And when they die…
even as time passes and memory fades….their story somehow remains….
This article is not to commemorate the life of a man, it is not sing his praises or tell his dirty secrets, it is not to condemn nor is it judge…. this article is for me to find my own way to process a part of my story that was shared with another. This is a story between two people. This is no one else’s story nor is it shadowed by anyone else’s input. It is part of my story, my truth, as I experienced it and know it to be.
My father has died. He died on a day that is called the Epiphany by many churches, but, it was also an epiphany for me.
The word epiphany means, according to Webster’s dictionary, “3 a (1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something,” (2) “an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking,” and (3) an illuminating discovery or realization.”
Death somehow can have a way of causing one to have a sudden perception of an essential meaning, an intuitive grasp of reality, and or an illuminating realization. It literally can have a way of turning a light on in a rather dark place. Well, if we are open to these things it makes it more likely that we will learn to see in ways we never could before……
When my oldest and closest friend died several years ago, I was not open to anything. I was lost without him. I was hurt, angry, confused, and in such pain that I thought that I too was going to die. But, since then, many dark times have taught me to become open to the lessons that surround my every day experiences. And so, my father’s death was appropriately on the day of epiphany…..
When I looked to the calendar to see the day he had died, and saw “Epiphany” in bold letters, I quickly asked myself what I was needing to perceive, understand, and discover.
After sitting in quiet contemplation this past week, I began to see something very important…. call it an intuitive grasp of a reality that I was trying to ignore… but my story exists because of his story. Without him, and my fathers before him, I simply would not be. Without all the pieces that create the landscape of the person I know as me, then I who would I be? I am deep and creative, adventurous and courageous, and I am not afraid of the skeletons in the deepest darkest recesses of any closet. How did I get to be this way? What was it that formed my strengths and gifts so strongly that they would endure with me through my own personal hell? These questions caused me to look back, to wade through all of the brutal abuses that I endured at the hand of the man I knew as father, to find the man and the part of his story that has woven its way through me.
As I write this, I look out at the storm on the sea and I feel like his love for the waters of the world is where my love of the sea came from. I feel found when the salt air reaches my sense of smell for it tells me I am home no matter where I am in the world. I simply close my eyes and breathe and all becomes still within my own deep waters. The most amazing and powerful dreams I have often contain the sea or deep, dark water. The sea has been my refuge in many of the storms I have survived in this life of being the daughter of a tragically abusive father. And from the depths I find the words….
The first time I ever wrote anything, I was about ten, and it was a poem about the sea and its mammoth, crashing waves. I understood the raging sea back then because my own soul was in such torment. I would watch as the storms would roll in and somehow I would feel like I was not alone, as though the sea knew the horrid pain that lived within me and gifted me the words that would release my pain into the wind and water. Looking back to the man, I can see that his soul was like a tormented storm that relentlessly raged and crashed and damaged everything it could reach. And… in the aftermath of damage he too would write. He could craft a line of words that would express his remorse and whatever it is that he needed to say to convince people that he was not a dangerous man that should be jailed. For whatever the purpose, he still had a gift with words.
I once read a something he wrote about his adventure leaving Germany as a young man and what it took for him to get to his dream land of Canada. His use of words was captivating as he told a piece of his story that would forever disappear after his death. I tried to write what I knew about him but the darkness of his life overshadowed the light that I needed in order to see the words form on the paper. And so, for the most part, the story of his adventures has gone. Yet, as I pass by a mirror, I see his face in mine and a realization suddenly occurs…. we share a story. A story of courage and adventure, for it would not have been easy to leave his home for a land where no one would understand him as he spoke only german. Ours is a shared, dark story, filled with sadness, torment and destruction but, it also is a story of shared gifts. The things about me that are my gifts…. like the written word…. and a courageous, adventurous spirit.
I have been writing as a way of healing the pain that was locked tightly away in the depths of my soul for many years. The written word was my only voice for both my parents silenced me before i can even remember.
But death has a way of breaking the once forced silence. Silence…. a belief he shared with my mother…. that children were only to be seen when necessary but never should they be heard. It seems that the silence he demanded of others has now been forced upon him while my silence is courageously being broken.
This is another illuminated discovery for me…. It has been a growing purpose of my life over recent years to listen and write the stories of others. Strangers who feel that no one really knows them, young people who fear using their voice, homeless people who feel invisible, children whose creative imaginations are pushed aside, drug addicts used to being ignored, women forced into silence as their abusers torture their bodies and souls, they find me somehow and as they speak… I listen. I listen not to reply but, to understand. I use my gift of writing to help others break their silence. This I do because of the story I share with my father, a silencer of voices.
He was also a very strong minded man. He was not easily swayed by popular opinion and was quite happy to go against every flow. Unfortunately, he continually tried to force others to believe and think as he did, which was often very twisted and manipulated and many could see right through his confused ideals. This, for him, caused many people to loose faith in him and it certainly forced him out of positions of leadership that he tried to get into, but, he was unwavering to say the least. I see that in me in many ways. I am not easily swayed nor easily convinced of anything. I have an unwavering way about me and when I teach, I first learn and experience so that my knowledge is real. I am very strong of mind but I am equally strong of character and, as such, I have grown into a strong leader for I give and teach from my authentic self. I am quick to admit a wrong and to correct it. From growing up in such a manipulative family, I learned that authenticity was always going to be my policy.
There is a part of me that wishes he knew me, the child I was and the woman I have become, but time passes and opportunities are lost forever. But what is not lost is me. And now, I see the path behind me that holds more than destruction, I see the path of blessings and gifts that were meant for good that have been passed on to me. Oh, I once was lost….. very lost…. and I pray for the strength to continue to walk this healing journey through all that it will bring and, like the Pilgrim, that I will remain faithful to its end where I will be found.
So as I look out the sea before me, I have a sense that the tapestry of my life has a single thread woven through it, a thread which is the blood of the “man” who was my father, whose gifts I carry in my soul but whose memory I shall let fade. As for the damage he caused, I thankfully have another very beautiful thread that is stitching those brutal wounds closed because… “therefore, by the grace of God, go I.”
I finally get to close that chapter of my life called father and place it upon a shelf where with all the other books of tragic world history. I love shared stories…. some I read again and again…. but this one needs to gather dust.
So my father… thank you for being the conduit of the gifts I hold dear, and now, as you set sail over the distant waters…. I hope that your tormented soul has finally found peace.