My water broke at midnight, greeting August 3, 1974, with the culmination of a long-awaited birth. Awash with both amniotic fluid and high expectation, I woke a soundly sleeping Bill with the news that our baby was on the way! I had been eyeing my dutifully packed overnight bag for over a week. Finally I could actually use the thing! My very mild contractions were erratic, but my doctor advised us to head for Methodist Hospital in Dallas, a forty-five minute drive from our home. There was a full moon smiling at us from overhead as we wondered if our child would be a boy or a girl. How long would labor be? When do we call our parents?
We arrived at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning expecting to be the only couple there, but labor and delivery was full. Seems the fatness of the evening orb had awakened other babies to life on August 3. Bill and I were neophytes to the birthing process. We had taken all the right classes, but this was the real thing; and, on the way was our actual, breathing, crying baby, not some slippery plastic doll. We had imagined for months what the moment would be like when we met the new human being that our coming together had produced - this person who had been kicking against the darkness and ever-increasing closeness of my womb. We had listened to the baby's beating heart and were familiar with the bulges caused by the child's rolling and punching in my body. Soon there would be a tiny face with eyes looking into ours - a vulnerable little life that we were responsible for shaping. Wonderful and terrifying, at once.
Aside from the continuing seeping of the amniotic fluid, there were no other signs of labor - no contractions at all. Dr. Wilke, my obstetrician, told me to settle in and he would see me later in the morning. Bill stepped outside while the night nurse prepped me for delivery then took me to a semi-dark labor room. Vile cursings and blood-curdling screams emanated from a woman down the hall who sounded as though she were being brutally violated. Primal, uninhibited, the woman pushed against her pain in a gushing forth of agony that made me clinch my teeth to keep from crying out in fear. "Am I going to do that?" I asked the nurse, gripping her arm and turning her toward me.
"You might," she said, too matter-of-factly.
"Oh, no," I whispered as my terror nearly choked me.
"You know, honey," the nurse continued, "I cannot have children. I have always wanted one of my own. So, if you wind up screaming and cursing in order to deliver one into this world, that's okay. Just remember, I would like to have a baby any way I could." Her smile was matronly, if not patronizing, as she patted my hand then left me there to wait for my first birth pangs.
At seven o'clock on the morning of August 3, Dr. Wilke came in and pronounced me "not dilated at all." No contractions - as if my body had been as unnerved by the sounds of birthing down the hall as my heart had. Even the pitocin drip that should have generated contractions served only to irritate the amniotic sac to fully bursting from its confines, leaving me awash, but not with pain.
Bill had slept in the father's room all night - on the floor beneath the telephones. As early as he dared, he had called both sets of parents with the news of my hospitalization. So it was that at eight o'clock that morning Mother and Daddy showed up in the labor room with a crystal vase filled with roses. "Happy birthday, precious," my Mother said.
"Oh, my goodness! I forgot completely that it is my birthday!"
"It looks like you will have a birthday present today, for sure!" said Daddy, eyes dancing, huge smile.
That thought had not seriously crossed my mind. Sharing a birthday with my baby would indeed be a gift. Made me wonder how alike we would be.
Afraid to go very far lest I should deliver while they were away, my parents hovered close to labor and delivery with Bill all that day. By mid-afternoon it was clear that my body did not want to make way for this baby on its own. Fearing infection, Dr. Wilke made the decision to perform a C-section. He left me for a moment to consider the option. I felt tears of disappointment burning to the surface until I remembered the words of the night nurse. "I would like to have a baby any way I could." Blinking back self-pity, concentrating on the joy of holding my newborn, and praying for strength, I readied myself mentally for surgery. When my doctor returned to the room, I had only two questions for him: "Could I still breastfeed? Could I stay awake during the operation so that I could experience the birth fully?"
Yes to both.
As I was prepared for surgery, Bill called his parents, who soon joined mine in the waiting room. By then it was late afternoon. My parents had anxiously paced and waited for almost ten hours, so the news of surgery was disconcerting. They held hands with Bill and prayed. I had no idea that I was quickly becoming a celebrity with the hospital staff because none of them had heard of a woman staying awake during a C-section before. My adrenaline was rushing as the nurses wheeled me into delivery. The fluid that had been injected into my spine first warmed then numbed my body from my rib cage downward. A large metal halo was erected in front of me and covered with a sheet so that I could not actually see the operation as it progressed. I was listening for only one sound - a baby's cry. That was all that mattered as I lay there blind to the purpose of all the bustling of medical personnel about me. The anesthesiologist was seated near my head, to my left, ready to immediately rescue me with some sleeping potion should I for some reason begin to feel the cutting and suturing. Anticipation trumped anxiety. My birthday gift was about to appear, an offering from my own body.
Heather. Eight pounds, seven ounces. Little bald head. Perfectly arched, full red lips. Already curious, looking around. No crying. She seemed to be taking in her surroundings as if to say: "So, this is life. Hmmm." Before they weighed and measured her, the nurses popped her little butt and made her squeal. The violence of it seemed unnecessary to me, and it made me wince. There would be enough in her new world to make her cry eventually; it seemed a bit early for pain.
I watched, transfixed, as the team of nurses wiped the creamy vernix from Heather's soft pink skin, suctioned fluid from her lungs, then wrapped her tightly in a blanket as my doctor closed my incisions. It all seemed to transpire in one breathtaking moment. My eyes could not be sated, so great was their hunger to take in every detail of this wonder from my womb.
