A Teenager's Journey (19 page)
I decided that I would take it down to the post office that Saturday. I would let go of everything it signified as I dropped it into the mailbox. It was going to be a small ceremony, just for me.
But just before that fateful day came, while I was at work, it happened. The bartender at the restaurant came over to me. There was a phone call for me, he said.
“Can you take a message?” I asked.
“It’s your brother, Ross.”
I froze. I knew that it was something bad. Instantly, I recalled the moment I realized that Dad had died and that I’d known it even before the phone rang. This time it was different. I couldn’t imagine what it was; I just knew it was something bad.
“Hello,” I said, with my heart in my throat.
“Richard, it’s Ross. Listen, Mom died last night.”
The silence hung on the phone line. Each of us knew that the other was still on the line, but for a moment not a word was spoken. He gave me the information I needed about the funeral arrangements, we exchanged a few words, then I hung up. Immediately, all of those emotions I thought I’d buried came rushing to the surface. I felt anger, pain, shame, fear—and yes, sorrow. I was crushed.
On the flight out all I could think about was the letter I now carried in my pocket. Somehow, I thought in my confusion, I could still get it to her and she would understand.
It wasn’t until I saw her in the county morgue that I believed it, that it really hit me. We were gathered there together in silence, all my brothers and my grandmother. It had been almost twenty years since all of the boys and Mom were in the same room. It was the first time I had seen David’s face in almost as many years.
She had no makeup on—not that she ever wore any. The silence was perfect.
I’m not sure what I’d expected. I simply stood there. I felt my pocket and the letter it held; I thought about what I wanted to say to her. Before we left the morgue, I handed the letter to the mortician who’d showed us to the viewing room.
“When you cremate her, will you place this in with her?” I asked.
It was over. Once and for all. I’d said my piece, and she now had her own peace.
As I walked out I knew that she would have my letter for all time, all eternity. She would now carry what I couldn’t carry any longer.
I was free.
It was over.
Several years ago when I started to compile and assemble the memoirs and journal entries that evolved into
A Brother’s Journey
and
A Teenager’s Journey
, the intention was that they would simply sit on my shelf as a reminder of where I came from and what I had been through. But as the work developed it became clear that reliving the memories was just too difficult for me to cope with alone. So with the help of my wife, who showed immense patience and such a strong desire to understand, my writing became not only a way for me to become reconciled with my life, but also a therapy.
In the beginning, as I read through my diaries, I would write as though the thoughts and feelings were reborn from the fire. The emotions that came to the surface from that place that was once so deep and dark reminded me just how far apart two beings could be, Mom and me, living our separate lives in separate places, and yet sharing one past. At one point I couldn’t read my own work without choking on the emotions that the memories churned up.
As always time heals the wounds, and in the end I was able to read and understand. I understood that the time I’d spent carrying it all around like a stone around my neck was lost time, and that to continue doing so was futile. There was no reason to hold it in, no point in continuing to carefully manage the constant emotional eruptions. I’d spent most of my young life “high” and separated from my emotions. I’d lost more than pride during those years; I’d lost the chance to be a teenager. It was such a waste for me to have lived such a destructive life at that age. Why continue on that path?
Once I understood that the aim of assembling my memories should be to heal, not just to remind me of the past or record it, I was free. I also knew that others needed the same chance—the chance to let it all go and yet at the same time to assimilate it. As the work progressed and took shape, it became clear to me that here was an opportunity to share with others that have been there, and perhaps advance their healing process, too. What really happened here was something I never knew possible—it was indeed a process of healing and closure.
Without the help and support of my wife Joanne, I’m sure I would have found it too difficult and not seen the real value in sharing the experience. She helped me understand and adjust. Once the secrets were shared and the thoughts and feelings reopened, Joanne and I became even closer. Without her faith in me, there wouldn’t have been closure. And that is the most important part of this process—being able to walk away and still look forward to life.
My wife took a vagabond and made me whole.
She took a child and made me a man.
She helped me come to terms with what I kept for so long below the surface.
Now I can say:
It’s finally over
.
I know that someday my own children will read this work and find it difficult to comprehend that I lived that way for so long. Currently, they have no idea of the events that took place so long ago. They couldn’t possibly imagine the emotions, the feelings, and the heartache, and that’s the way it should be.
One day, when they know what happened to their father, I hope they will understand.
It’s not what we once were that matters, or what we thought of ourselves before today. What really matters is that we know who we are now, and what we can accomplish. We are all greater than the sum of our emotions. Whatever our age, at some level we are all children. Never let go of that.
To all the things that each of us has been through, and all that we’ll ever feel, hear, learn, or experience, there must be a purpose. There must be a reason why we’re born into certain families, find certain spouses, and progress through life the way we do.
We are all looking for the answer to the undying question: Why am I here? For me I found the answer in the least likely place I looked: deep within myself.
If we were to take all of our emotions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences and hold them in our hand, they would be like a single grain of sand. When we realize the magnitude of all the grains of sand in the world, we get but a glimpse of the potential experiences we are destined to embrace.
