Wednesday, January 15, 2014

We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it

My aunt shared a picture of my father, Big Pete, on Facebook recently.  I can't include it here, because to get permission to do so would open up a huge can of worms.

My father has Parkinsons with dementia.  I haven't spoken with him since 2009, when he turned 70.  Well, that's not exactly true; my aunt called me one day and put him on the phone, but I don't count that.  He didn't know who I was, and I hung up.  We haven't seen each other since...I don't know, to be honest.  I moved to South Carolina in 2006, so it was sometime before that.

We've been estranged for a long time, Big Pete and I.  It's difficult to explain.  We couldn't be who the other wanted, I think that sums it up.  I think we both wanted unconditional love, but were unable to give it to the other.

I told a friend a few years ago that we were estranged because "I was tired of beating my head against a brick wall...and Big Pete was tired of being the brick wall."

One thing Big Pete and I have in common is alcoholism.  I could blame that on him too, except he never once set me down and poured drinks down my throat.  My alcoholism is my alcoholism, and I'm dealing with it.

It's easy to blame Big Pete for everything else, though.  He really was a terrible father.  He wasn't violent, he wasn't abusive...he was just absent.  Even before the divorce, he was absent.  I wasn't on his radar.  I wasn't important.

*When I was in my mid-twenties, I was in Indianapolis visiting.  I stayed at his house.  It must have been before I married my first husband, because it was just us.  We were both drinking...and this was the only time Big Pete talked to me about his childhood.

His father, Grandpa Pete, had asked Grandma Ethel for a divorce around Thanksgiving.  Grandma had already been getting sick with what was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and this was the final tip she needed to sail into the abyss.  Grandma Ethel was committed to the State Mental Hospital in November of 1953.  Big Pete was 14, Lennie was 7 and Debbie was 3.

In December of the same year, just before Christmas, Grandpa Pete had to go into the hospital for surgery - as I understand it, he had an ulcer that perforated.  School was out, and Big Pete was in charge of the kids. Grandpa Pete's girlfriend checked in on them occasionally, but for the most part, it was Big Pete in charge of everything.  Grandpa Pete had not told my Grandma Ethel's family what was going on.

Big Pete told me that a neighbor lady asked him where the adults were.  She was concerned.  He told them that everything was okay - his parents were in the hospital but they'd be home soon.

He was worried about Christmas, though.  He knew that Santa Claus wasn't real, that it was really his parents.  How could he make Christmas for his brother and sister?

He told me that he woke up on Christmas Eve, and made breakfast...then cleaned the kitchen.

My imagination always fills this part in; I've seen pictures of my father when he was 14, wearing a plaid shirt with an earnest expression on his face.  I've also eaten his cooking.  I picture him soaking a pan in the sink with burnt oatmeal.  I picture him in a plaid shirt, earnestly sweeping the floor.

There was a knock on the door.  He opened it, and Aunt Teenie and Aunt Betty were at the door.  Aunt Virginia was coming up the walk with Gramma Hayes.

My grandfather died of complications of surgery on December 26, 1953.  When I was 35, and my maternal grandfather died, Big Pete reminisced about his father's funeral; Grandpa Pete's sisters came and looted the house, taking Grandpa Pete's coin collection and even the kids' toys.*

The part between the asterisks is all that Big Pete has told me (minus the part about my imagination).  The rest of the story I've gleaned from other relatives, or lived through.

The aunts and Gramma Hayes came on Christmas Eve and took them to Aunt Betty's house.  After the funeral, when they realized that they had to make permanent arrangements, Big Pete and Debbie stayed with Aunt Betty, while Lennie went to Aunt Virginia.

Unfortunately, Aunt Virginia's husband didn't want another little boy in their house...they already had a son, Russell.  So Lennie went to Gramma Hayes.  Debbie went to Aunt Virginia's house.

My parents married in 1960, and I was born in March 1961.  My brother, Pete, was born in 1964.  That was the same year that Gramma Ethel was discharged from the state mental hospital, and went to live with Aunt Teenie.

Debbie came to live with us in 1964 also.  This is how the story was given to me.

Mom took Debbie shopping for an Easter outfit.  If I recall the story correctly, it would have been Debbie's first "grownup" dress, her first stockings, her first "this is for you and you only" outfit.

When we picked her up for Easter Services, she was dressed as usual...not the outfit that Mom had helped her pick out.  Debbie told Mom and Big Pete that Aunt Virginia had decided that Debbie didn't need a new outfit and had returned it.

Debbie came to live with us.

How does this relate to "we will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it"?

Truth is relative.  I've told my husband, Scott, about the times that Big Pete wasn't there for me.  But I haven't told him about that 14 year old boy who was sweeping the kitchen floor just before he found out that his family had completely fallen apart.  My husband doesn't understand how I can grieve for my father.