Meanwhile, "It's a girl!" was announced in the waiting area, and Bill was summoned back to greet me as I was wheeled out of surgery with our daughter in my arms. The staff stopped the gurney so that father could be properly introduced to daughter. Heather's little eyes were closed tight against the brightness of the lights, and Bill's first question as he touched her tiny fist was: "When do babies open their eyes?" Guffawing nurses broke the magic of the moment. "She's not a puppy, son," cackled one. Ahhh, we had so much to learn.
Mother and Daddy had moved home from Germany for this, their first grandchild. On Christmas of 1973, we had traveled to Corpus Christi for the holidays to be with my sister and her husband. Mother and Daddy had come from Europe, and Bill and I could not wait to present our gift to them. At a Woolworth's, I had found a tiny plastic baby doll which we wrapped in a large box and tied with an extravagant bow. We knew they would not guess its contents, but we were sure there would be no greater gift we could bestow on them. Along with the doll I had written a little riddle in the form of a poem so that they would have to guess the significance of their present. Of course, that was unnecessary, for when they saw the toy baby, they guessed the real one.
Mother and Daddy came to our home to help take care of Heather and me. Mother had brought me a rocking chair, but it was Daddy who would steal Heather from her cradle and sit for hours, holding her in his warm, ample arms, and glide back and forth as he stared lovingly down at her. Awed, he fell in love with his tiny progeny. The tender wonder belied the potential treachery of a baby in his caress. Our first baby, his first grandchild, was a gift to be shared. Though Daddy's penchant was for boys, had we known the "other" father in those days, even our daughters would not have been "safely" placed in his embrace.
I miss the father who read to my children while they sat comfortably on his lap, who tickled them to overflowing laughter, who played endless games with them when they asked, "Just one more time?" Granddaddy. I miss Granddaddy.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
2007
Pensively, I turned the black notebook over in my hands several times before opening it. On this evening of the day of my father's death, I was at his home in his bedroom going over some of the things on his desk. This notebook was the journal Daddy had been keeping for his therapist in his endeavor to deal authentically with his pedophilia. The consternation that further revelation of the extent of Daddy's problem might be too overwhelming made my fingers slowly and gingerly unfold the pages of his confession. There was a disclaimer at the outset. He was eighty-four years old and could not remember every encounter. Following was a list of all the encounters he could recall and as much about the events as was pertinent to the counselor. Particularly, age, relation to Daddy, how he began the sexual encounter or "set it up," and what exactly happened.
Forty. There were forty. That he could remember! Forty lives forever changed. Some were young adults. Others were children from the neighborhood, family members, children of friends, kids he had been trusted to baby sit. The youngest was four. No little boy or young adult male had been safe with my father. His two arrests were only the tip of the iceberg. His revelations of indiscretions included the process by which he would secure relationships with children he molested. Daddy told of a young woman in the neighborhood who was outside often with her son. Daddy made a point of stopping by on one of those sunny afternoons in order to discover the woman's situation. Her boy was all she had. Needed help with chores. My father was happy to help. Caught in his web, her child his prey, my father went on to describe how easy it was to be with the young mother's son alone. Set-up after degrading set-up was revealed. It seems my father was always looking for his golden opportunity.
Replete with descriptions of the actual sexual pleasure he received from some of these encounters, nauseating revelations assaulted me. Even in the retelling of his sexual exploits, it was clear that my father had no real clarity about how his actions were affecting his victims. He described a young child's behavior as "precocious," as if the child could make a decision about his relationship with my father. In his effort to be as honest as possible, the rawness of Daddy's recollections spewed visuals across the pages of his purgings that could only barely be digested. His first conquest began shortly after his own molestation. A boy in his own neighborhood who was slightly younger than the adolescent Jim became his first sexual liason, and it lasted for several years. The army provided other opportunities for his homosexual exploration. Homosexuality and pedophilia were habits of mind and a covert way of life for Daddy by the time he married my mother. Not a day went by, he would later tell me, that he did not long for the company of boys. Craving the love of a man, the fragrance of a father, the praise of a male parent, my father was forever an adolescent heart seeking comfort for his woundedness and bloodying others in the process.
My initial reaction to what I tried to digest from the confessions of my father was a certain awe that we, his family, could have been so betrayed; then, that my father was pathological in his flagrant use of so many others. I wanted to correct if for the forty. Make it go away. How naive of us to think that the only times he had molested children were the times when he was caught! Of course, he had had a life-long addiction.
Secondarily, but rushing in and tripping over the heels of my first thoughts, was disgust. How could he do that? I could not understand his mind! To plot evil and draw innocence into its trap is heinous. The lack of cognizance in Daddy's confessions was crushing. Pedophilia was so integral to his interior landscape that he had to be "reminded" by a court of law and a psycho-therapist that it is wrong!
Copious notes from my father's journal were devoted to answering many times in various ways questions about how his victims must have felt. With great difficulty and minimal clarity at first, Daddy tried to understand how the molested must have reacted. His thinking was oblique, as though some large area of his heart and mind had petrified over the years, making penetration impossible. I could only compare it to losing a thought that could not be conjured again though its retrieval is concentrated upon vigorously. He could not remember what it felt like to be the victim; only the power in being the exploiter. When answering the questions posed by the therapist on this issue, my father's notes became stilted, passionless, as if he were copying down what she told him to write so that he could go back over the notes later and try to decipher their meaning.
