Lancing Boils (Part two)

October 14, 2007
I think most of the people who read this blog know me, and I thank you for your patience, kindness and support. You can see by the dates how long I have been working on this post. I'm sure you know this is not an easy door to crack open or go through. I know this has been a long time in coming and I know it's not well written or edited. It's the best I can do at present and I'm not even sure why it has to be done, I just know it does. So please bear with the errors, the stream of consciousness writing etc. So that said. . .here's the rest of the story.


So September came around and I started 2nd grade. Miss Woods was my teacher and she terrified me. She was a large, powerfully built woman and she yelled alot. I don't think she really yelled at me as I think I was her favorite girl, but when she yelled at the other kids it seemed to hurt me too. Several of the boys in the class developed crushes on me (believe me when I say I can't imagine why)and I had no idea how to deal with it. They would try to gather around me at recess and after school and I would run, so of course they would give chase. I know I was really scared sometimes and annoyed at other times, but I couldn't understand why no adults stopped it. So there I was running like a hare from the hounds during recess and lunch and cringing in my seat during class. Not much fun!! I remember walking to school and my stomach hurting so bad I would start crying and go back home where I would have a sudden recovery. The other thing I remember was math races. Two people would go to the blackboard and Miss Woods would give us a math problem to solve, the first one to get the right answer won. Joe Bob and I were the fastest in the class and I'm sure I actually won occasionally, but my memory was that he always won, most of the time by a fraction of a second.

SO. . . Lessons I took from second grade were something like this, "I'm good, but never the best" "No one is going to protect me, ergo, I had better watch out for myself"

Anyway, life became "normal" and I continued to grow and learn. I had enough, clothes, friends, love, stability, family to keep me on a pretty middle of the road journey. I wasn't the best, smartest or prettiest, but I was "good enough". There really wasn't anything to complain about much. I was pretty careful, with a few exceptions, to not get myself into any situations that I couldn't handle, as I still believed I had to look out for myself. I lacked a layer of protection that my other friends seemed to have.

I grew into a young woman and married a good man Jim (as an aside, there are a lot of Jims and Bills in my family). We had a family of our own. Moved around a few times with his career. Usual ups and downs of life. I was always curious about people and how they thought and what made them choose the actions they would take. Trying to see the world through their eyes. (I'm trying to summarize here to get to the "rest of the story".)

I had a son Brian, daughter Tiff, son Chris and son Travis. Life was full and busy. As the kids grew up I noticed that Chris was compared to my father by family members. There were many incidents that I could relate here but they would just make a long story longer. The up shot is that Chris is my father reincarnated!!! Remember that, it's important later. If ya got questions about that story I'll address it in another post.

Okay, moving on quickly, my children are grown and I become an Oma to Jimmy (see what I mean, another Jim) who lives in Virginia. My emotional pain around this was puzzling. I couldn't be the Oma I wanted to be with him so far away. I made every effort to see him every couple of months but it was never enough and just left me sadder. I knew that if it was what I really wanted, I could move there, but I was unwilling to do that. Hmmmm. I was puzzled. It all came to a turning point this January. My body was so wracked by physical pain that I began getting massages to help me stay mobile. I knew I had been going downhill emotionally since November and hit bottom the first of January. I had been close to tears many times a day and really not well. I asked Claudia about grief massage and she knew exactly what I was talking about and began to work on that level. There were often tears of emotion during the massages. We were moving the boil closer to the surface.

In February, Jim sent me to Dallas to visit my best friend Jane. We do amazing work together and he knew I needed to see her. I told her the whole story, one of the few times I had really told the whole thing. Very difficult but very helpful also.

Then in May Jim's brother called to say his roof was leaking and the ceiling was falling down in the sunroom????? Okay, this means a quick trip to AZ to deal with the problem. Jim is buying tickets to AZ and asks me if I'm going too. I hesitate, not sure if I could get more emotional work done home alone or if going to the grave site (which is in AZ) would be best when he says "I think you should go". So I say alright buy me a ticket. Then Jim gets kidney stones which put him in the hospital for a few days and immediately he says "if I can't go to AZ I need you to go for me". Chris (who lives in Cal) is between jobs and Jim has asked him to come to AZ and help with the house. So the outcome is this, Chris (my reincarnated father) and I will be in AZ at the grave sites on the 51st anniversary of my father's death. AND IT WILL BE FATHER'S DAY AGAIN.

The universe will move whatever it needs to to assist you when you are ready to do the work. I needed to tell Chris my memories of that day and when I finished he asked me if I felt guilty because I went to the store instead of staying home. I answered him as I always have "No, I don't think I felt guilty, I don't think I felt I had enough power to influence adult decisions. I think I took the lesson that even small decisions could have huge consequences, but I don't think I felt guilty".

