...As my journey, my own personal hajj continues and I close the father chapter in my life, I am growing ever more amazed at the existence of my own sanity. Perhaps it is only a version of sanity, but life feels pretty good to me.
I am sorry to say that I ran into drama I didn't anticipate when I arrived stateside last Friday. Once I landed, I called the funeral home to be sure they had whatever they needed and to find out what they needed from me since I had been flying for 20 hours and unreachable by phone. Imagine my surprise when they said they'd never heard of him.
Never heard of him? Nope. No idea who he was. So I called the hospital to ask what was up. They let me know that my "brother" Kenny had cockblocked me (I've taken to calling it that, I'm not sure why...) from having my father's remains taken to the funeral home for cremation. This was unexpected since I don't have a brother named Kenny. I do have a stepbrother named Kenny that I don't know and that my father didn't care for and who I had not seen in over a decade. So....I asked the hospital administrator why they did not send my dad on to the crematorium as previously requested...They said Kenny wanted to meet me at the hospital so we could sit and make decisions together. I promptly informed them that Kenny and I were not related and more importantly, that Kenny and my father were not related and never cared for each other. So, they immediately arranged for my dad to go to the funeral home as previously instructed. Drama over, right? Riiiiight.....not so much.
Later Friday night, Kenny calls to let me know he is in Asheville and ready to get together. (I SO wish I could convey his Rockingham, NC southern accent for you as I write)...I told him thank you and asked why he had stopped my dad's body from going to the funeral home. He assured me he had no intention to interfere. (mmkay, so what was that?) I let him know that I was sorry he had driven to Asheville, but I wasn't there yet and that I had no idea what I would be walking in to when I did arrive and had no idea what condition I would find my dad's little 30+ year old trailer in and that I needed (planned) to do it alone as I didn't know what I might find, how I might react, and just needed to process things on my own rather than have a witness there with me. He hung up on me at that point and I went on about my night, hoping it was over. I'm oddly naive sometimes. I did check in with my stepsister who is his blood sister (they are my late stepmom's kids) ...and she said to be very wary of him as he was a drug addict and nothing but trouble and that she and her other brother hadn't talked to him in years. Right about here is the time I thought I might start to lose my zen...
Cut to Sunday night before my drive to Asheville and I got a voicemail from Kenny. It was very disturbing and threatening. (Not the much preferred non-violent communication I have come to love and embrace since leaving the biological family fold so many years ago). It's funny how quickly you can snap back to a reactionary place that you were conditioned to go to at times like this.
His message (again, I wish you could hear it in its authentic southern flavor - think "Larry the Cable Guy") went a little something like this.
"Mishayel, this is Kinney....Im'll call me some lawyers tomorrow mornin' and see what my raights up thar are. Whatever yew and yer "deddy" had planned...it ain't gone work, baby"...you'll learn not to be a bitch, and Im'll show yew just what I can be." ??? What? Are? You? Talking? About? He did end the call with a really sincere "you have a good day now" which I thought was a lovely touch. This was definitely the point at which I thought my zen was about to leave me and I was going to be sucked back into the vortex of darkness from which I came. (sounds so ominous, doesn't it?) For the record, my dad didn't have any money, he lived in the same single wide trailer that he had traveled from Texas in over 30 years ago, he barely had any furniture in it and was not the best housekeeper. I found out exactly how bad a few hours later when I saw it, but I'll get to that later.
I took a deep breath and called Kenny from the road yesterday morning from a place of compassion and with a hope to understand where he was coming from. I told him that his voicemail had really confused me and asked him if he was ok. He was really, really angry, and actually reminded me of my father as his voice cracked and he let it all out. I let him give me all of his pain and his anger from his mother's death back in 2003 and just let him talk. He went around in circles...said a few disparaging things about me which didn't bother me at all because I knew he wasn't talking about me - or if he was, he didn't know me enough to have formed such an opinion. We have never known each other or spent any time together, and are pretty much strangers.
When he was finished I told him I was really sorry for his pain. That it sounded like he had carried that around for awhile. I told him again that his voicemail had confused me as I didn't quite understand what he needed a lawyer for as my dad didn't have anything. Then I assured him that if I found anything of his mother's or any instructions from her that pertained to him that I would absolutely make sure he got it. (thanks for the words Kate!) I also told him that I really needed to do this by myself because of my own unresolved issues with my dad and the only way to have authentic reactions to it, and to let myself feel whatever I needed to feel, was to do it on my own so I could just be whatever I needed to be and react however I needed to react and to do it in as drama free a manner as possible. He told me I was being selfish and needed to put myself aside and understand that he needed to be there to help me. I told him again that I appreciated his intentions, but that I was doing it alone. He didn't really understand, but he let it go eventually.