Astonishingly, one of Daddy's major purposes for recovery, as stated in his notes, was so that he could have a relationship with his great grandsons, my grandchildren! That gave him heart to move forward. Never would there be a time, had Daddy lived, that he would have been allowed that privilege. Again, his vision was blurred by his inability to face the mirror that reflected to him what was evident to those who possessed clarity. Still he would say to me, " I am what you say I am," as though I pronounced him to be a homosexual pedophile. The two years worth of expurgatory notes suggested that my father was trying to own his addiction - a good step toward healing; a good, first step.
Finally, I laid the black notebook back on Daddy's desk. His life was completely redefined by the words written in his effort to be honest about himself. Sighing deeply, I leaned back in his desk chair and wondered what to do with this expose. I could not connect the dots. Anger, disgust, compassion, hatred, longing, fear, relief, horror, confusion..everything but mourning. Glad that he no longer struggled. Thankful there would be no more victims of his addiction. Undaunted by the task of viewing and identifying his body the next morning, knowing that would be the last time I would have to see my father on this earth.
I found my way to his shower and peeled off my clothing. A pervasive dirtiness that could not be washed away was impervious to the soap and shampoo. My heart was weighed down by it as I crawled into bed, and there was a heaviness on my chest as I tried to breathe. Daddy was dead now, his addicition thrown off. Cast off as his body was. That was the only peace I found as sleep finally overcame the aching tiredness of my body.
Forty. There were forty. That he could remember! Forty lives forever changed. Some were young adults. Others were children from the neighborhood, family members, children of friends, kids he had been trusted to baby sit. The youngest was four. No little boy or young adult male had been safe with my father. His two arrests were only the tip of the iceberg. His revelations of indiscretions included the process by which he would secure relationships with children he molested. Daddy told of a young woman in the neighborhood who was outside often with her son. Daddy made a point of stopping by on one of those sunny afternoons in order to discover the woman's situation. Her boy was all she had. Needed help with chores. My father was happy to help. Caught in his web, her child his prey, my father went on to describe how easy it was to be with the young mother's son alone. Set-up after degrading set-up was revealed. It seems my father was always looking for his golden opportunity.
Replete with descriptions of the actual sexual pleasure he received from some of these encounters, nauseating revelations assaulted me. Even in the retelling of his sexual exploits, it was clear that my father had no real clarity about how his actions were affecting his victims. He described a young child's behavior as "precocious," as if the child could make a decision about his relationship with my father. In his effort to be as honest as possible, the rawness of Daddy's recollections spewed visuals across the pages of his purgings that could only barely be digested. His first conquest began shortly after his own molestation. A boy in his own neighborhood who was slightly younger than the adolescent Jim became his first sexual liason, and it lasted for several years. The army provided other opportunities for his homosexual exploration. Homosexuality and pedophilia were habits of mind and a covert way of life for Daddy by the time he married my mother. Not a day went by, he would later tell me, that he did not long for the company of boys. Craving the love of a man, the fragrance of a father, the praise of a male parent, my father was forever an adolescent heart seeking comfort for his woundedness and bloodying others in the process.
My initial reaction to what I tried to digest from the confessions of my father was a certain awe that we, his family, could have been so betrayed; then, that my father was pathological in his flagrant use of so many others. I wanted to correct if for the forty. Make it go away. How naive of us to think that the only times he had molested children were the times when he was caught! Of course, he had had a life-long addiction.
Secondarily, but rushing in and tripping over the heels of my first thoughts, was disgust. How could he do that? I could not understand his mind! To plot evil and draw innocence into its trap is heinous. The lack of cognizance in Daddy's confessions was crushing. Pedophilia was so integral to his interior landscape that he had to be "reminded" by a court of law and a psycho-therapist that it is wrong!
Copious notes from my father's journal were devoted to answering many times in various ways questions about how his victims must have felt. With great difficulty and minimal clarity at first, Daddy tried to understand how the molested must have reacted. His thinking was oblique, as though some large area of his heart and mind had petrified over the years, making penetration impossible. I could only compare it to losing a thought that could not be conjured again though its retrieval is concentrated upon vigorously. He could not remember what it felt like to be the victim; only the power in being the exploiter. When answering the questions posed by the therapist on this issue, my father's notes became stilted, passionless, as if he were copying down what she told him to write so that he could go back over the notes later and try to decipher their meaning.
Astonishingly, one of Daddy's major purposes for recovery, as stated in his notes, was so that he could have a relationship with his great grandsons, my grandchildren! That gave him heart to move forward. Never would there be a time, had Daddy lived, that he would have been allowed that privilege. Again, his vision was blurred by his inability to face the mirror that reflected to him what was evident to those who possessed clarity. Still he would say to me, " I am what you say I am," as though I pronounced him to be a homosexual pedophile. The two years worth of expurgatory notes suggested that my father was trying to own his addiction - a good step toward healing; a good, first step.
Finally, I laid the black notebook back on Daddy's desk. His life was completely redefined by the words written in his effort to be honest about himself. Sighing deeply, I leaned back in his desk chair and wondered what to do with this expose. I could not connect the dots. Anger, disgust, compassion, hatred, longing, fear, relief, horror, confusion..everything but mourning. Glad that he no longer struggled. Thankful there would be no more victims of his addiction. Undaunted by the task of viewing and identifying his body the next morning, knowing that would be the last time I would have to see my father on this earth.
