{"id":5038,"date":"2015-04-26T22:44:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T22:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/?p=5038"},"modified":"2015-04-26T22:44:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T22:44:04","slug":"happy-birthday-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/happy-birthday-dad\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year on April 25, I lost my oldest brother to end stage COPD and complications from lung cancer and emphysema. He was 74 and spent the last couple years of his life on oxygen while continuing to be a life-long smoker of cigarettes. \u00a0He\u2019d had a difficult life: 14 years in the Navy, most of them served in Vietnam as a Medical Corpsman, alcoholic since the age of 15, couldn\u2019t remember the multiple marriages he\u2019d had and wasn\u2019t sure if he had any children, one he thought, Ricky, had disowned him. He\u2019d spent the last twenty years of his life in Sturgis, SD. He loved photography, was a talented artist, worked as a volunteer at the nearby Fort Verde VA hospital, had a keen interest in the Civil War and was a devoted John Wayne addict leaving me in his will a large collection of John Wayne memorabilia. Despite being self-absorbed, spurting out rambling and often difficult to understand conversations, moments of tense and inexplicable rage and the worst listener I ever met, he was sweet, kind, a loving brother, gentle and at the end lived in a nursing home. Only six people were at his funeral. Ever since I had disclosed my sexual and physical abuse at the hands of our father, he was confused and bitter that our beloved dad was a perpetrator. Of all the ironies in his life I find that the date of his death happened to be the anniversary of my father\u2019s 100th<\/sup> birthday. An interesting coincidence, but then William W. Burroughs said, In the magical universe, there are no coincidences.<\/em><\/p>\n

Was my father trying to reach back from the other side to bring my brother out of his miserable existence? Was he feeling shame and sorrow over having created five children who were all impacted by the child sexual and physical abuse he inflicted on me? Is that the way the Universe works? Can we atone for wrongdoings, no matter how serious, once we drop our bodies and our soul travels on\u2026\u2026\u2026..to where?……….to what? If Hitler is in hell (which my other brother says is in the center of the earth\u2026..interesting) then is my father in the same place? Did he deserve as severe a punishment as Hitler?\u00a0 Did he, as a strict and controlling Catholic patriarch go to confession on a Saturday and then die the following day? Did that absolve him of his wrongdoing?<\/p>\n

In March of 1985 he phoned and asked me to come up to visit him.\u00a0 He said that he had something important he needed to talk to me about. I drove the four hours north and on the first night I was there, as he was adjusting his wife\u2019s IV (his second wife was totally paralyzed from a stroke and he was caring for her) he said, \u201cKiddo, do you remember a few years ago when I talked to you about the incest relationship we\u2019d had when you were young?\u201d<\/p>\n

I froze as locked doors in my mind burst open and forgotten memories tumbled over one another.\u00a0 \u201cYes\u2026yes, I do,\u201d I stuttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to talk to you about that before it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d my stepmother screamed.\u201d I\u2019ve had to listen to you talk about that for 25 years and I don\u2019t want to hear about it again.\u201d\u00a0 My father became silent, his words forever unspoken.<\/p>\n

I shoved the memories back into their hiding places and locked the doors firmly. It would be eight years later before I would open them again, search through all the memories and begin five years of recovery.<\/p>\n

I stayed to visit three more days and he never again brought it up. I left in dejection and hopelessness, no courage in me to bring up this subject again.<\/p>\n

On his birthday, April 25th<\/sup> 1985 I wrote a letter to him. I poured my heart out with all the secret words I had always wanted to say.\u00a0 In my letter I said of my relationship with him, one where we had never explored the depths of the pain the incest relationship and the violent beatings had on me:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo very many wasted years, years that can never be recalled or re-lived. So many moments we could have had together that would now be happy memories \u2013 losing you and your support and respect has been one of the greatest griefs I have had to face. There is so much of my life of which you do not know, so much that contributed to my despair and my crooked and lonely path. What could you know of six years with an alcoholic, of the long nights alone with the children while he sat in bars, year after year of prayers and desolation, of waiting and hoping he would change, of nights without love, of drunken friends he dragged home with him in the middle of the night, of being told he wouldn\u2019t take me to the hospital when I was in labor, of watching him go out the door only to return 3 days later, no recollection of where he had been. And I kept my lonely vigil with my rosary and my books, always hoping, always trusting. In the end I was rescued bleeding and battered, frightened and confused by Ed and then I was with another alcoholic and six more years of hell. But you can say I made my choices and I paid my dues, heavy though they were. I have done wrong in many ways and right in others. People who know what I have been thru can only marvel that I have emerged as strong and wise as I have, only to know I have such a terrible long ways to go and at times so little strength left to travel with. It is no wonder that I have remained alone. I am grateful that I was able to raise the children and that they have turned out so strong and mature and self-sufficient and that they can accept mom with her weakness and her strengths and still love her. With the men in my life I have failed, including my father. It is so vital to me that you know how dearly I love and with what high regard I hold you. You also have traveled such a long and tormented road and it grieved me so to think that now when you are so tired you must again carry a burden so very heavy for you.<\/p>\n

Ron Lowell said to me that old people have such problems and I could only respond that people \u00a0have such problems \u2013 of all ages. And there is a purpose in it all, to grow strong, to grow wise, to learn all that we must learn. And there is still, despite it all, good books, good music, good friends, humor, sunsets, trees, and always the ability to appreciate, to reach out, to understand and tolerate. Somewhere woven thru all of this great puzzle I call life there must surely be a master planner who created it all, and he must either be crying or laughing and although at times it seems he hides His face from me, something in me still hopes beyond hoping that He does exist. Surely this can not all be for nothing. I am sure I have wearied you enough with all of my thoughts. I hope they have helped our relationship rather than hurting it. It is very late and I am tired and it is seldom I am so open with you like this. It has drained me. I hope that we have yet many years to know each other. You are ever in my thoughts. Love, Margie\u201d<\/p>\n

He always stamped every correspondence he received with his name and the date. He received this letter on May 1st and a few days later, on Mother\u2019s Day, Sunday morning, May 12th <\/sup>he died of a massive heart attack.<\/p>\n

Did my heartfelt words kill him?<\/p>\n

On this day I always think of that ominous letter and wonder, what if\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

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