talk and resolve most of the bad stuff... not all of it, but in his way, he apologized and blamed it on the alcohol. Two days before he died, we had a long talk. It was my birthday. By this time he had decided he wanted to be in a nursing home and I was there visiting. He told me that he was amazed that I was there for him after all he had done to me and how mean he had been. I told him that it was God's grace that had me there and had it not been for that, I wouldn't have been. The Bible tells us to honor our mothers and fathers and since I knew the day would come when I would have to answer to that higher authority, I knew I had to do the best that I could. He cried and for the first time I saw him as a wounded child that had been lashing out. I forgave him for all he had done and he thanked me. Two days later Janie and I were there holding his hands as he took his last breath. I felt nothing. I was glad his struggling was over and I was glad that he could no longer hurt me, but I certainly couldn't cry. Those tears didn't come until years later. Until many counseling sessions to help me understand. I loved him, I hated him. Nobody has drawn more negative emotions out of me before or since.
So as Father's Day rolls around, it's hard. I read all those testaments to great fathers and the stories of those who have gone on to heaven. I can't relate to either because I just don't know where he is. I don't know what decisions he made regarding Jesus in his life. Same with my step father. Don't know about him either. What I do know is that Father's Day does not draw up in me any warm fuzzy feelings. I've seen great examples of fathers in my life and I've had wonderful mentors. Oliver was an awesome father to Danny. For them I will smile on that day. I will smile because I have a heavenly Father that loves me without a doubt, unconditionally. I will smile because I will have just a small tinge of jealousy for those girls who are princesses in their father's eyes and who have a father that has and will do anything for them. I'm happy for them - truly - but I just wish I knew what that felt like.
So for all of you who have had wonderful fathers and Sunday will be day of celebration - whether he still walks this earth or not - I tip my hat and I smile. And for those of you who have fathers who more resemble mine - I smile for you too, knowingly, as a sisterhood that none of us wanted to be in. ((Hugs)) Have a great weekend and to all you fathers out there - Happy Fathers Day. Be good to your children. Believe it or not, the things you say or do will either leave love prints in their hearts or bruises on their psyche. Make the right choice.
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