I’ve just shunted over posts from my old blogsnot site of the same name. Not able to simply allow them refuge on my hard drive, I believe they must see the glow of the web again.
These posts were written in late 2004 and early 2005. Seems very long ago at this point.
5.12.05
I’ve known for years that Dingad was abused by his stepfather as a child; not sexually, but mentally and physically. I don’t see too much difference there; all three serve to hurt and humiliate, to break the spirit. Sometimes, for reasons known only to his tortured soul, Ding will trot out the abuses and run through them like the war stories we both know them to be.
I’ve listened through a litany of hurt; the times when stepfather-from-hell would take Ding’s little 8 year old head and slam it so hard against the wall that the holes over the years had formed a crazy wallpaper pattern.
I’ve cried when told how s-f-h would come home every night and query young Ding over and over: “Did you go in the house today?”. He hadn’t, since it was forbidden, and answered honestly each time… but s-f-h never believed him, or even worse, knew Ding was telling the truth and just didn’t care. So he beat him, not what you’d think of as a spanking, but hitting young tender flesh with a fist. Beating, until Ding couldn’t stand anymore.
I almost couldn’t comprehend the evil I heard behind some stories. Letting a young boy think that he could go on extra-curricular outtings but making sure he stood where he was on the pavement just so he’d miss the bus to go on the field trip, then laughing at the obvious pain it caused the boy watching the bus depart without him. There are several like that.
But this morning I heard a new chapter in the book of pain. On his way to work, stuck in traffic, Ding told me that one summer he’d stolen 20. out of his mother’s purse; he’d never done it before and was so young that he didn’t know how much it was. He only knew that he wanted to buy something for all the kids on the block; probably ice creams.
S-f-h found out about it, of course, and hogtied Ding in his bed all day when the adults weren’t home - for the rest of the summer. He couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom or get something to eat. He was bound, both body and soul.
After s-f-h boot camp was like summer vacation.
I digested this new information while he excused the behavior of that satan. “But that’s the way it was back then; that’s the way kids were disciplined.” Like the way a sexually abused girl will grow up to see her predator everywhere, he strove to make sense of his past and put it in a proper perspective. My heart broke.
“No, my love. That’s not how every child was treated. What he did to you wasn’t right, can never be made right no matter how you twist it around. Have you forgiven him?”
Ding, a 58 year old man, holds his suffering 8 year old child close, and still tries to understand. I’m sure my question took him completely off guard, but the forgiveness is not for s-f-h, it’s for Ding, so that he can let go and finally move past the hurt.
He had to hang up and I was in tears, though careful not to let him know. I said that I had to pray for s-f-h or lose my mind.
My mate, my love, brutalized again and again at the hands of a madman. Each time I hear a new story it’s worse than the last. A helpless rage rose from deep within and colored my vision blood red; I had to leave the house, go for a walk. Pray.
I knew it was going to rain as soon as I stepped onto the front porch, but I kept going, grateful to feel the satisfying monotony of one foot in front of the other, over and over. It freed my mind up for other matters.
“Holy Father, I need to pray for that sonofabitch, please help me…”
That rat bastard is still alive, and I could see my hands around his throat.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee…”
Where was Ding’s mother while this was going on? I’m going to call her… We had a nice Mother’s Day chat, surely she won’t mind me screaming a little bit today…
I invoked the intercession of every Saint in the heavens to head off this hate. Hate is viral; it will eat you from within and I want nothing to do with it.
But I hit a brick wall each time, and consumed with rage and hurt, started to cry at approximately the same time the sky opened up. I like a nice, soft rain, and that’s what this was, but the hot asphalt gave off an odor not unlike frying roadkill laced with tar.
I went home.
I’m still trying, hours later. Next is the rosary.
But what about Ding? Will he have to haul this around for the rest of his life? I don’t think he knows that he should do anything with the anger and sorrow of those childhood experiences… And I don’t know that I’m the person to tell him that he might feel better if he did.
Pray.
4.26.05
Outside watering the grass with a hose, I realized -a bit belatedly- that I was still wearing my pajamas, which consist of a) a large flannel PJ top in mint green, showing off a pattern of croissant and coffee cups dancing at a jaunty angle and b) the last largest pair of old, threadbare shorts in my possession, probably a bit translucent at this point.
