Who Knew?

Warning – this post will be very raw and may contain items that people find offensive but they will be true from my point of view and memory.

In this series of posts, I will share dominoes that touched me.  I remind you, dear reader, that the items you are about to read are true from my own point of view and may be uncomfortable for some to read. I am writing about my journey not to place blame but to help me heal and maybe help someone else struggling with a similar journey.

DOMINO November 1988:

This will probably be the hardest post to write.

When I was little, I was definitely a Daddy’s Girl. I have so many memories of him.  In my mind’s eye, he was a hard working man who just couldn’t catch a break.  He worked many different jobs as I grew up. He wasn’t a do-it-yourself handy man type so I didn’t see a lot of that growing up.

Where I had a difficult time with my relationship with mom, the opposite was true for dad.  I adored him.  Even when we were poor and had to scrap for things I always felt love and acceptance from him.  I have been told I put him on a pedestal because of how young I was. That may be true.  I do know I always felt safe when I was with him.

November 1988 would FOREVER change that.

One morning in mid-November 1988 I was called out of class to the main office at school.  I was 13 years old and in the 8th grade. I was an honor roll student so I wasn’t sure why I was being called to the office.  When I arrived, my mom was there and I could feel the tension rolling off her.  She told me that my dad had been rushed to the hospital and she was there to get me.  We then had to go to my sister’s school to get her.  I remember feeling numb.  That numbness would be a part of me for a very long time.

When we got to the hospital we found out he was in emergency bi-pass surgery.  Apparently when he got to work that morning he told co-workers he wasn’t feeling well.  They called for an ambulance and he was having a heart attack.  The EMTs stabilized him for transport but he had another attack on the ride to ER. We waited in suspense for what felt like an eternity.  That night he was finally put into the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU).  We were told he had gone into multiple attacks while in surgery.  It was a very tenuous situation.  We were able to see him….one person at a time.  I remember seeing him hooked up to all these machines and just being gripped by fear.

I knew the situation wasn’t good when all of his siblings, from across the country, flew in to see him over the next week.  My gut told me I wasn’t being told everything.  Of course now I know it is because I was 13 years old.  At the time though all I wanted to know was the facts and truth.  That was MY dad laying in that bed.  That was My world hooked up to all those machines.  That was MY rock looking so weak.

Dad was in CICU for about two weeks before they moved him to what I thought was a regular room.  We went to see him the day before Thanksgiving.  He was sitting up and talking and laughing. with us.  He said that he would move in temporarily with one of his sisters when he was released so he wouldn’t be alone. as he recovered.  We were talking about how we would work together to eat healthier.  When we left him that night, I told him I would come over the weekend to see him.  I told him I loved him and would see him in a day or two.  He told me he loved me too.

I absolutely hated that we would have to host Thanksgiving at my mom’s house for Ted’s family. I felt like I was betraying my dad by enjoying the food.  I am sure I was nasty to everyone around me.  I tried to let the numbness keep me quiet.  I don’t know how well I did. I do know I asked my mom the next day, Friday, if I could take the bus to the hospital to see dad.  She said no.  I asked Saturday and Sunday.  She said no.  I asked if I could go after school Monday.  She said no. She did say she would take my sister and me on Tuesday.  I relented and said “FINE!” in what I am sure was a pretty shitty teenage rage.

Monday night 11/28/1988:

I went to sleep knowing I would get to see dad the next day after school.  He was so much on my mind that I was dreaming of him.  Reader, I am a vivid dreamer and to this day recall this dream in all its color.  Here is the dream.  My dad and I were walking in a meadow.  He was talking but I couldn’t hear him or me for that matter.  It was like watching a tv show on mute.  Anyway, we were walking in this meadow and we found ourselves on a cliff.  My footing slipped and I began falling while he was left on the cliff.  Before I hit the bottom, we were back at the beginning of the meadow.  This dream repeated itself a few times.  Each time before I hit bottom, we were at the beginning of the meadow.

At some point in this cycle of dreaming, I could hear a loud chime.  I then could hear banging.  I realized I was waking up to the door bell being rung furiously and very loud pounding on the front door.  Reader, my bedroom was on the the third floor of the house and these sounds woke me.  I sat straight up and said, “O my god….he’s dead” and laid back down.  That dream did not begin again.

When my alarm went off to wake me for school, I would find the house completely lit up.  The house was usually dark when I woke.  As I came off the landing from my room, my mom was coming out of the bathroom in tears.  She embraced me and said, “Maria, your dad has died.”  My entire world disintegrated at the moment. The numbness that had begun a couple weeks earlier now completely consumed me.

