Abuse

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.