I’ve officially become her, the white trash debutante who just doesn’t care any more. All that was needed to complete the picture: cig hanging out of my mouth and flip flops. Well, I’m not going to start smoking at this point just to fit in, I can tell you that much.
1.23.05
My mind has come to rest on a woman I think of as my mentor.
Margaret Strauss was a intelligent woman with common sense and a spartan style in both speech and design. A formidable force in my narrow young world, her friends called her ‘Lady’, a gift from her Papa after the early demise of her mother. She carried that name throughout her life but I never called her anything but Mrs. Strauss, no matter how old we both became.
She and I first became acquainted when my mother went to work at her daycare center. Childless, widowed, a retired school teacher as well as former legal secretary, she decided to open a daycare where children would be properly cared for as well as started on the right road to learning. Forever into a project, she purchased and renovated a house across from the local grade school for her dream of the perfect early learning environment. She also lived in the house directly behind that one, her way of being close . The whole deal was revolutionary in our small Texas town and quickly drew many parents wanting an alternative to the norm of daycare as they knew it.
The Carousel Child Care Center was open for many years, but I think ultimately she lost too much money just trying to do it right.
I have no idea why she chose me as one of her projects, or if she was even aware of the huge impact she would have on my life, but one day she asked my mother if I could come help her with a project. Mother, a formidable woman in her own right, was terrified of Mrs. S. and quickly aquiesed. That’s how people were around her. Lady was so kind to her little cadre of employees that one could overlook her quickly sparked flares of temper and she always got what she wanted.
Mother would drive me into town early on a Saturday or, during the summer months, a weekday. I was accustomed to rising early, living in a farm environment. Our animals needed tending and I had my share of chores - besides my horse, which was my responsibility anyway. I’ve always been a morning person, enjoying the beginning of the day. It was such a different beginning at Mrs. Strauss’ than it was out at the farm, but just as hopeful. The air just as humid and filled with promise.
Though everyone else on God’s green earth shortened my name, not Mrs. S., who enunciated every syllable of every word she ever spoke. She rolled the entire thing out of her mouth every time, making it into 3 syllables; making it, I suppose, hers alone. Her part of me.
Usually unhurried, I would sit across the table from her while Mrs. S. lay out our plan of action for the day over a cup of coffee. It could have been painting shutters, painting shelves or any derivitive of each. Rarely did I do anything but paint. I painted more shutters in my youth than professionals have in their entire career, for one of her favorite projects was covering things up with shutters. She’d build a set of shelves, I’d paint them; she’d go buy the shutters to cover the shelves… and I would paint those as well. When she moved we’d start all over on the new house, making cubbyholes into glorified closets; the woman knew how to organize. She moved three times, keeping me very busy. Never did she ask me to clean her home, wash the windows, or anything remotely approaching housework. I did sweep outside now and again, as I became as comfortable in her home over the years as I was in my own.
About halfway through the day we’d ride up to the drivethrough window at the local chicken place and get fried chicken livers. After I got my driver’s license we kept the tradition, though I went and brought it back to house; it always seemed preferable to both of us to eat together there by ourselves, chatting companionably about all manner of things against a backdrop of music.
When MacNeil/Lehrer wasn’t on the stereo usually was, carrying classical music to every nook and cranny of the house. I awakened every morning to ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’, echoing my parent’s taste in tunes. I swung wildly the other way, as children are wont to do, giving my heart to James Taylor and my soul to Santana. But the classical music opened a door in me; it felt ancient and pure. To this day it’s my favorite music; not that I know anything about it… I don’t have to understand something to experience the bliss it creates; that would almost ruin the whole thing.
I always hated to leave her when the day’s work was over, even if I knew that another day of painting shutters followed the one I’d just completed. Sometimes I’d sit with her for an hour or two while she told stories about her life. That became tradition as well, and continued for years, even after I was grown and gone from the area. I’d come back into town and my first stop would be a visit to Mrs. Strauss. She’d light up like an overly decorated tree on Christmas eve, and say “Come in this house!” Her second words were always “Have you been to see your mother?” But she already knew the answer; the truth that she was first.
Her tales became legend in our family; for my mother and I both knew exactly when one was coming by the glint in Lady’s eye and the resolute, clipped manner of her speech. I loved those times, and would settle in for a history lesson into the soul of the woman I respected and loved so much.