My father loved me the best he could.  I've loved him the best I could.  We have both failed, tried, struggled.  My father doesn't know me now.  I probably never knew him.  Because to me,he will always be that 14 year old boy in the plaid shirt, feeding his brother and sister burnt oatmeal, and then cleaning the kitchen.

I love you, Daddy.










Sunday, January 12, 2014

Fear and Fearlessness

All my life I've been afraid of everything.  Afraid of failing, afraid that people wouldn't like me, afraid I wasn't pretty enough, smart enought, good enought, just generally good enough.

I'm still afraid of a lot of those things (especially the spiders, but as long as there's a sturdy shoe handy, I can live with that.)  But I'm really working on getting over the other fears.

When I was younger I wrote a lot, and wanted to be a writer.  When I was a teenager, I wrote a lot of poetry - I think writing poetry was actually a requirement to be a teenager and one of the few things I did "correctly".

So this blog is to try to help me over-come some of my fears.  Maybe to stop worrying so much about what other people thing about me, and worry more about what I think about myself.  I was explaining to someone earlier this year that I seem to spend all my time trying to please people.

"If I'd lived in France during World War II, I would have been shot as a collaborator," I told her.

That's not a happy realization to come to.

I've also described myself as a little blue smurf in a heavily red state - a liberal in South Carolina.  I've smiled sweetly while listening to conversations that just appalled me.  I don't want to completely swing the other way and turn into someone who starts foaming at the mouth and screaming my opinions at the top of my lungs, but neither do I want to stay silent with an idiotic grin on my face, hoping that no one will sense my liberalism and rip me limb from limb.  (I'm pretty sure they don't say "Bless your heart" when they realize they're harboring a viper in their bosom.  "Carpetbagging Yankee is one of the nicer epithets I've heard, as they start heating the tar.)

So we'll see what happens, as I work on over coming my fears.

So I hope to over come my fear of writing badly...because one has to write badly before one can write well.  I hope to over come my fear of weaving badly....because one has to weave badly before one can weave well.  I hope to overcome my fear of standing up for what I believe in andi not just smile idiotically just in order to keep the peace...because sometimes peace is over-rated and well behaved women never make history.

At least it should be an interesting journey!



Friday, January 10, 2014

Abandoned Child Part 2

Of course, the previous post doesn't explain how I ended up in South Carolina either.  I'll explain that at length some other time, but here I am.  I moved down here in 2006.  In that short time, I have learned to mash buttons, refer to a shopping cart as a buggy, converted from a cat person to a dog person (okay, that part isn't required to assimilate in the south), eat grits and watch NASCAR.  There may be some other things going on, but I choose to ignore them.  Or I claim that's how we did things in Indiana, so it doesn't apply towards my assimilation.

But I've come out of this with some sort Southern Borg name - I think I'm 4 out of 8 or something like that. Mostly because I don't drink Sweet Tea, I never remember when is the correct time to say "Bless your heart", the idea of matching my shoes to my pocketbook leaves me confused and bewildered, and while I know how to use "Y'all" properly (we use that in Indiana too), the rest of my accent stands out like a flat screechy note in the middle of Dixie.  23 years in Chicago and 23 years in Indianapolis will do terrible things to your speech patterns.

Luckily for me, the people down here are very kind, they bless my heart on occasion, but I believe they've gotten used to me.  Of course it helps that Mom, Daddy and Kristi have been down here for over 20 years, so they've paved the way for me.

But in some ways, as subsequent posts will show...I'll never assimilate completely I guess...

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Abandoned Child

I've never quite figures out how I ended up down here.  I was born in Indianapolis, but my parents dragged me (kicking and screaming, I might add) to Chicago my senior year of High School.  10 years after that, they moved with no forwarding address.

I always get strange looks when I tell people that, but it's true.  Daddy had already moved down here ("here", by the way, is Greenville, South Carolina), and Mom and my sister Kristi were to follow the movers down a week or so later.  So after the house in Crystal Lake was all packed up, Mom and Kristi spent the night with me and my husband...we all got up the next morning to wave good-bye to them...and as they pulled away from the curb, I realized I didn't have a phone number.

"Wait!  Wait!  I don't have your number!"  I screamed, chasing the car down the road.

"We don't have one!" Mom called out the window, still waving.

"I don't have your address!"

"We don't have one of those either!  We'll get in touch when we get settled!"

They did, of course, get a phone number and an address.  It wasn't like they had taken off in an RV, planning to drive around the interstates for the rest of their lives.  It's just that their house wasn't finished, and the street wasn't named, so there was no address.  Or phone number.

It was very lonely, though, until I heard from them again, especially since I had no family left in Chicago. They had all left me, one by one.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I had my brother and sister-in-law's address and phone number in Indianapolis at that time either.

No wonder I get depressed frequently.