I found my way to his shower and peeled off my clothing. A pervasive dirtiness that could not be washed away was impervious to the soap and shampoo. My heart was weighed down by it as I crawled into bed, and there was a heaviness on my chest as I tried to breathe. Daddy was dead now, his addicition thrown off. Cast off as his body was. That was the only peace I found as sleep finally overcame the aching tiredness of my body.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
2003
Facedown on the motel carpet, desperate, great heaving sobs poured out of me as some dam burst, the waters of which had been backing up for years. Marlana had met me there. I had essentially run away from home because I did not know what else to do. I told Bill I did not love him anymore, crushing him with a revelation he had already suspected. I left with a little suitcase and called my friend, Marlana, when I had finished driving aimlessly around and decided to check into a motel. For the two hours it took my friend to come to my rescue, I sat stunned on the edge of the bed. How had my life come to this? I had soul-cancer. Some treacherous malignancy had been slowly devouring my life.
It seemed to me as I sat there on that particular Sunday afternoon in the spring of 2003 that I would either choose to live or die. This cancer had a root, undefined by me in specifics; generally, I knew it took hold of my soul in 1985 in what Marlana aptly called my "train wreck." It had been my choice not to adequately deal with my mother's willing death and my father's first arrest at the time it all happened. I had no idea how to even think about it, and I was the mother of three children who needed me to be strong. How could I spend months in therapy when I had to much to do? So, I put it away - the dealing with it.
That was a mistake. I kept telling myself that someday I would have time for myself and then I could try to make sense of the chaos - ease the constant subliminal ache. So, in this dreadful moment I found myself emptied and pitiful; a sheep caught in the brambles - a predicament of my own making. I had not wandered off aimlessly, but deliberately. Thought I could manage on my own. Did not know extricating myself from the thorns would be almost impossible. Almost.
With the knock on the motel room door came the beginning of my clarity and sanity. Marlana had been praying with me and for me for several months. Ironically, she was a Christian because I had shared my faith with her years before when I was her high school teacher. Marlana was now the mother of four grown children, and she had only recently moved to Southern California for a year with her husband, who was in the military.
My friend strode through the open door with her Bible in hand and a resolute look on her face. This was the moment for which she had been waiting - when the prodigal realizes she is in the slop with the pigs and she needs to go home. She loved me and had a much better understanding of my predicament than I did. Marlana brought hope into the room with her and set about making certain that she poured it all over me.
"You need to forgive everyone who has hurt you, Kay, speaking to each of them as if they are here in the room with you," she began.
Initially that sounded both silly and embarrassing - this talking to people who were not there, with Marlana listening in on the pretended conversation.
"There is great freedom in forgiveness," she went on. "It sets you free when you forgive."
"Marlana, at this point, there are so many people who need to forgive me," I replied. "I don't know if I can do this."
"If you don't, you will die spiritually, Kay; so, let's get started." No argument.
My friend instructed me to lie facedown, prone on the floor. She sat down beside me as I cradled my head in my crossed arms in front of me.
"Pretend your father is before you right now and tell him how he has hurt you," was her command.
"I can't start with Daddy," I said as an uncanny fear clutched at me. I thought I might drown or break. That there would be some emotional cascading from which I might not emerge whole.
"Then let's start with God!"
What? Start with God? The thought was so preposterous I could not even argue. What would I have to forgive God for? I could only raise my head in wonder at Marlana.
"You're mad at Him." No doubt registering in her voice or on her face.
I put my had back down on my arms and thought about that very carefully. Who could be so brazen as to shake a fist in the face of God? The audacity of the thought was abashing to me. Sure, my friends had died young, leaving behind husbands and children. I had tried to understand that. I had tried to give God the benefit of the doubt. And Mother. All the years of suppressing hurt and storing offenses had finally manifested itself in a life she felt was no longer worth living. Then there was Daddy - arrested a second time. Maybe I could at least ask: "Where were you, God?" I started with that.
"Where were you, God?"
A great sob took my breath away and made my body heave. I almost vomited the words they so ached to be said. "Where were you when my friends died? Do you kill your children?"
This was loud! I heard myself, yet could not control it. I was profoundly angry with my God and had not known the extent of it. The eruption was scary - too visceral -but once flowing, was not possible to stop. It was not accusation, but a plea to understand. To know the unknowable. I brought before God each moment I had tried to give my friends some comfort because I felt I had failed them, too. It took literally hours for me to purge the ugly stream of offense that I harbored toward God. Why had He taken Mother and left us to deal with Daddy? I saw her hopeless, jaundiced face and wizened little body sitting at the dinner table announcing her decision to die and railed at the necessity! The lovely faces of my friends as they had been in life - vibrant and expressive - paraded into the crucible that this experience had become. "And Becky, Lord! And Cathette!" I cried out. "How could you be good and still take them so young?"
Emptying. Years of garbage had sullied my interior landscape. When I thought I could not shed more tears, it was time to talk to a vicarious Daddy. The real Daddy would not listen. This one had to. Still, I was reticent, fearing my body would relent again and sicken me before I could express to a phantom father the fathomless, bottomless pain he had caused. I had to imagine him for a while before I could address him. He needed a certain expression that my heart waited to see.
"I hate you!" I was not expecting that! It blew out of my mouth! "I hate that I came from your body!" Shame. I had taken on shame! I did not know that. "I am ashamed that you are my father!"