I would find out years later that during the time I was having the meadow dream, my dad was going in and out of heart attacks.  He kept being resuscitated.  Finally the decision was made to let him go and not continue fighting to keep his heart going.  I believe that the dream I was having was my dad saying goodbye to me.  The part where I was falling is when he would be in arrest and the dream cycle would begin when they would bring him back.  Maybe that is odd but I still believe this to be true.  Interesting aftereffect from this dream is from that day to now, I am terrified of falling.

November 29, 1988 was date of the most catastrophic Domino in my life.  It would completely impact everything I did from that moment on.  My dad’s death still impacts me today. There are times, like now as I write this, that I will cry with the pain that hole made in my heart.  At that point I really didn’t care what happened to me. I felt life was no longer going to be worth living.  It would be eleven years before another person came into my life and heal my shattered heart.

Reminder: This is a very raw experience for me but I will continue with the next Domino soon. Again, my hope for sharing this journey is that someone will see they are not alone in their pain. My hope is they will see my healing and learn it is possible to accept yourself and even love yourself. Until the next Domino, treat yourself with kindness….you are worth it.

Warning – this post will be very raw and may contain items that people find offensive but they will be true from my point of view and memory.

In this series of posts, I will share dominoes that touched me.  I remind you, dear reader, that the items you are about to read are true from my own point of view and may be uncomfortable for some to read. I am writing about my journey not to place blame but to help me heal and maybe help someone else struggling with a similar journey.

DOMINO Mom:

After reviewing my last post, I realized I didn’t really do my mom justice.  My mom was a hard working woman. Mom isn’t just a single domino, she is part of the layout and interwoven through all my experiences. We have had some rough patches in our relationship through the years but I do love her very much.

As a young girl, my mom inspired me to not be afraid to work hard.  I saw my mom as this very strong and smart woman who fought her way in a male dominated work force.  I was always very proud of her and the work she did.  Was she a doctor or a lawyer or anything like that??  No.  She worked hard for a local grocery chain.  She worked for the family owned business for over 30 years total by the time she finally retired.  She started as a cashier and worked her way through the ranks.  She managed multiple stores and when they opened a financial business she became the auditor of all their units.  She showed me what a good work ethic was.  I am forever grateful for that model.

As a teen, I struggled in my relationship with mom. I really didn’t like Ted.  I felt she was worthy of so much more than he gave (or didn’t give).  That is my point of view.  Maybe it was skewed.  However after 35 years, I still don’t like Ted. I feel he made mom choose him over my sister and me.

Mom did influence me in other ways which are going to sound very negative but they ultimately made me choose some positive things for myself.  As I said, mom worked hard but as a woman she didn’t get the pay she deserved. In my opinion, as a result, she was torn sometimes on how to handle our home finances.  I always found that odd because she was a master at work finances but I now think that sometimes a person gives so much to work that there isn’t enough left for home. This led to bills sometimes not being paid on time.

I never knew when that would be the case.  I could come home from school and the power would be cut off.  Sometimes, the water or gas would be cut off.  Sometimes the phone or cable would be cut off.  I also learned early on to lie to bill collectors when they would call.  This was before caller ID people and we didn’t have an answering machine so I had to answer the phone. I did develop some resentment to these things happening because they way I saw things, these bills weren’t being paid but Ted had his marijuana and alcohol.

So, how did these negatives become positive for me.  I vowed to myself that when I moved out my bills would always come first and I would figure out the rest.  I am proud to say that I have stuck with that for 28 years and have never had anything shut off due to late payment.  When I became a mom, I vowed my daughter would not grow up in fear of life necessities being under threat.

There are points in my life when my relationship with mom in turmoil due to other people who will be discussed in future dominoes.  The current state of my relationship with my mom is pretty good.  The fear of losing her a few years back really woke me up to being a better daughter.  Do I still have some issues with how things are in her life?  Yes.  Do I still wish she would make different decisions sometimes? Yes. Do I worry about her? Yes.

I have come to realize that I cannot change her.  I do know that some of my growth and life choices have influenced her in recent years.  No one comes with a manual.  We aren’t given a pamphlet that says “How to be a daughter at every stage in life”. I am very grateful my mom is still a part of my life and I am working on myself to embrace the positive and not linger on the negative.

Reminder: This is a very raw experience for me but I will continue with the next Domino soon. Again, my hope for sharing this journey is that someone will see they are not alone in their pain. My hope is they will see my healing and learn it is possible to accept yourself and even love yourself. Until the next Domino, treat yourself with kindness….you are worth it.

Warning – this post will be very raw and may contain items that people find offensive but they will be true from my point of view and memory.

In this series of posts, I will share dominoes that touched me.  I remind you, dear reader, that the items you are about to read are true from my own point of view and may be uncomfortable for some to read. I am writing about my journey not to place blame but to help me heal and maybe help someone else struggling with a similar journey.

