Courage [Revisited]

I posted over at Authentic Realities today on the courage my father showed in sharing my mother's death with me, so I thought I'd re-share with you a related post.


Courage, from Sept 2008:

From 7 Days:

My father was the epitome of courage, although I didn't realize it until after he died. There was one single moment in my life where everything changed.

Everything.

My father pulled into the driveway of the placement home I lived in when I was sixteen and said six words.

Six.

"It’s your mother. She’s dead, Dian."

And thus began my new life.

When my father got sick two years ago, my first emotion was relief; many more would follow. Since my mother's death I’d spent the better part of fourteen years wondering when my father was going to take his turn. I did not dread his death, but felt relief in moving forward. Forward without the anticipation, the anxiety of wondering how my father was going to leave my life.

My mother left unexpectedly, abruptly; my father gave me time to adjust. Time to say good-bye. Time to say all the things I would need to say in order to bury him without regrets; in order to be buried without regrets.

I wondered for years who would break the news of my father's death to me. It never occurred to me that he would be the one. It never occurred to me that I would walk him through it. It never occurred to me that I would watch his last breath heave into his chest and be slowly released. It never occurred to me that I would feel the last beat of his heart with my own hand on his chest. It never occurred to me that I would cherish that moment; just as I’d learned to cherish those six words my father had spoken all those years ago.

My father was not a man of wealth in large bank accounts, but a man of wealth in the courage he held quietly in his heart. My father loved me, of this I am sure. Not because he told me, but because he showed me. His soul spoke six words to me as I held my hand on my father’s chest.

It’s your father. I’m dead, Dian.

Loving Unconditionally

From 7 Days.

His eyes seemed grayer than the day before, and the stubble on his cheeks and chin had grown quite a bit. A sticky white residue from the tube in his throat being taped to his face for stability was left on his lips and stubble. The nurses and I wiped him down several times, but his face remained greasy from lack of a real bath or shower in more than four days. The flesh on his cheeks was rubbery and plastic. It felt as though it might stretch across the room just as it hung from his bones. I was having to work harder to recognize my father. My father, the man who always bailed me out. The man who always went to work. The man who showed up every time he said he would. The man who always believed in me. The man I could always count on to be there, wherever “there” was. He was always “there”. He took me in when my mother turned me out. He found BILY* and taught me how to communicate. He had all the goods on me, and he loved me anyway. As I stared at this man who had been a part of my last thirty years, I wondered: Who would be there to love me unconditionally as he always did?

The Visit

Disclaimer: This post reveals content of a graphic and traumatic nature, and may be difficult for someone with abuse in his/her background to read.

I remember my father telling me about The Visit years after it happened. He said The Visit always made him uncomfortable, but he didn't really understand why until he found out why it should have made him uncomfortable. I only vaguely remembered it when he first recounted it to me, but it stuck out firmly in my father's mind more than 15 years later.

The Visit:

Steven showed up at my father's door on a Saturday I was with my father for the weekend. Steven wanted to take me out bathing suit shopping for an upcoming trip. In the back of my father's mind, he thought that was odd. Steven said he promised me he'd take me since my mother didn’t have time. My father asked me if I wanted to go and I shook my head, "No." Steven left quietly, and nothing more was said about it. That’s how everything went in my family.

Until after my mother died. Apparently a lot of things didn't seem strange until after my mother died.

The Incident:

My grandparents took The Family to Hawaii for 3 weeks during the summer between my 7th and 8th grade years. "The Family" included my grandparents; my uncle, his wife, and his son; and my mom, Steven, and me. Except, my mom was pregnant with my little brother, so she didn't go. My grandparents treated Steven and I as a family and roomed us together when we got to Maui. We'd all stayed in a 3-bedroom villa on both the previous islands, but when we got to Maui, the resort we stayed in didn't have a 3-bedroom villa. So Steven and I got our own room.

I was thirteen years old.

At the time, the events leading up to "The Incident" only seemed a little uncomfortable. Steven had made a daily habit of making sexual comments to me, so I didn't find it out of the ordinary for him to do so while on vacation. He was in constant reverie about how "tight" my body was, or how "firm" my breasts were, and often said he could see me in Playboy Magazine in a couple of years. The first time he put his hands on my breasts, it was uncomfortable, but he made it seem almost like an accident. We were passing each other on the staircase at the house, and his arm swung wide. That's when he commented on the firmness. Steven seemed to know where to draw the line, though, and never made comments about doing anything to me, he simply shared his observations. This became normal. And continued while we were on vacation, as long as he was outside earshot of the rest of The Family.

I was thirteen.

Honestly, I don't remember how many nights we were on Maui. I only know that the day after "The Incident" Steven did not continue on with the rest of The Family, but booked a flight home to go be with my mom.

I was thirteen.

I remember thinking that the sky was beautiful as we drove back to the hotel. We'd spent the day doing things people do in Hawaii. When we got back to the hotel, Steven and I did laundry and found a gecko on the wall in the laundry room. I thought it was gross, and Steven laughed at me for being such a girl. As I pulled the clothes out of the washer and flung them into the dryer, he told me to slow down and shake each article out before putting it in the dryer. This would help it dry faster. For a long time after "The Incident" I refused to shake my clothes out before I put them into the dryer.

I was thirteen.

When the clothes were dry, we pulled them from the dryer and took them back to our room. We folded them. I was used to folding his clothes, as I was the designated laundry folder of the house. He, on the other hand, was not accustomed to folding my clothes. He took specific note of how small and cute my underwear were.

I was thirteen.

He took his pants off and put my underwear on. He danced around the room and laughed at how small the front was, and how his balls barely fit into them. I remember laughing, too.

I was thirteen.