Then, he said something I truly didn't expect. He started to ramble, well, his whole conversation was a rant and ramble about how awful my dad was and how much destruction he had created in the lives of many people (something I could not deny)...but then he revealed something about my dad that I was not aware of but when he spoke the words, I knew they were true. First he told me he knew my dad had beaten his mom....I knew this because he had battered my mother as well and she had mentioned he did the same thing to my stepmom, which makes sense of course. An abuser is an abuser, right? Then the shocker....he told me his sister, the one that my dad raised, had a little breakdown a few years back and had let her husband and both her brothers know that my father had molested her as a child. She lived with him from the time she was 7 or 8 years old till she left home to get married. I let those words sink in. My father molested my stepsister. No wonder she didn't visit him in the hospital. Fuck.
Yet, the minute he said it, I knew it was true. It pulled so many pieces of the puzzle together. Jealousy from my stepmom towards me. Warnings to me and my sister to never to go near his bedroom when he was back there. The unnatural hate my father had for the man my sister married, because he is a jolly, lovely guy. It all made sense. My dad's own father, (my grandfather) molested his own daughter (my aunt) when they were kids...and my granddad then did the same with all of the female grandchildren in my family...so I understood right away where my dad had learned this behavior.
But do you know what my immediate reaction, my gut feeling to hearing this news was? It surprised the hell out of me. But I realized that for my whole life, my father kept me at arms length, rejected, neglected, pushed me away, refused to have a relationship with me, to spend time with me, refused to let me move in with him and my stepmom when my own mother put a knife to my throat as a teenager...BECAUSE he LOVED me and did not want to do this to me. He must have known that he would and that it was a sickness and he wanted to keep me free of it. And that somehow made everything make sense in a way that it never had before. Twisted? Yes. But it did make sense, in an upside down, crack is whack, holy shit kind of way.
All I know is that for as long as I can remember, I have known that in spite of the ridiculously dysfunctional bunch I grew up with and around, that there are truly beautiful, loving, giving, warm and wonderful people on this planet and that I wanted to know them. To be with them. To find them, I had to get through my own struggles for years of course, as I was well conditioned to feel unworthy and separate from them. For those of you I hurt along the way as I tried to find my way, (Richard and Scott) - I'm so deeply sorry. Thank you for loving me, marrying me and for doing the best you could. I had to figure it out on my own. I wish you both love and peace and trust that you have found that in your lives since our divorce. I know that you have. And for that too, I am grateful. You are both amazing, gorgeous, loving, kind, good, and fantastic men that I was incredibly lucky to share some of my life with. Thank you, both.
But, the truth is - and it really is this simple - we are all connected. And whatever you walk in, light or dark...your connection to others who are like you will increase and strengthen. And because I know I have the choice to walk in light and beauty and wonder, that is where I live and love and will stay.
The crazytown I grew up in definitely gives me pause and I have worked hard to stay out of it and away from it...and you can probably see why re-entering it causes me to hold my breath and why I feel like I am drowning and fear that it will swallow me and that maybe I won't be able to get back to the peaceful and loving place I want to be in. But I learned something else on this journey...I've learned that I do not belong in the darkness of my biological family...and that they can't hurt me anymore. Not ever.
And yesterday, when I met Mike, the big, burly, long haired and bearded motorcycle repair shop owner who was one of my dad's drinking buddies and he introduced me to a few more of his buddies in his shop - that my dad had made friends who considered him family and who thought he was a kind and good man. They kept hugging me and telling me stories and telling me how sorry they were for my loss. They know someone I don't know. And I am truly grateful to have met them and to know that he had them in his life and that they knew a man who was different than the father I knew. And I am grateful to have met them and for them to have introduced me to a new memory.
You know, I really do love my little kumbaya existence. And my cosmic tribe of family and people I love all over the world. I don't know how I got to be so lucky, but it sure is beautiful. If you're not doing what you love and being who you love and feeling gratitude for the mere gift of being alive...I hope you will find a way to get to that place. It's breathtaking here. Join me?
Love and light...peace and gratitude... Ma'salaama, my friends.
So glad you found some closure and shared this with the world. Right on, you!
ReplyDeleteI love how sometimes finding out about one little piece of information -even a tragic one- helps making sense of some of the most important experiences in your life. Lots of people will find this kind of revelations horrible and traumatizing, but for me they are the little gifts that Life gives us sometimes (I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way!!)
ReplyDelete"They know someone I don't know." That's it. That's all.
ReplyDelete