Out of retrograde ~ leaving my Father to the Universe

 

So. I guess we are pulling out of Mercury in retrograde by tomorrow. 

After spending these past 3 weeks in some reflection (SOME my EYE!!! LOTS!) I need to now share about my Father. Who, in the previous post about my Mother and Fashion I told that he beat her. Well, he did. I suppose there would be many who would say... he is not worth the effort to write about.  Well, that is not true either. 

In a world that loves to point out dichotomies with no gray area in between.. I can tell you that yes. There is a lot of gray area. Life is  a lot of gray area.

I loved my Father.

As my best friend said in a sympathy card to me after his passing, 'He was larger than Life'. He was. He was the guy who everyone wanted to be around, the guy that his workmates went to for help, the guy who was always ready for a scotch no matter the time of day. He was a guy you could count on. If, you were his friend, and if you had something to offer him in return. But, a kid does not see the IF part. They see the BIG part. The larger than life part. 

He did have a good heart inside. He was a very troubled man. He messed up terribly. My feeling is that, if he did not love my Mother he should have done it right and saved her from the beatings, and us from the abuse as well. Being afraid of your Fathers fury is not the way a kid should grow up...but... plenty of kids have and have survived it.

He felt guilty over his behavior, I know that. He took me to Mass every Sunday over a course of maybe 2 years when I was very young, lets say 5 & 6. He had a terrible temper. It caused him to be highly abusive mentally and physically. When I think about these things I cannot figure out why I loved him! But I did! Maybe because when he was making something, he would throw us a few boards, a hammer, some nails and we would build these horrible things that we envisioned being works of art. When he was cementing he would throw us gloves and sit us down with wet cement to play with (who does that? Who tells kids under 10, have fun with this but don't get it on your skin or it will burn your skin off?) Our Father, that's who and play with it we did. Adding rocks and pebbles to it, pouring over the ground on the side of the house, again making terrible structures that looked like crap but were truly gorgeous to us. And yeah, he did this to get out out of his way...but....we worked right alongside him the entire time. Several Summers up in the Adirondacks, he brought us camping. I will never forget those Summers. Now I realize of course that it was during those times they were having the terrible problems in their marriage. I still do not know particulars, it is their business anyway. But I can express that they were wrong to jeopardize the well being of their children in their quest to find themselves in their own wreckage.

Of course, what is done is done. And the time for forgiveness (again!) is here. I won't mince words.. his funeral... was very hard. We, (my Brother, My Sister, Me) were excluded in spirit although we were there. His girlfriend of more years than he and our Mother had been physically together (for that was another dysfunctional mess...he never gave our Mother a divorce!) really didnt want us there. She tried to get the Church to turn the funeral around in 2 days time after his death to avoid us getting to DE in time. But... we did get there in time. Her children, they went on and on about what a great man our Father was, how good he was to each of them, they shared these wonderful stories of his love for them and I have to say that each word of theirs ripped up my heart every single time. I felt as if I was going to collapse. 

When our Father left our Mother in the early '80s it was after a terrible blow out. A traumatic beating that he gave her. And... I hit him... to get him off of her. I hit him with our horses bridle. I told him to leave, and to never come back. He never did. Essentially, he turned his back on us. WE were his old life, and he went to the woman he had been having an affair with for some time. The woman whose children were praising our Father after death. 

While her children thought it was funny in a way that he was our Father for 20 years, and then theirs for 20 years... I could not find the humor in it. I do not fault them though. Really, what do you say. I do not think they meant for their words to hurt as they did. There were many other things about the whole event of our Father passing that are too upsetting, but none of it was generated by any of his 'step' children. Because I loved him I have been able to forgive him. His girlfriend... is another story and one that I work daily on. Although I have come to a point where I am not harboring negative thoughts against her. So, I am getting some where.

Now, when I think of my Father, I remember the picture of him with my Mother above, or other ones very similar. Choosing to think of him this way is soothing and good. Because that is when he was my Daddy.

So, today, I let these thoughts out to the Universe... out to God... out of my head. I release the negative about my relationship with my Father and embrace the positive. 

This life is too short for negative. Rather, I use it as a lesson, a stepping stone to learn from. I hold more firmly on to God, and I thank God for my Father , who for a short time taught me humility by the simple act of taking me to church for a few short years. 

My Momma ~ good fashion ~ and bad times.

Peasant Blouse

       I am thinking a lot about my Momma. I am thinking about how she was when I was younger. I am thinking about the way she regarded me, and perhaps what ideals she may have held for me, her oldest daughter.
       I grew up in the '70's. Born in 1960. Our life, my brother Sister and I was one of confusing turmoil. Our Father, beat our Mother. Regularly.
       I remember, that I was always upset with her for not standing up for herself. I always thought she was weak, and I also thought she did not care about us. I could not have been more wrong, on all counts.
       My Mom, she had a lot of class, along with a great sense of good fashion. I was an overweight self depreciating teen. I hated myself. I hated everything. Now, I know that what I hated most was that a weekend didn't go by that our Father did not demean our Mother in some way. AS a child, yeah, even an old child who grew up with it there is some form of accountability, guilt, shame, etc associated with growing up this way. I do not know how she felt,. she never said, we never ever talked about what happened to her. She never asked me how I felt about it, she never acknowledged that yes... the night before he cracked a chair over her head and hit her till she hid under the table. What she did instead was, while kids my age were buying and wearing cheap frocks from India making them all the rage, we went to a beautiful boutique uptown and she bought for me to wear fine peasant blouses crafted in cotton gauze's and finely tatted bodices. When I wanted the ski vest that everyone was wearing she looked at them and felt they looked like the Michelin Man... gauging how terrible I would look in such a thing and mail ordered a REAL Ski vest by Aspen IN my school colors that was so unbelievably gorgeous that I never felt bad about not wearing exactly what the other gals were. 
        All of my clothing was ordered from JC Penney and it all fit perfectly and looked wonderful. I was not allowed to have the status Quo... I had to have the best and that was that. 
       For a short time my Mom and Dad were hanging out with different people.  Charlie and Ruth Noller. I will never forget them. There was a respite from the hitting, and there was a nice little honeymoon time. They started going out to dinners, and they went to NYC to go to see Pippin. I remember when My Mom was looking for the perfect dress... there was a gorgeous boutique in the next town over. She bought 2 halter dresses, long dresses that had medallions in the solar plexus area. One dress was a tie dyed mermaid hued gown in velvet, the other a tiny floral print in earth tones in a rayon type material. She looked absolutely stunning in them, and she got to use them several times... happily. During this time, I was taking Chorus in school. I was very upbeat about it, I loved it! My Mother knew I loved to sing (since I was quite young... having memorized the entire soundtrack of Mary Poppins and keeping pace and pitch with it's entirety) She began to buy for me gowns for performances. I had several simply beautiful ones. I would wear them for a performance, but always made sure I used them for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
       During that crucial time of teenaged dome... the beatings began again. She withdrew into herself. I blamed her even more for what was happening.
       It was never her fault. However she reacted, what ever she did or didn't do. It was never her fault. I have forgiven myself.. but I still feel ashamed for having given her more grief on top of what she felt she could not handle already. I love my Mother so much. 
  Peasant Blouse pictured above.