I took a shower to wash the day off. After I got out of the shower, he asked if I wanted a back rub. This was not an out of the ordinary idea. Usually it was me giving him the back rub after he got home from his construction job. He'd shower and then lay naked on the bed face down with a towel over his ass. I don't remember how that got started, but I remember that happening almost every day once it did start. I remember wondering if he pushed his penis between his legs on purpose just so I could see it or if it was just more comfortable that way. Of course, I never asked.

I was thirteen.

I took my robe off and put a towel around my waist. I laid face down on the bed, my back exposed. He climbed on top of my back legs and began massaging my back. For a moment, it felt good. His hands stayed on my back for most of the massage. Until they moved lower. He began massaging my legs. He might have even asked me if it was okay.

I was thirteen.

His hands massaged the back of my legs. Started with the calves and then to the back of the knees, and then to the back of the thighs. And then to the base of my butt. He massaged the inside of my thighs, closer to my knees. Then he began to work his way up. My heart pounded. I did not want him to touch me. But he was on top of me and his hands all over me. I did not want him to touch me, but I could not speak. I pretended to fall asleep. I thought if I was asleep he would stop. I was wrong. His hands moved further up the inside of my thighs and his thumbs touched the opening of my vagina. His thumbs went inside my vagina. I don't know how long I stayed still, hoping he would stop and just go away. When I could finally not stay still any longer, I jumped as if being jolted awake by a noise. When I did, his hands jerked back. He stopped.

I was thirteen.

He might have asked me a question. I might have answered it. He got into the shower. He got out of the shower. I prayed he wouldn't ask me to massage him. He put clothes on and said he was going out for a walk. I don't remember the rest of the evening. When we packed up in the morning, he said nothing to me. When we arrived at the airport to head to our final island of the trip, he announced to my grandfather that he wouldn't go on with us, but he needed to get home to my mom. The Family told me nothing else.

I was thirteen years old.

Two years later I told my mother about The Incident. She asked Steven about it and he denied The Incident. My mother and the rest of the family assumed I’d lied in order to get attention.

Nine months after I told my mother about The Incident, four shots rang out, and my mother was dead. After her death, The Family finally believed what I’d told my mother about Steven. And my father reflected upon The Visit.

The Visit was a month or so prior to The Incident. After my father learned of The Incident, he felt guilty. I don’t know when my father was told, but it wasn’t me who told him. I first learned he knew in a therapy session shortly after my mother's death. He felt that he should have known better. He thought he should have protected me. He believed he was a horrible father for letting someone violate his daughter like that. He thought he should have seen the signs and known what was wrong. I have no doubt that his guilt about The Incident is part of what killed my father.

I know the doctors told us all it was cancer. But I saw the look in my father's eyes as he told me he was so sorry for not protecting me. I believe that look—his guilt—invited the cancer in to take over his life. I tried to explain to my father that The Incident was no one's fault but Steven's, to no avail. It took me years of time and therapy and healing to know in my heart that it wasn't even my fault.

My father preferred to bear the burden of blame, believing it was his burden to bear.

If you suspect physical or sexual abuse, talk to your child. Seek immediate professional help at your local police department, Department of Children's Services office, or check out Child Help online.

Up the Stairs

I recently had a hard drive crash and lost a the last few months worth of work on the book. I'm not dwelling on it, and in fact it gives me a chance to start afresh with a new direction I'm taking. Up until recently, the focus of 7 Days has been mainly on my father and how his death and grieving for him impacted me. That's still a great focus, but I felt it important to introduce some of the details about my mom's death and its impact on me in order to give texture and context to my mind-frame as my father's illness unfolded.

This is an excerpt of a draft I'm working on right now, with those things in mind.

Up The Stairs.

I was the only one who knew whose things were whose. Before everything was cleaned up they had me go back to the townhouse so I could say yes, this was my mom’s, no this isn’t. Steven was in jail and my grandparents wanted to make sure they got everything of hers before Steven’s brother came to get his things. How would he know? His brother had never been to the house in my eight years of knowing Steven.

I remember walking into the house. Coldness overtook me and I trembled at the door. To the right at the entrance were the stairs to the second level. At the top on the left, a door to my mom’s bedroom. Straight ahead, the hallway to my old bedroom. A linen cabinet and closet on the left, just before my bedroom at the end of the hall. It had become Michael's room after I left. He was in that room when all the chaos took place, just two and a half years old.

My grandmother wanted me to get things of Michael’s, things of mine from the bedroom. In order to get there I’d have to walk past my mom’s bedroom. I summoned all my strength. I walked to the stairs and began to climb, one foot ahead of the other. As I ascended, the opening to the lower level became smaller and smaller. And when I reached the halfway point, where the railing met the wall of the bedroom, my legs gave out. I slipped. I fell just one step back and landed on my hands and knees. I was too weak to continue. I sat there and cried until my grandmother met me on the stairs to help me down and tell me it was okay. All I could tell her was, “I’m sorry.”

I felt weak. I felt like a failure. I had been asked to do something, and I had failed. I couldn’t complete a simple task to go up a single flight of stairs and pass a closed door to get to the belongings of my two-year-old brother. I feared they would always see me as weak little Dian, who couldn’t even get halfway up the stairs without falling to her knees.

At times I still regret not going up there. But I couldn’t pass that bedroom. I couldn’t even get half way up the stairs. My father had warned me that the bedroom hadn’t been cleaned up yet. The bedroom had been a crime scene. I told my father I could walk past the room if he closed the door, but in the end, I was too weak. I didn’t have to see anything to know what went on in that room, and I couldn’t bring myself to be on the same level as Steven or my mom when those four shots were fired.

There were no shots fired during the last seven days of my father’s life. But the constant beeping of the heart monitors was enough to drive me near mad.