Too flooded with emotion, too choked by tears, it was several minutes before I could compose myself enough to speak again. Beginning with the incomprehensible neglect of Mother's heart when we picked him up from jail, listening to Daddy wail, his voice keening out of control, professing to love the boy he had molested, I let this father have it! Like the breaking open of a puss-filled infection, my feelings spewed with the stench created by years of festering, untreated, unaired grievances and unforgiveness. Finally I could say it! To him! It seemed only minutes had passed, but when I looked up, red-faced and spent, at Marlana, it was midnight.
"You need to forgive him, now," she said gently.
He seemed pitiful to me by the time I had finished. Conjuring his face once more, I said, "I forgive you, Daddy."
I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. "And you will no longer be able to affect my life. I release you." And it was gone, like a kite my hands had let go of or a balloon floating free, all the angst and deadly sense of responsibility I had carried for twenty years! I felt unplugged from the source of the energy that had fueled my rebellion, void of the need to run away. My hands had been manacled and my mouth covered, and I had been desperately trying to escape. The placebo I had run to had only created further captivity and pain. Untangling would be slow and excruciating, I knew; but, there was light, finally.
"You know, you have a Father," Marlana was saying.
I was sitting now, taking deep breaths and trying to synthesize my experience. "Yes," I said. "I know."
Then it was my turn to beg forgiveness like a beggar begs for bread. I had hurt and disappointed my God, my family and many others who loved me. I cried out from my sin-parched spirit for newness. I understood in that moment why God does not forgive us if we do not forgive others. How could I ask His mercy for my deplorable actions yet hold others accountable for theirs? Given the right circumstances, it seems we are all capable of anything. I trusted in those long moments of confession that my God forgave me. It would be many arduous months, though, before I could gain the spiritual strength lost in my wilderness. I had gone a long way out; it was a long way back.
It seemed to me as I sat there on that particular Sunday afternoon in the spring of 2003 that I would either choose to live or die. This cancer had a root, undefined by me in specifics; generally, I knew it took hold of my soul in 1985 in what Marlana aptly called my "train wreck." It had been my choice not to adequately deal with my mother's willing death and my father's first arrest at the time it all happened. I had no idea how to even think about it, and I was the mother of three children who needed me to be strong. How could I spend months in therapy when I had to much to do? So, I put it away - the dealing with it.
That was a mistake. I kept telling myself that someday I would have time for myself and then I could try to make sense of the chaos - ease the constant subliminal ache. So, in this dreadful moment I found myself emptied and pitiful; a sheep caught in the brambles - a predicament of my own making. I had not wandered off aimlessly, but deliberately. Thought I could manage on my own. Did not know extricating myself from the thorns would be almost impossible. Almost.
With the knock on the motel room door came the beginning of my clarity and sanity. Marlana had been praying with me and for me for several months. Ironically, she was a Christian because I had shared my faith with her years before when I was her high school teacher. Marlana was now the mother of four grown children, and she had only recently moved to Southern California for a year with her husband, who was in the military.
My friend strode through the open door with her Bible in hand and a resolute look on her face. This was the moment for which she had been waiting - when the prodigal realizes she is in the slop with the pigs and she needs to go home. She loved me and had a much better understanding of my predicament than I did. Marlana brought hope into the room with her and set about making certain that she poured it all over me.
"You need to forgive everyone who has hurt you, Kay, speaking to each of them as if they are here in the room with you," she began.
Initially that sounded both silly and embarrassing - this talking to people who were not there, with Marlana listening in on the pretended conversation.
"There is great freedom in forgiveness," she went on. "It sets you free when you forgive."
"Marlana, at this point, there are so many people who need to forgive me," I replied. "I don't know if I can do this."
"If you don't, you will die spiritually, Kay; so, let's get started." No argument.
My friend instructed me to lie facedown, prone on the floor. She sat down beside me as I cradled my head in my crossed arms in front of me.
"Pretend your father is before you right now and tell him how he has hurt you," was her command.
"I can't start with Daddy," I said as an uncanny fear clutched at me. I thought I might drown or break. That there would be some emotional cascading from which I might not emerge whole.
"Then let's start with God!"
What? Start with God? The thought was so preposterous I could not even argue. What would I have to forgive God for? I could only raise my head in wonder at Marlana.
"You're mad at Him." No doubt registering in her voice or on her face.
I put my had back down on my arms and thought about that very carefully. Who could be so brazen as to shake a fist in the face of God? The audacity of the thought was abashing to me. Sure, my friends had died young, leaving behind husbands and children. I had tried to understand that. I had tried to give God the benefit of the doubt. And Mother. All the years of suppressing hurt and storing offenses had finally manifested itself in a life she felt was no longer worth living. Then there was Daddy - arrested a second time. Maybe I could at least ask: "Where were you, God?" I started with that.
"Where were you, God?"
A great sob took my breath away and made my body heave. I almost vomited the words they so ached to be said. "Where were you when my friends died? Do you kill your children?"
This was loud! I heard myself, yet could not control it. I was profoundly angry with my God and had not known the extent of it. The eruption was scary - too visceral -but once flowing, was not possible to stop. It was not accusation, but a plea to understand. To know the unknowable. I brought before God each moment I had tried to give my friends some comfort because I felt I had failed them, too. It took literally hours for me to purge the ugly stream of offense that I harbored toward God. Why had He taken Mother and left us to deal with Daddy? I saw her hopeless, jaundiced face and wizened little body sitting at the dinner table announcing her decision to die and railed at the necessity! The lovely faces of my friends as they had been in life - vibrant and expressive - paraded into the crucible that this experience had become. "And Becky, Lord! And Cathette!" I cried out. "How could you be good and still take them so young?"