“‘Lady’, Papa would say…” And we were off.
My favorites were the Pete stories. Pete was not her first husband, he’s the one that stuck. He was much older than she, but I don’t know the exact circumstance surrounding his death.
I know better now what it must be to mourn the loss of someone you not only love, but belong to completely in body and soul. A mate. After she lost Pete, that was it for her. She carried on with life, but most of her heart was shuttered up, waiting for their next meeting. He called her “firecracker” and those stories often started: “‘Firecracker’, Pete would say…”
There was a large portrait of Pete in her bedroom and I’d sit and look at it for half an hour or more, trying to understand that kind of love and recalling the stories she’d told me of their lives together. I can recall every detail of his likeness, down to his clothing and the rolled up New York Times he was holding.
She also started me on another career path besides shutter painting: dog and house sitting. I started with her dogs and pretty soon she had most of her bridge playing buddies calling me with jobs. I proved trustworthy and reliable and had all the sitting I could have wanted. It was simple, enjoyable work and I was again in her debt, though she never took credit for that or anything she did for me… except maybe my vocabulary. I had been a voracious reader since the age of four and had a good hand on modern verbiage, with few flaws, among those being the use of ‘lay’ and ‘lie’. Under her tutelage I had to physically lie on the couch and lay a book on the table. But I never again forgot their proper usage. That made her smile.
One day years later I came back into town and stopped by her house as usual. She was herself, yet not quite. Tired, I thought. Too many projects. She shocked me to the roots by casually telling me to pick out something of hers for myself. I protested vigorously, for she was going nowhere, dammit. I’ve always regreted declining the offer, for she knew what I didn’t; even the old rocks erode and die.
Six months later when she didn’t answer her phone I sent a friend over to see about her, but she was in a nursing home and all her belongings had been sold to a local resale shop to help cover her debts. It felt as if those things were mine and they had been stolen; I would have paid any amount of money to get them back and to get her sitting among them again, sipping coffee and spinning stories about Pete. I was 2,000 miles away, and powerless.
If she only knew what effect she had on my life. But, I bet she does.
Margaret Strauss, 3.28.09 - 6.28.94
1.15.05
After my father died I walked the land he loved so much, one phrase lodged in my brain: “Only the rocks live forever”.
Time after time, as if to call him back to me, I haunted the places we had bonded as father and daughter through time: the barn, pastures and even the fenceline. Walking, I loved that land too, with a fierceness born of hard labor and pride of ownership. We put up the fence ourselves, over much of the 10+ acres, and I’d ride the perimeter… ostensibly checking for breaks or flaws that needed tending, but it was in truth simply to be close to him. For just as his life had changed, mine had as well… and I could sense another, larger change coming.
Not exactly prescient, I could tell if something were going to change or go wrong. My first experience was one moring when I got in the car to drive into town…. and was filled with a sense of dread. It sat on my chest like a heavy hand. I went anyway, of course, and had a flat on the freeway. I listened to it after that, and may have avoided much trouble. Of course, not everyone ‘believes’ so if I’m out with someone else I have the feeling it’s harder to control my own destiny. After experiencing it a few times Dingad is a believer.
After whatever bad thing is supposed to happen actually happens the feeling goes away instantly. I can’t control it at all.
I don’t know if it’s my Guardian Angel tapping my shoulder or just a natural thing that I know a lot of women do… I thank God for the ability one moment and curse my luck the next.
Dad’s nickname for me from the very start was “Doll”. I must have seemed as much to the large man who tried to hold me so gently with his great work-stained hands. After his funeral my mother, in her misery, made the mistake of calling me by this name now made sacred by virtue of the fact that I’d never hear him speak it again… and in my equal distress I rounded on her like a hound of hell and said something to the effect of “only my father calls me that”.
I regret it to this day, but there are so many things that once let loose can never be recalled. The hurt has been done; best stitch up the wound and hope it heals with little scarring.
I sense another change coming, possibly another wound on a much grander scale, but so far the warning sign of heaviness has not come. Nor do I want it to.
I don’t know why all this tumbled from my brain in this manner, but this is how it came out. Sounds disjointed but must be connected somehow… Or not. 
