The Decision, Part 3: Hardened Heart
11.26.07 (1:31 pm) [edit]
"Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt." ~ James Arthur BaldwinI did as my father asked and called Shannon. I left a message on his voice mail and he called me back a couple of days later.
Several months earlier, my father showed me a recent photograph of my half brother. He looked startlingly like my father. I wished that I had never seen the image. I wished that I could destroy the memory it created in my mind. When I heard Shannon's voice on my answering machine, I wished to obliterate the sound. Hearing it awakened all the old demons, the memories, the rage. The images unfurled themselves behind my open eyes. I hated him. I'd never met him, but I hated him.
Shannon's mother had taken my own mother's place in my house. She had attempted to make me treat her as my stepmother. Grace. Her name is Grace. Amazing how even typing the name is almost more than I can bear. If I hated him, I hate her a thousand times more.
I called him back and left another message. I told Shannon exactly how to get in touch with me. At that point, playing phone tag was a very expensive game for me. I needed to just get it done, get the contact over with so that I could get my father off my back. My illness left me with little energy to get through my day and the pressure was eating up all I had left. I was exhausted and enraged. I tumbled through flashback after flashback as I moved through my days.
Meanwhile, my father was still haranguing me about talking with Shannon. The only thing that would have made him happy was for me to get in my car and drive there, wait for him outside his house and have some big, fake happy family reunion with this person I'd never met. The more he goaded, the angrier I got.
I made myself clear. I called Shannon. I told him how to get in touch with me at work and at home. If he chose not to call, that made him a coward. You know, if you want to talk to me, then do it. Otherwise, leave me alone. This is what I told my father. I had done as he asked. I refused to pursue Shannon any further. The suggestion that I might made me want to set a building on fire and watch it burn.
My father dropped the issue for a while. Then he called me in the middle of a chaotic afternoon and demanded that I call again.
"No," I told him. "Not only will I not call him again, I don't want to hear from you, either. Ever."
My father was astounded. I'm certain he never expected to hear those words from me. I was prepared to enforce the separation. He continued to try to negotiate with me, but he'd finally gone too far. We ceased to have regular contact.
posted by: LadyG (reply)
post date: 11.26.07 (1:32 pm)
I am glad to hear that you stood up to him...
posted by: mineral blue (reply)
post date: 11.26.07 (6:07 pm)
This is the first time I have ever heard or seen a woman say that something made her (you) want to set a building on fire. I would like to share with you that for many years, I wanted to throw a molotov cocktail on my brother's house - on HIS side of the house - not his children's side. Once, in fact, I drove over there at 3 AM and simply sat outside, gazing at his bedroom window. Rage. I know it well. And rageful fantasies. You are not alone in this.
I wonder if you blame yourself for your father's decision to leave this world...
You & I both got the heck away from evil parentage. I had to get away from all 3 of my family members; else I felt I would have done as your father did. It was that bad.
However, it is also true that I did not only leave: they also sent me away. Specifically, in the summer of '83, my mother told me on the phone that she wanted no further contact with me for the rest of her life, unless or until I could and would say that no abuse ever happened in that family.
I once 'knew' that my father had somehow come close to death. I was at the university and one Tuesday, just after lunch & before finals, I 'saw' him in great pain. I stopped, as if literally & physically arrested. I waited. Listened. Felt. After several minutes, I knew he had been in great danger but that he now was alright. I considered calling to see, but decided to study instead. ;-)
Ten days later, upon arriving home, my mother was sitting over my father, who was on a couch in the living room, not looking well. She took me into the kitchen and said that on that last Tuesday, at about 1 PM, my father had had what he thought was a heart attack. He was terrified it would kill him. It was bad, but not quite that bad. I was struck by how much I 'knew' instinctively; and just when I knew it...
So, in his later years, & after many years of no contact between us whatsoever, sometimes I would stop. I would 'feel' my father. I 'saw' him sitting alone at night, in the darkness, way into the night, crying alone in his big chair in the living room. And I knew he was thinking of me. And that he was again feeling devastated. And that he could not be honest.
He never confirmed that he felt this way or that he would sit there alone, unable to sleep on many nights due to thinking of me, but I didn't need him to confirm it.
I know one more thing: if he hadn't remained married to my mother, my father would almost certainly have done as your father did. I believed for many many years that he might just leave this world in that way. And I do not think I was wrong about that.
I am sending you much love this day.
posted by: FinalyFree (reply)
post date: 11.26.07 (9:42 pm)
It's almost as your Father needed to fill some sort of void in insisting you contact your half-brother, huh? Maybe it was in an odd way him dealing with guilt, God knows if any man on Earth should have felt guilt it would have been your Father.
posted by: ggirl (reply)
post date: 11.27.07 (8:28 am)
Reply to: LadyG
Thank you, LadyG. Standing up to him came at a very high cost.
posted by: ggirl (reply)
post date: 11.27.07 (8:48 am)
Reply to: MineralBlue
Thank you, dear friend, for this. Confronting these rageful images is hard. I wish that I hadn't felt this way and I'm comforted that you understand, that you've shared the same impulse.
Yes. I struggle still with my decision to leave him to his own madness, even though I know this end was inevitable. I struggle with guilt and responsibility. I know he made his own choice and that, had I been there, he would have made the choice to take me with him. Nonetheless, I have guilt in my heart.
I was very intuitively connected to my father, too. I may have told you that I had planned to visit them in what would have been the week after he killed himself. I knew something was profoundly wrong, just like you.
It's a terrible thing to be so connected to one who has brought so much torment to our lives. I'm glad your father didn't decide to kill himself.
Thank you for sharing your own struggles. Love to you. :-)
posted by: ggirl (reply)
post date: 11.27.07 (8:54 am)
Reply to: FinalyFree
Yes, you're right, I think. He kept telling me that Shannon wouldn't have a relationship with him until he talked to me. I have no idea whether my father believed that or if he just wanted me to believe it.
He had a mighty big void to fill. He tried all of his life to fill it, but of course, no human being could do that for him.
You've mentioned his guilt before. It always makes me pause. I truly don't know if he ever felt guilty. He felt thwarted. He felt mistreated. He felt misunderstood, rageful, confused, heartbroken. I don't know how capable he was of feeling empathy. Nothing was ever his fault. If he hurt someone, he had reason to hurt them. He was trying to teach them something.
You're right, though. He *should* have felt guilty. If he had, I think he would have made his decision much, much sooner.