Emptying. Years of garbage had sullied my interior landscape. When I thought I could not shed more tears, it was time to talk to a vicarious Daddy. The real Daddy would not listen. This one had to. Still, I was reticent, fearing my body would relent again and sicken me before I could express to a phantom father the fathomless, bottomless pain he had caused. I had to imagine him for a while before I could address him. He needed a certain expression that my heart waited to see.
"I hate you!" I was not expecting that! It blew out of my mouth! "I hate that I came from your body!" Shame. I had taken on shame! I did not know that. "I am ashamed that you are my father!"
Too flooded with emotion, too choked by tears, it was several minutes before I could compose myself enough to speak again. Beginning with the incomprehensible neglect of Mother's heart when we picked him up from jail, listening to Daddy wail, his voice keening out of control, professing to love the boy he had molested, I let this father have it! Like the breaking open of a puss-filled infection, my feelings spewed with the stench created by years of festering, untreated, unaired grievances and unforgiveness. Finally I could say it! To him! It seemed only minutes had passed, but when I looked up, red-faced and spent, at Marlana, it was midnight.
"You need to forgive him, now," she said gently.
He seemed pitiful to me by the time I had finished. Conjuring his face once more, I said, "I forgive you, Daddy."
I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. "And you will no longer be able to affect my life. I release you." And it was gone, like a kite my hands had let go of or a balloon floating free, all the angst and deadly sense of responsibility I had carried for twenty years! I felt unplugged from the source of the energy that had fueled my rebellion, void of the need to run away. My hands had been manacled and my mouth covered, and I had been desperately trying to escape. The placebo I had run to had only created further captivity and pain. Untangling would be slow and excruciating, I knew; but, there was light, finally.
"You know, you have a Father," Marlana was saying.
I was sitting now, taking deep breaths and trying to synthesize my experience. "Yes," I said. "I know."
Then it was my turn to beg forgiveness like a beggar begs for bread. I had hurt and disappointed my God, my family and many others who loved me. I cried out from my sin-parched spirit for newness. I understood in that moment why God does not forgive us if we do not forgive others. How could I ask His mercy for my deplorable actions yet hold others accountable for theirs? Given the right circumstances, it seems we are all capable of anything. I trusted in those long moments of confession that my God forgave me. It would be many arduous months, though, before I could gain the spiritual strength lost in my wilderness. I had gone a long way out; it was a long way back.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
2007
My phone rang early in the afternoon and my sister was on the other end of the line. The message was that Daddy's health was failing quickly, and if I wanted to see him before he died, I should probably make plans to fly to Texas. At the close of our conversation, my stomach went sick - to that place it had gone for years when I thought of seeing Daddy. Too much unsaid - too much unresolved with no closure. Since my father's second arrest, I had only called him once - Christmas two years before. That had proven to be, emotionally, a mistake for me.
My friend who joined us for Christmas dinner also has a difficult father. Not a felon, but verbally abusive. She had called her father and asked me if I had called Daddy, who was in the hospital following hip replacement surgery. I was encouraged by guilt to call him up. It took all my mustered courage to punch the numbers into the phone. Daddy's friend, Jesse, had made me aware of the hospital and room number where Daddy was convaslescing.
A feeble "hello" was my reward.
"Merry Christmas, Daddy!" I paused. "It's Kay, Daddy."
"Oh, hello, Kay."
"How are you? I understand you fell at home."
"Yes," was the groggy reply. "Phil found me -got me help."
I was trying to picture how that worked, as Daddy weighed close to three hundred pounds.
"I'm very glad he was there, Daddy." There was a long, awkward pause. "Well, I just called to wish you a Merry Christmas."
"Well, thanks. I almost forgot it is Christmas. It has been a difficult day." He waited for me to ask why, but I did not. He went on anyway. "I got up to go to the restroom with the help of the orderlies. The regular staff isn't here today, so I had to depend on temporary staffing. The guys were trying to help me walk to the restroom when I fell on top of one of the orderlies." Here his voice breaks and my heart goes out to him for a moment. It must have been embarrassing and painful to fall again.
"The nurses had to come and help me off of the young man. He couldn't move; they took him away on a gurney." Pause. He's crying. "I can't believe God's love for me that the young man was there to cushion my fall." Now he's crying hard.
I am stunned into silence. The young man cushioned his fall? My gut reaction was nausea. Oh, my God! It's all about him! It's always all about him. All I could see was this poor young orderly lying motionless on the floor, my father atop him, and my father thanking God that it was the young man and not he who was hurt.
"Is...is the young man going to okay, Daddy?" incredulity ringing in the question.
"Oh, I don't know," snuffling up his crying snot. "They took him to x-ray, I suppose." Hadn't thought about it. Consumed with himself. I could only hope he was talking through some vicodin-induced haze. Suddenly, I did not want to talk any more.
"I have to go, Daddy. Take care."
"Good-bye, Kay."
In order to see my dying father in August of 2007, I booked a flight to Texas for Monday afternoon to return on Tuesday night. When I arrived at DFW airport late Monday evening, I was filled with consternation and I was achingly tired. Since I only had a small carry-on bag, I went immediately to the shuttle that transports travelers to the rental car area. I wanted nothing more than fast food and a good long hot bath. It was already after eight in the evening when I passed through the sliding glass doors and into the Enterprise rental queue. Although the line was set up for many people to inch through the maze of temporary rows, I was the lone customer dragging my baggage to the counter. After all the paper work was completed, the nervous young man facilitating me informed me that they were actually "all out of cars right now." What?
