I will always have a pain inside of me about my father. Out of all of his children I know I am the most like him. He protected me when I was a little girl. My mother loved me but I wasn’t the baby she wanted. She wanted children that wanted to be taken care of and for the most part, that wasn’t me. I was the first born and I was so much like my father. I looked more like him, I thought like him. When my first sibling was born, they were a failure to thrive child. They needed to be cared for. They needed to be doted on. They were born mean and they needed a lot of tending to. They got away with terrible things.
I was super sensitive. I was a kind child by nature, inquisitive, with lots of questions, who wanted to be taught how to learn. For the most part this worked best with my father. He knew how to give me tools to teach myself. He wasn’t perfect. He had a terrible temper with a violent streak that my mother was afraid of, but I could read him well. And I learned quickly to obey him or not get caught and I could avoid the rage, for the most part. My mother, on the other hand had a mental illness that was unknown and they did not have reliable treatments for. She was hard to read.
I know that my father was raised with horrible abuse. My grandfather was a practicing alcoholic for most of the years my father was in the house. My grandmother was a devout Catholic so there were lots of children. My father was the 3rd child. The way I have been told, my oldest uncle was my grandmother’s favorite child, my second oldest uncle was my grandfather’s favorite child, and my father, being the third oldest child was the perfect scapegoat. Not only did his sister, born right after him have mental illness, but she was manipulative and set him up for more beatings, but the older boys abused my father too. In a family with so many children in the 50’s-70’s, with parents with little education, I am sure this situation was normal. I have watched my father closely all my life. He is different, like me. I can feel it. I know he is sensitive and creative and very intelligent. He doesn’t really look like his siblings, but he does look like relatives. He stands out in family pictures.
I had breakfast with one of my aunts yesterday. I am thankful for her. Since I have had to cut myself off from most of my family, she has been the one that has sought me out and kept in touch. She is younger than my father. Her version of life is different because, essentially, she had better, older, wiser and healthier parents than my father had. My grandparents didn’t keep abusing alcohol and each other and their children. They got better and their youngest children are very different from their oldest children.
There was a brother born after my father, named Mark. He died when he was 5 years old from brain cancer. He would have been about 4 or 5 years younger than my father. I think with the 3 sisters that came before Mark, Mark would have been important to my father. My father has told me he has no memories of his brother. He remembers him as a pudgy toddler when he went into the hospital and then an 8 lb skeleton when he was dead. Grandma, being a devout Catholic, made sure the mass was an open casket affair and she made her children say goodbye to him this way. I can see why this would have been very traumatic to a very sensitive child. But my aunt, who was a year older than Mark, had other memories. She said that when Mark was in the hospital that she and my youngest 2 uncles were sent to other family members because Grandma would work graveyard and then spend every other waking moment with Mark at the hospital. The older children had to go to school and probably fended for themselves a lot. But there were times when Mark would come home. My aunt would help my Grandma watch him because she wasn’t in school. He loved to go outside. She would pull him around in the little red wagon or put him in the swing with the sides on it and push him. He only had enough energy for about an hour of play before he wanted to go back to sleep. She had to make sure to never let him bump his head. He was often having surgeries and there were always bandages on his head. He was wobbly on his feet so if he walked she would hold onto him to make sure he didn’t fall. This little information about an uncle that I was never allowed to talk about has me feeling so many emotions.
I have great compassion for my family members. I know they may have other thoughts on this but I had to cut them off to save myself. I can’t be the scapegoat anymore but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand them and love them and even miss them sometimes. My parents are good people but they were terrible married to each other. My mother needed help that wasn’t available to her and she was abusive to my father and to me. My father was the only one to protect me from my mother and my sibling and when he left, I was alone. He also didn’t understand the full responsibilities of being a parent which came out in a lot of painful ways.
Then he married a true narcissist. I have given a lot of thought to this and spoken to my therapist about it and she has affirmed what I knew in my spirit. My step-mother has used my father’s anger and violent streak to benefit herself. I have watched her rile him up against her own daughter and grandson. It is terrifying. She is the reason I can’t have a relationship with my father. She is broken, yes, but she has hurt so many people, and they don’t even know all of the evil things she has done.
I wish my father could see the benefit of therapy because I wish he could be set free from the terrors inside of himself. No one should have to carry what he has had to carry. He deserves peace. I wish the same for my mother too and I have told her the same.
My wife, Karen G Clemenson, asked me if I thought I should reach out to my father and tell him how I felt and I told her no. If I could reach out to him and know I was going to reach the little boy inside of him that needs support, it would be great. But most likely, I will be talking to the angry man that has been building and building the rage and it will just make things worse. She said she thought I knew him so well, and I said, “Of course. Out of all his children, I am the most like him.”
There is a rage and sadness that has been passed down through generations that is inside of me. It used to terrorize me. But I have learned to not feed it and try to focus on the things that lovely, pure and good, like the bible says. I meet people like me every now and then and I understand their inner fight. This is why compassion is so important. Some of us are born with things we didn’t earn but we have to learn to walk with.
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My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.
For anyone reading this that isn’t a Christian, unapologetically, I am a Christian, but I believe there is room for lots of beliefs and religions in the world. It is not my intent to offend people with different beliefs than I have and I would be open to open-minded conversations with no goals of changing anyone’s mind, but sharing information.
If you are interested in becoming a Christian…Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.
If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this:
Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world.
I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me.
I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.
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