DOMINO Track Two:

As I mentioned in my last post, my parent’s divorce changed the layout of the domino pattern of my life.  During this time, the layout consisted of two parallel tracks.  One track was life with my dad while the other was with my mom.  I consider them parallel because I was the one balanced between the tracks.  In reality, the worlds were very different.  Track one focused on life with my dad.  Track two begins now.

Last time I mentioned that the house my family lived in while my parents were married was sold as part of the divorce.  My parents would move into very different neighborhoods. Another significant difference is my mom moved in with a man, Fred*, who was in his sixties…she was in her mid thirties.  This is not a value judgement.  I mention his age because I think it impacts how he interacted with my sister and me.

I don’t have any real memory of the first place they lived in together but it feels like it was a short time.  By the summer of 1984 we moved out of the city into a suburb area that was still in its township status. The Garden Woods apartment complex was very nice.  It had a swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, playground, open quad field space and a nice clubhouse. Compared to my dad’s place, this felt very upscale. Somewhere in this time frame, my mom was awarded custody of my sister and me. This move did impact where we went to school.  It was scary moving from the church and school I had known my whole life up to that point.  The new church was huge in comparison to our previous one.  The school just a little bigger.

Fred lived with us for almost two years.  During that time he did some really nice things for us.  He was retired so he had time to teach mom, my sister and me how to dive and swim in addition to how to play tennis.  His mannerism was very formal so he also taught us proper table settings, etiquette and manners.  We weren’t heathens. He just had a more formal way about life.  He was very neat and insisted on everything being in its proper place. When I think of that time now, I realize I learned a great deal from Fred.  As I mentioned in a previous post my anxiety was very high at this point in my life.  Fred taught me some basic yoga, self-hypnosis and meditation.

Mom worked a lot of hours and we would only have her for the early part of the day.  She worked an evening or closing shift at a local grocery store. Even though Fred was retired, he was not always home.  He had grown children and young grandchildren that he would go spend time with.  There were many days where I would be in charge of getting my sister and myself off the school bus, into our apartment, out of our school uniforms and begin homework.  Some times I was even in charge of getting dinner started.  Fred would take care of these things when he was there. He bought us an encyclopedia set so we could have it for school work.  That may not sounds like a big deal today but in the mid 1980’s that was an expensive item.

In early 1986, mom and Fred began arguing when my sister and I were out of the room.  I didn’t know what the arguing was about and it was never outrageous.  I just remember loud voices. Nothing that made me afraid for anyone’s safety. This is a very important distinction from what was about to come.  That spring Fred moved out.

Shortly after Fred left, mom sat me down for a talk.  She said, “You are eleven years old now and I think you can understand what I want to talk with you about.” I admit that I was scared for what she was about to tell me.  This conversation would be a pivotal domino.  She told me that the man she had been dating would be moving in with us. Side note – I did not know she had been dating anyone.  His name was Ted* and he had a girl my age named Gina*.  Gina lived with her mom but Ted would have her every other weekend like my dad had us.

Mom also told me that Ted smoked marijuana. I was FLOORED!  This was the height of Nancy Reagan’s “Say No to Drugs”  campaign.  We watched Miami Vice and the people who smoked that were arrested.  I remember asking her if she was crazy bringing drugs into our home.  Yeah, I may have been only eleven but I was so upset and didn’t put a filter on my mouth.  Mom said that it was no big deal and that many people I knew smoked it.  Again…..FLOORED!  I was terrified that this man was moving in and that I was going to be arrested because there would be drugs in our home.  I also knew that from that moment on I would be forced to lie about my home life.  I would not feel safe letting people in to find that secret.

Shortly after Ted moved in, Gina was able to spend some time with us since it was the summer.  We were both really shy but since we were the same age, we figured out that we had things in common.  We began a friendship that was very important to me. I had someone who already knew the secret and could commiserate with about it. Gina shared that she was a bit worried about how long this would last since her dad had lived with and dated other women before my mom.  Little did I know then that Gina would be her own domino in just a few years.

By the fall of 1986, we moved out of the apartment and into a rental house. It was in the same area so we didn’t have to change schools with that move. When I asked why we were moving, mom said, “Ted doesn’t like apartments. They are too small.”  Little did I know that this deference to Ted’s likes and dislikes would dominate the rest of my childhood.

Ted was very different from Fred.  Ted didn’t want to interact with my sister and me.  We were expected to do our chores, do our schoolwork, be quiet and never bother our mom. Ted also drank.  When he would have too much, he would get very loud and we learned quickly to not do anything to trigger his anger when he had been drinking. As you can imagine, Ted is a domino.

*Denotes a name is has been altered.

Reminder: This is a very raw experience for me but I will continue with the next Domino soon. Again, my hope for sharing this journey is that someone will see they are not alone in their pain. My hope is they will see my healing and learn it is possible to accept yourself and even love yourself. Until the next Domino, treat yourself with kindness….you are worth it.