"I'll take any kind of vehicle you have," I said, rubbing my face so hard I smeared my blush into my mascara. I did not have time for this - or patience.
"We'll have one up for you in just a couple minutes, ma'am. You can wait outside by that curb," pointing toward "that" curb.
It was still ninety degrees outside - this was Dallas summertime, for crying out loud! The other lone passenger, from Chicago, I learned, was waiting for the other car that was not there. He was interesting and all, but after about ten minutes with not one or two cars coming screeching to the curb, we quizzed the nervous, and now sweaty, young man concerning the whereabouts of the Cadillacs we both now felt we deserved. Assured they would be there in a couple of minutes, we waited and perspired for another thirty.
It was after nine p.m. when I finally turned the ignition switch of a car that was definitely not a Cadillac, and with much relief, headed toward the Motel 6 in Arlington. I don't really know how I ran out of fast food places at which I could have stopped; but, I wound up at a drive-up window for a Long John Silver's that was connected to a gas station. I took my fish platter to the motel and sat on the bed, eating it cold. The bath was nice; I tried to read; I went to bed; I turned out the light; and, I stayed awake all night thinking about seeing my father.
At nine the next morning, I made my way to the hospital. What would I say? What would I feel? What would he say and feel? Would my stomach remind me of our unfinished business and writhe and churn and send me rushing to the bathroom? Could I do this meeting with the grace for which I had prayed, knowing that it was surely important to my father? My sisters had been seeing him and caring for him on and off for weeks. I knew I had to step up, but my mind could not create the scene before it happened; so, I could get no peace all night. Life does not walk backwards from the end of a thing to the beginning. So I stepped through the elevator doors and into my father's hospital room with trepidation.
By God's grace, I had a minute to take in the room and my father in his bed, for he was asleep. There was a large breathing tube in his mouth that was generously pumping life into his lungs and some extraneous beeping that I know made sense to the doctors, but was more background noise for me. As I came nearer to the bed, I felt an unexpected catch in my chest, a stifled sob. In that moment I was wishing for the Daddy I had known before this man came along. I could pretend this was my girlhood Daddy if I didn't wake him up. His hands were blue and bruised from the intravenous tube carrying fluid to his body, and his false teeth were not in his mouth. He did not know that I was coming, but he had expressed to my sisters that when he saw me he would be ready to go "home."
Standing over him then, I had a sense of peace. I felt very sorry for him for all he had lost in the last twenty-five years, but, there was no anger or unforgiveness, only a detached, vague desire to see the "old" daddy for a few minutes. Gingerly, I touched the crepe-like skin of his arm. Slowly he opened his heavy eyelids and caught his breath. His eyes filled with tears and a small whine escaped from him. I leaned across his body and maneuvered around the breathing apparatus to hug Daddy. He could not speak very clearly with the tube in his throat, but he managed to give me what I know was a speech he had been rehearsing in his mind and heart in the anticipation that he would see me before he died. In an effort not to forget one single word, he made sure he said it all before I left his embrace.
"Oh, Kay. You came!" He took a deep breath. His voice was raspy. "Can you ever forgive me? I am so sorry, Kay. I love you. You are my precious daughter. I have three precious daughters. And I love Bill and Heather, Vanessa and Will." Taking a breath. "Please forgive me."
"I forgive you, Daddy. I did that a long time ago. It was not me you sinned against."
"I know. But I have made my life right with God, and I know He has forgiven me, and I am just so thankful that He allowed you to come to me. Everything will be all right now. I have seen my three daughters."
I relaxed my embrace and he took a deep breath and lay back, calm now, on his pillow. All anxiety now drained from my body. I moved a chair close to his bed and took his purple hand in mine. He really wanted me to touch him the entire time I was there; he wanted physical contact. My sisters had expressed that they had the same experience. He was hungry for the love of his children, expressed. He seemed to want to take that comfort actually into himself somehow; let it premeate his soul and accompany him into eternity.
In order to see my dying father
My friend who joined us for Christmas dinner also has a difficult father. Not a felon, but verbally abusive. She had called her father and asked me if I had called Daddy, who was in the hospital following hip replacement surgery. I was encouraged by guilt to call him up. It took all my mustered courage to punch the numbers into the phone. Daddy's friend, Jesse, had made me aware of the hospital and room number where Daddy was convaslescing.
A feeble "hello" was my reward.
"Merry Christmas, Daddy!" I paused. "It's Kay, Daddy."
"Oh, hello, Kay."
"How are you? I understand you fell at home."
"Yes," was the groggy reply. "Phil found me -got me help."
I was trying to picture how that worked, as Daddy weighed close to three hundred pounds.
"I'm very glad he was there, Daddy." There was a long, awkward pause. "Well, I just called to wish you a Merry Christmas."
"Well, thanks. I almost forgot it is Christmas. It has been a difficult day." He waited for me to ask why, but I did not. He went on anyway. "I got up to go to the restroom with the help of the orderlies. The regular staff isn't here today, so I had to depend on temporary staffing. The guys were trying to help me walk to the restroom when I fell on top of one of the orderlies." Here his voice breaks and my heart goes out to him for a moment. It must have been embarrassing and painful to fall again.