Once we understand our true potential and when we go through life a day at a time, we recognize that there is nearly nothing that we cannot accomplish or endure, if we but remember from whence we came.
There is nothing greater on this earth than the value of just one child’s soul.
Joanne,
Thanks for allowing me to be a kid. Now I know what it means to see time stand still before me. I know that you’re the reason I came on this earth and lived the life I have.
You’re my reward.
With the love of my family and the support of my wife, I have completed a part of me that was left unfinished for so long. Sharing this story with the world has helped me immensely. It has also made me realize that there are other relationships that I must attend to, those other characters spoken of that were at some time, like me, held captive.
My journey has come to a threshold that I must now choose to cross. I speak of that place where all those emotions were once held silent, that place where others were in their own way left behind. Those siblings find it just as difficult to recall, remember, and embrace those days of long ago. I have a new journey: a journey I should have taken twenty years ago, a journey of recalculation and repair. Only this journey isn’t just for myself, it’s for those who really understand.
None of this would have been possible without Wendy, Steve, Heidi, Heather, Adam, Amy, and of course John and Darlene. Those teenage years were the hardest and yet the most meaningful.
My advice to my readers:
Surround yourself with true friends who care and who can share with you. Don’t be afraid to let go of the child and find the young adult. You’re never really alone.
SILENT TEARS
When you look into the eyes of the future you often see the past.
It’s only when a wife is concerned for the silent tears you shed
and that she cannot see, that it’s discussed.
In that discussion you try to explain the difference
between silent tears and tears of silence.
The difference is as large as the imagination of a child.
Tears of silence are the tears of joy in watching
the future grow before your very eyes.
They are the tears of joy—healing the heartache
and watching for the choices between right and wrong and
teaching the difference.
Silent tears are those that are not seen by man or woman,
they are the tears created and seen only by a child.
Eventually you try to explain to your partner that these
tears not seen are for the flashes of the past,
The flashes that occur from time to time without provocation.
They are the emotions that are raised when you find
yourself disciplining a child,
wondering—have I crossed that line?
The conversations that you never had that would change
the meaning of tears forever are yet to be born.
The conversations that would bring voice to those silent tears are the monsters under the bed.
The words that would wake the dead are better left to those poor souls buried without tears, be they tears of silence or silent tears.
One day a man decides that the monsters under the bed
are real and very much alive.
They live in his mind as a memory
reborn when he closes his eyes to sleep.
As time goes on they cause the ability to sleep with his eyes open, instilling fear in the one that sleeps next to him.
She wonders what could have happened to a
man that would cause such a trait.
She sits wondering what events have occurred that would bring a man to such a fear of the dark.
A fear of the sounds that only a mother makes as she walks
into his bedroom.
Somehow the sleep that is required by this man is replaced with midnight awakenings in a shout of fear.
The need to stay awake overpowers the need
to sleep—again the body and the mind have adjusted.
Notwithstanding this, a son’s love for his mother is
stronger than the willpower required to keep the silent tears unheard.
Mom—I love you.
And more than that, I forgive you.
Please forgive me for giving voice to the once silent tears.
Now, like you, please, please let the monsters
under the bed be put to rest.
Your son—Richard
CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION RESOURCES
The National Exchange Club Foundation
The National Exchange Club Foundation is committed to making a difference in the lives of children, families, and our communities through its national project, the prevention of child abuse. The NEC Foundation’s most successful method of countering abuse is by working directly with parents through the parent aid program. The NEC Foundation coordinates a nationwide network of nearly one hundred Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Centers that utilize the parent aid program and provide support to families at risk for abuse.
The National Exchange Club
Child Abuse Prevention Services Department
3050 Central Avenue
Toledo, OH 43606-1700
Phone: 800-924-2643 (800-XCHANGE)
Fax: 419-535-1989
Web site:
www.preventchildabuse.com
Contact:
www.preventchildabuse.com/contact.htm
For the past several years, the blue ribbon has been widely recognized as a national symbol of child abuse awareness. This movement began in the spring of 1989, when a concerned grandmother, Bonnie Finney of Norfolk, Virginia, took a stand against child abuse after the death of her grandson. She tied a symbolic blue ribbon to her van as a signal to the community of her personal commitment to involve everyone in the battle to stop child abuse. Bonnie’s own grandson was a tragic, young victim, and his death gave her the strength to encourage others to help in the fight against child abuse and neglect. The spirit of her blue ribbon grew, and it inspired a statewide community-based effort to join forces in this tragic battle.
Today, the blue ribbon symbolizes the more than 3.2 million abused children reported each year to Child Protective Services (CPS) throughout the United States.
During the month of April, Child Abuse Prevention Month, nearly 1,100 Exchange Clubs and NEC Child Abuse Prevention Centers conduct a blue ribbon campaign in their communities across America.
For more information, contact:
Richard B. Pelzer
124 Long Pond Road, Suite 8
Plymouth, MA 02360
508-746-6080