A Life Spared

(I use a literary vehicle to recount some of the more powerful events from my life because of the freedom it provides to provide details about the event that were too difficult or too painful to explain from the first person vantage point. Below is an example of how I use this technique to describe a drive by shooting that had just taken place at my home.)

It was very late.  Too late to be up but he had to go to the bathroom.  He staggered out of his bedroom into the dark hallway with his little eyes still full of sleep.  The hallway was really more of a vestibule that led to three bedrooms and a bathroom.  He made the quick right and walked into the bathroom flipping on the light as he entered.  The bright light made him slam his eyes shut and he took the remaining steps to the toilet bowl like he was blind.  A half second later he heard … BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  His eyes now wide with fear stared blearily at the bathroom window to see who was trying to break in.  Tiny particles of drywall passed in front of his face but no comprehension registered as to what was happening.  In front of him, the toilet exploded into a dozen pieces of shattered porcelain and water gushed across the linoleum onto his bare feet.  Five more loud BANGs smashed the silence again as his eight year old legs propelled him across the hall to the room of his father. 

The little boy banged on his father’s locked bedroom door screaming “Dad!  Somebody’s trying to break in!” 

After a few moments his father unlocked the door and looked at the little boy.  In angry tones the father shouted “What’s going on?!”

The little boy shrieked “Somebody’s trying to break in!” 

The boy’s father yelled back at him “No one’s breaking in, someone just shot up the house!”
In stunned silence the little boy watched his father carefully make his way to the bathroom window.  The man was grossly overweight.  He wore a huge white v-neck t-shirt that draped over his corpulent form and large white underwear that sloppily covered much of the remainder of his four hundred pounds.  His six foot high frame barely supported the tremendous weight but he somehow slogged through the toilet water to the bathroom window that looked out to the back alley from where the shots had been fired. 

The boy walked in a trance-like state and sat on the old couch in the living room.  When he came to himself again he noticed that there were police in the house and one of them was talking to him.  He stared at the silver badge on the chest of the officer but couldn’t make out what the man was saying.  Just at that time he realized that one of the prostitutes that lived in their house was sitting by him on the couch and holding his hand.  Her name was Esmerelda and the little boy liked her very much.  She was always very kind to him – almost motherly.

Esmerelda said softly, “Jamie, did you hear him?”

The little boy turned his head and looked at her.  She was wearing an extra long shirt with a faded logo on the front.  She had dark hair and a pretty face.  The boy thought how pretty she looked even though it was the middle of the night.  He said nothing and turned his head back and...

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Abandoned

...On those few visits that my mother made following her departure there was a certain degree of abnormality to the visit that was apparent to even a very young child.  Perhaps it was due to the drugs and alcohol or due to her shame at having visited so infrequently.  Whatever caused the strained nature of the visits I felt almost relieved when she would bring me home.  In a short amount of time I became uncomfortable with her and a barrier developed between us.  Subsequent visits were always too brief and of such poor quality that the barrier was never quite able to be broken.  Even as a small child I felt as though it was my responsibility to break down the barrier that separated us.  I was never able to do it.  After the brief visits with my mother stopped I had only strained memories of her and a kind of fondness for a “mother-concept.”  I have no other memories of her as child.

The memories I have associated with my mother are simply of many years without her.  I longed for her to come home but as the years passed I seemed to slowly slip away from the world in which she was an actual person.  Like anyone else, the absence of my mother from my life left a great void and I felt that I had nothing to hang on to.  She did not send letters with any regularity and her choice to leave me with my father was a constant reminder of how little she valued me.  In later years I would come to realize that my mother chose her own appetites and desires in place of her responsibility to her children.  Following her departure my father created a nightmarish situation in which I was forced to live.  His association with the dregs of society led to the creation of an atmosphere in my home more akin to a drunken brawl than a place for raising children.  I resented those that my father had brought into the house and assigned an equal portion of resentment to my mother who I blamed for the events.

...

Today, I realize that my experiences as a child provide me with a deep insight into my own children.  I also have the great benefit of understanding the value that a mother has in her son’s eyes.  I can comprehend the great tragedy that arises from a mother vanishing from her child’s life and the resultant pain that always follows.  I understand the power for comfort that a mother has on a child and can talk about that to my wife so she knows the great reliance our boys have on her.  This understanding has been valuable to me as I have spoken to people who have faced great challenges and struggles.  Because I have faced many similar trials, I have been able to provide help and counsel that I otherwise would be incapable of providing.
As time passed the emptiness and longing that I had for my mother intensified.  I wished and prayed and begged for my mother to come home.  When she didn’t return I would ask my dad where mommy had gone and he would invariably answer “She didn’t want you and she’s never coming back.”  I never could understand his answer.  He seemed to reserve his most cruel and vicious responses for these times.

The vicious meaning behind my father’s words was simply beyond my ability to comprehend.  I remember thinking about the words he said and tried to figure out why she didn’t want me.  I think he would have been disappointed at the time if he would have realized that his attempt to hurt me had missed its mark.  Clearly he wanted to cause me pain from his statement but for some reason those words were processed by my brain in a similar way to a math problem.  Consequently when he said she didn’t want me I tried to figure out why she didn’t want me rather than collapsing under the weight of the implication.  I invariably would try to figure out why she didn’t want me in practical terms.  Most of the time I figured it must have had something to do with the size of my eyes since they are rather large. 

It’s exactly this kind of inability to grasp his meaning that I think helped to save me from a lot of emotional damage that he attempted to impart.  Not that his statement didn’t hurt me because it most assuredly did.  However, I don’t think it hurt in the way he had hoped it would or that it cut as deeply as he had planned.  Interestingly, I have observed my son Conner in younger years respond to emotionally charged statements from his brothers in a very similar way.

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The Jar

During the times when my father was going through a particularly heavy bout of drug use he would lay in his bed for days.  He didn’t read or watch TV or listen to music.  He just lay there drifting in and out of consciousness.  To avoid walking the fifteen feet from his room to the bathroom, my father used a large glass humidifier jar to urinate in.  When he wanted it emptied he would scream for me to come.

*****

The little boy was crouched in the living room near the large picture window.  The action figure he had found in the bush may have been missing a leg but it was better than anything else he had.  In a flash he had escaped into his imagination and remained in the living room of their house in body only.  But he was still within reach of that voice.

“Jamie.  Jamie.  Empty my jar!”  The voice reached into his world and pulled him violently back into reality.  The command came from the bedroom where his father had been laying for at least three days.  The voice carried with it the cruelty and insistence that came with every command from the boy’s father. 

The boy dropped his toy and walked quickly to his father’s bedroom.  Upon entering the man sternly ordered “Empty my jar.”  The little boy hated this second order because it was unnecessary.  He had come as he was instructed and was not attempting to avoid completing the miserable task.  The second command just seemed to grind into the boy the fact that he was powerless to do anything about it.

The little boy picked up the heavy glass jar.  It was clear except for the blue wavy line designs that the manufacturer...

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