A Wound That Will Not Heal

My third entry today and it's still not six-thiry in the morning. Oh, this is going to be a pip of a day.

I am making this entry because, like a fool, I am sitting here with tears in my eyes and my throat tighter than a new pair of shoes. Why? Somehow, while sitting here and meticulously going through the housing for each of the 352 years associated with the Swords of Fire family history, I got to thinking about my father. My dad.

I liked my father. He was not a perfect man, but he was a decent man. In my heart, he was the most decent man I ever met.

He had a very hard life. The trials he suffered make me ashamed to admit I have difficulty coping with what I am faced with. He was a bastard child in 1920s Iowa. That relegated him to subhuman status in the eyes of the community around him - which included his mother's family.

He never talked about the bad things of growing up. All I ever remember hearing him tell us (his children) were the funny things. His aunt, though, did pass on some tales, and they were so very sad. He was treated like a dog - at best. EVERY Christmas was the same. The family would gather together in the living room, the Christmas tree before them, and presents would be exchanged. My father would not be there with them. He was not allowed. He was a bastard, and bastards had no place in family functions. He had to sit in the kitchen, alone, with a single present. It was the same present every year: a top. After two or three years he came to realize this and ceased to even open the present. He just tossed it into the fire. His uncles took great pleasure in torturing him. They were all farmers, so certain items were always readily available. One of these items was burlap bags. Until my father grew too large to be stuffed into one, his uncles would do exactly that. He would tied up in a gunny sack and dropped into the nearby rain barrel. They would leave him there until the bubbles quit. Then they would lift him out, open the sack, let him get his breath, and then repeat the process until they tired of the game. It is no wonder I recall very little of family get-togethers with these relatives. I know none of them, nor their offspring.

When my dad was still young, he was sitting on top of a maypole. His classmates were circling the pole hanging on to chains, probably not unlike those used on swing sets. This was how maypole was played. Unfortunately, my father's thumb became entangled in the ever tightening chain. He cried out, but no one heeded him. Either they didn't understand, or they didn't care. I'm not clear on this. In any case, his thumb was squeezed from his hand. Reattachment surgery did not exist back in the 1920s. At least, not in farmland Iowa. My aunt related how it tore her to hear him crying through the entire night.

My aunt was probably the most pleasant thing to happen to my father in those early years. She was more kind to him than his own mother, and he always carried a special love for her.

But that is not why I have been crying. I was crying because my father was not through suffering pain. And what tears at me is that I was responsible for some of it.

My father didn't understand me. Oh, my. Surprise, surprise. That wasn't so bad, really. He loved me, and I knew it. But he always assumed I was like everybody else - and I wasn't. My sisters lied to him all the time. (They were always doing something they weren't supposed to, and they were always denying it.) He assumed I was no different. But I was. I only lied to him once. And it was the only thing I ever said to him that I think he believed. God help me.

When I was a teenager, we were in conflict. No news there. My older siblings had all left home to begin their own lives for real, but I and my younger sister were still in school and so still at home. Mom usually came home from work crabby and arguments would quickly ensue. In mother's defense, I suppose coming home and driving by the Wiggle Inn (the tavern my father frequented) and seeing my father's car there put in the wonderful mood she shared with us. Sometimes, though, our arguments would become especially difficult and I would say things which were especially cruel and hurtful. Mother's response to this was to beat the living hell out of me. (Unfortunately, it always came back.) She would also tell my father.

My father and I had a blowup of our own. We never had many, and so to have one was especially hurtful. But he was drunk - again - and I was in no mood to listen to an angry drunk rave on irrationaly - and incorrectly - about me. So I told him so. Wasn't that brilliant? In my life I can remember my dad whipping me with the belt five times. That night he didn't use the belt. He beat the piss out of me. My younger sister, too, but for reasons of her own.

I suppose the encounter bothered him. A lot. For the following night he came home sober. When he got home I went to my room and closed the door. He came and knocked. (Dad knocked. Mother never did.) He came in and sat in a chair at my bedside. He wanted to apologize. Only I, the little shit that I was (am?), was still angry. He had hurt me, both physically and emotionally, and I wanted to get some of my own back. And when he gave me the opening, I knew what to do and I did it.

He gave me the speech about how important I was and how much he loved me. He said he loved me. That was my opening.

"I don't believe that!"

I knew it would hurt him, and I expected he might even hit me again. But this time I would welcome the beating. Only that's not what he did. He believed me. I had never told him a lie before in my life and the damn son-of-a-bitch believed me when I said this! He bowed his head and cried. Damn it! He cried. I had not seem my dad cry more than three times in my entire life. And do you know what I did? I lay there on my bed like an effing shit and let him! He got up and left.

I was shaken, but too proud to admit it then, so I did nothing. Later, I didn't know how to approach him. He had showed me how. It was the only time he had ever done it, but he had showed me how. But I was afraid, and so I did nothing. Less than a year later he died to cancer.

Damn you! You never believed a word I said when I tried to tell you how important you are to me. Then I lie and say I don't believe in your love and you believe that. Damn! Why am I crying after forty years?

This is going to be a pip of a day.