"The nurses had to come and help me off of the young man. He couldn't move; they took him away on a gurney." Pause. He's crying. "I can't believe God's love for me that the young man was there to cushion my fall." Now he's crying hard.
I am stunned into silence. The young man cushioned his fall? My gut reaction was nausea. Oh, my God! It's all about him! It's always all about him. All I could see was this poor young orderly lying motionless on the floor, my father atop him, and my father thanking God that it was the young man and not he who was hurt.
"Is...is the young man going to okay, Daddy?" incredulity ringing in the question.
"Oh, I don't know," snuffling up his crying snot. "They took him to x-ray, I suppose." Hadn't thought about it. Consumed with himself. I could only hope he was talking through some vicodin-induced haze. Suddenly, I did not want to talk any more.
"I have to go, Daddy. Take care."
"Good-bye, Kay."
In order to see my dying father in August of 2007, I booked a flight to Texas for Monday afternoon to return on Tuesday night. When I arrived at DFW airport late Monday evening, I was filled with consternation and I was achingly tired. Since I only had a small carry-on bag, I went immediately to the shuttle that transports travelers to the rental car area. I wanted nothing more than fast food and a good long hot bath. It was already after eight in the evening when I passed through the sliding glass doors and into the Enterprise rental queue. Although the line was set up for many people to inch through the maze of temporary rows, I was the lone customer dragging my baggage to the counter. After all the paper work was completed, the nervous young man facilitating me informed me that they were actually "all out of cars right now." What?
"I'll take any kind of vehicle you have," I said, rubbing my face so hard I smeared my blush into my mascara. I did not have time for this - or patience.
"We'll have one up for you in just a couple minutes, ma'am. You can wait outside by that curb," pointing toward "that" curb.
It was still ninety degrees outside - this was Dallas summertime, for crying out loud! The other lone passenger, from Chicago, I learned, was waiting for the other car that was not there. He was interesting and all, but after about ten minutes with not one or two cars coming screeching to the curb, we quizzed the nervous, and now sweaty, young man concerning the whereabouts of the Cadillacs we both now felt we deserved. Assured they would be there in a couple of minutes, we waited and perspired for another thirty.
It was after nine p.m. when I finally turned the ignition switch of a car that was definitely not a Cadillac, and with much relief, headed toward the Motel 6 in Arlington. I don't really know how I ran out of fast food places at which I could have stopped; but, I wound up at a drive-up window for a Long John Silver's that was connected to a gas station. I took my fish platter to the motel and sat on the bed, eating it cold. The bath was nice; I tried to read; I went to bed; I turned out the light; and, I stayed awake all night thinking about seeing my father.
At nine the next morning, I made my way to the hospital. What would I say? What would I feel? What would he say and feel? Would my stomach remind me of our unfinished business and writhe and churn and send me rushing to the bathroom? Could I do this meeting with the grace for which I had prayed, knowing that it was surely important to my father? My sisters had been seeing him and caring for him on and off for weeks. I knew I had to step up, but my mind could not create the scene before it happened; so, I could get no peace all night. Life does not walk backwards from the end of a thing to the beginning. So I stepped through the elevator doors and into my father's hospital room with trepidation.
By God's grace, I had a minute to take in the room and my father in his bed, for he was asleep. There was a large breathing tube in his mouth that was generously pumping life into his lungs and some extraneous beeping that I know made sense to the doctors, but was more background noise for me. As I came nearer to the bed, I felt an unexpected catch in my chest, a stifled sob. In that moment I was wishing for the Daddy I had known before this man came along. I could pretend this was my girlhood Daddy if I didn't wake him up. His hands were blue and bruised from the intravenous tube carrying fluid to his body, and his false teeth were not in his mouth. He did not know that I was coming, but he had expressed to my sisters that when he saw me he would be ready to go "home."
Standing over him then, I had a sense of peace. I felt very sorry for him for all he had lost in the last twenty-five years, but, there was no anger or unforgiveness, only a detached, vague desire to see the "old" daddy for a few minutes. Gingerly, I touched the crepe-like skin of his arm. Slowly he opened his heavy eyelids and caught his breath. His eyes filled with tears and a small whine escaped from him. I leaned across his body and maneuvered around the breathing apparatus to hug Daddy. He could not speak very clearly with the tube in his throat, but he managed to give me what I know was a speech he had been rehearsing in his mind and heart in the anticipation that he would see me before he died. In an effort not to forget one single word, he made sure he said it all before I left his embrace.
"Oh, Kay. You came!" He took a deep breath. His voice was raspy. "Can you ever forgive me? I am so sorry, Kay. I love you. You are my precious daughter. I have three precious daughters. And I love Bill and Heather, Vanessa and Will." Taking a breath. "Please forgive me."
"I forgive you, Daddy. I did that a long time ago. It was not me you sinned against."
"I know. But I have made my life right with God, and I know He has forgiven me, and I am just so thankful that He allowed you to come to me. Everything will be all right now. I have seen my three daughters."
I relaxed my embrace and he took a deep breath and lay back, calm now, on his pillow. All anxiety now drained from my body. I moved a chair close to his bed and took his purple hand in mine. He really wanted me to touch him the entire time I was there; he wanted physical contact. My sisters had expressed that they had the same experience. He was hungry for the love of his children, expressed. He seemed to want to take that comfort actually into himself somehow; let it premeate his soul and accompany him into eternity.
In order to see my dying father
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