We put flowers on the graves and touched the stones and I read a few words I had written about shifting energy. That was all, no thunderbolts, no great difference. Later in the week I did bring up the subject with my sister for the first time ever. We didn't really go into great detail, but at least the subject was opened.

Return home and the days go by, still processing, still weepy, when one day while driving I get this thought in a very small voice "I didn't stay home and save my Daddy"!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was like a gut punch. I do carry guilt after all!! Oh C--p, is there anything else we can add into this boil?

So the next couple of months I try and let the guilt come up. I try and talk to the 7 year old girl I was and reassure her that it was not her fault and she really could not have "saved" her Daddy. It's not easy and is very slow going. Even the adult Linda can't quite be totally sure that is the whole truth. I flit from emotion to logic like a ping pong ball. September comes again and Jim and I are going to Arizona again. We spend the whole month, Jim working on John's house and I stay at the ranch alot. This means lots of alone time in the quietest place you can imagine. I very carefully avoid writing anything and do very little processing. A few tears each day while listening to music was about it. Then on the last Friday before we leave I go into town alone with the intention of putting flowers on the graves. On the way into town I drive past the house I grew up in, and they are having a huge yard sale!!!! (the universe at work again) I drove around the block and stopped at the edge of the property, not sure if I wanted to go in or not. I had driven by the house earlier in the month and was surprised by how much is still the same. Same shingles, same trim, same fence my father built, same porch, same front door. (When I had dreams about this house it was always about the doors. Either the front door or the back door wouldn't close or lock properly and I couldn't make the door close and lock so I would be safe through the night) Anyway, I finally went in the yard and there was a woman sitting on the porch. She began talking to me about the sale and I said I wasn't buying anything but that I had grown up in this house. She immediately said I could come inside, but that things were a real mess. So I went into my old house, the house we moved to when I was maybe 4 and lived in until I got married. Over all impression is that it is just so much smaller than I remembered it. I was suprised how much is still the same. No major renovations have been done and even a couple of the cabinets my mother put up in the kitchen are still there. I observed myself go into automatic and remove myself from any emotions I might have been having at the moment. The lady kept talking the entire time and I had a hard time between her words and my thoughts.

She said she, her sister and her brother were moving into this house in order to help each other heal from their childhood of physical abuse and incest. They had grown up in the next block so they were moving back into the neighborhood they grew up in. She said her sister had tried to commit suicide just recently and her brother said if she had succeeded he would have followed her. She seemed like the older sister and she said she had raised her son and not passed this awful legacy onto the next generation and she seemed to be helping her siblings. She asked about my memories and I told her about my father, I cried a little and we hugged each other. Not sure why this is important here, I was just blown away by the coincidences.

I told everyone at dinner that night that I had gone into the house and the things I had observed, how much was the same. I didn't tell them about the lady's story though. Later in the weekend I tried asking my brother about the day our Father died and he clearly didn't want to talk about it. His whole body sort of crumpled into a kind of protective posture, so I dropped the subject. He is 70 years old and can not break the silence after 51 years. That's how much this awful act has impacted us all. I don't even like to think about how much of my life, my perceptions of the world and how I have interacted with others have roots in 1956.

I'm tired now. Jim and I are going to Virginia to welcome Tiff and Shaun's new baby into the family and I think I will take a break from this process for awhile. I don't want to bring this energy to this joyful event. I'm ready for some Jimmy energy and new baby energy for change. I don't know how much more work I have to do, but I would guess there is a lot. But for now it has begun. It's been almost a year and sometimes I get weary and think that's a long time, then I remember that I held it down for 51 years and it doesn't seem so long. I hope when this is done I will feel lighter.

Whoops!!

As you will see by the post below, I forgot to change the date of the post I was editing so it appears out of order. However, the soreness at the base of my throat is gone.

Better

I have actually begun the writing. It is hard. I spent the entire day avoiding doing it. I finally got started after 10 tonight. It will be alright.

Sick and Tired

I am really sick and tired of me and my s---. Sick of the zoning out on the computer or the TV. Sick, sick, sick of it. So I am going to start doing something. Gotta get this stuff done. I'm just too tired of the rut I'm in. Gonna face the dragon. Gonna write it down. Maybe post, not sure yet, we'll see.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Gotta get some rest.

Lancing Boils (part one)

Okay, we are going into rough water here so be fore warned, this one is not light.



June 17, 1956 Father's Day


I am 7 years old. BE (brother) is 19, JD (brother) is 15 and CA (sister) is 14. We live with our mother and father. Daddy has been feeling sick lately. BE has gone to the mountains with friends. Mama reads an ad in the paper that a local supermarket has cold watermelons on sale. We decide to go get one. JD is going to drive, but only has a learners permit so Mama has to go with him. CA says she will go in and get the melon cause Mama doesn't want to go in. Mama tells me to stay home with Daddy, but I want to go with them. Daddy says "oh let her go". I feel happy. Daddy lets me have my way alot. I am a Daddy's girl. So we go to the store and get the melon and come back home. Daddy is in the bathroom, so we go into the kitchen and cut the melon and start eating. Mama calls to Daddy and tells him if he doesn't hurry up the melon will be all gone. Finally, we become concerned about his silence. JD goes around the back of the house to look in the bathroom window and CA says "I can open the door". It has one of those little hook and eye locks and she knows how to use a knife to unlock it. So she and Mama are working on the door and I am still in the kitchen when I hear her scream and run down the hall and out the front door with Mama following close behind.


My Daddy had taken a gun into our bathroom and ended his life.

Then my memory goes black. That is my last actual memory of that day. I don't know if I followed CA andMama into the front yard or if I went down the hall to see what was wrong, but I know this, I don't have the ability to see mental pictures and I think it ended that day in 1956.


I don't know if friends or family came and got us so we didn't see the sheriff, ambulance etc. I don't know where we stayed over the next days, I just don't remember anything else at all.

My next memory is at the funeral. Mama took me up to the casket to see Daddy. There was a cloth over his upper face. Then I cried myself to sleep on Mama's lap. She woke me when it was time to go to the cemetary.

We continued to live in our house. Mama had the bathroom remodeled. I have no more real memories of that summer. Mama must have handled her grief in private. She focused on getting her children through this and back to some semblance of normal as quickly as possible.

We didn't talk about it. At least I didn't talk about it. Maybe they talked to each other, but maybe I was just too young to talk to, or maybe I was still "gone" and there was some talk that I don't remember. I think we just didn't know what to do, so we just moved through our days. I still haven't talked to my brother about it and I only recently brought up the subject with my sister. She had only slightly more memory of that day than I. I'm sure our minds simply shut down to protect us from the awful truth that had become our reality.

I must have been in some kind of shock for a very long time. I don't remember anything else about that summer. I remember returning to school that year. I was in 2nd grade and had a teacher who terrified me.

At 7 I didn't understand much of what was happening. I didn't know Mama was grieving in private. I just thought we just "got on with it". All my grief was simply pushed down and ignored. I've held it somewhere below and behind my heart, and it has taken me 51 years to bring it to the surface, so it can be opened and cleansed and begin to heal (like "lancing a boil") an emotional boil that I have kept inside for 51 years. At what cost I can only guess. I know I developed many coping skills that allowed me to function in a manner that many would consider successful. I have a good life and avoided many of the pitfalls that fatherless young girls often fall into. That said, I know there has been a cost, one paid by me and everyone in my family. All I can say is "we all did the best we could". It may seem odd in hind sight, but it was the best we could manage then. I can't even imagine the pain my mother carried and the strength she had to have to get herself and her family through the days that followed. She held us together, and that is an amazing thing.

Clicking on the publish post icon is very, very hard . . . but here goes. But if your reading this I got it done.

Okay, I wrote this post a couple days ago and have been working on editing it. After I wrote it, I felt strangely lighter the next day, colors seemed brighter, my heart felt open. My whole body felt better. But I didn't post it, and tonight I have developed soreness at the base of my throat. . .go figure. So I am going to post this now and hope that the soreness goes away. There is more to this story and I promise it does get much better.

Back again

Hi Jane, hope you are still checking. :)

Well I'm back posting after a long absence. I have been doing a lot of heavy lifting emotionally and spiritually lately. I think I will write about it soon but there is so much, I'm not sure where to begin, so I'll just do the facts for now (just the facts maam).

Was in Virginia for several weeks this Spring. I do love spending time with Shaun & Tiff & Jimmy. Big news on that front is they are expecting again in the first part of Nov. So I'll probably be back there for the month of Nov.

I was in Arizona for a week in June, taking care of some repairs for John's house. This trip also figured heavily into the soul work I've been doing.

Tiff and Jimmy came for a visit in July and we had a GREAT time. He loved the "bouncy place" one of the Bounce U places that is really close to our house. It rained the whole time they were here, but we did get to let him and McKenna play in the wading pool a couple of times. He is talking more and more and just lots of fun.

Jim had kidney stones and was in the hospital for a few days in June and had lithotripsy another time as an outpatient again. Hopefully that will take care of all of the stones.

Well, I think that about catches us up for now, I'll try to get here more often and get to the deeper stuff too.