Memorial Day/Independence Day

I often find myself attaching sentimental value to specific dates in my past. Even when those dates are not that significant. Memorial Day Weekend, 1995, is an exception, in that it is very significant. That is the weekend that my mother left the home she shared with my father. When I got the message, I was sitting on the back terrace at the apartment of my friends Keg and Sparky. Hacksaw was also there. My roommate Smitty came to their apartment and told me that I should go back to our apartment and listen to the answering machine. I asked why. He told me that my mother left a message saying that she had left my father and that I wouldn’t be able to reach her for a few days. She promised to call as soon as she was able.

The person I knew as my father is guilty of rape, physical abuse and emotional abuse. And that pattern continues with his new wife and new step-children, at least according to the police reports I have read in the hometown newspaper. A normal person would be full of hate for him, I suppose. But perhaps of what I saw and what I experienced, I became a more compassionate person. At least I tell myself that. My constitution is one where sometimes I have allowed people to mistreat me. I am also more forgiving than the average person, I believe. I have tried to hold a grudge before, and I simply cannot maintain it. I don’t dislike this about me. I embrace it.

* * *

I was due to be in Kentucky last weekend. Because of having the worst stomach bug I can ever remember experiencing, I postponed (and extended) my visit. So, from Wednesday, May 21st until Wednesday, May 28, I will be home to visit with my family. It will be the first time I have been physically at home since before 1995. Emotionally, it’s going to be a difficult weekend. I will keep reminding my mother, and myself, how better off we are with this person no longer in our lives. I don’t wish him ill. Quite the contrary: I wish he would find help for the demons that bind him. Those who remain a part of his life, including my brother and his children, and his current wife, deserve better. I don’t even know his current wife, but nothing she could possibly have done warrants the kind of punishment that my mother’s ex-husband is superbly qualified to dispense. Of course, neither did my mother, my brother or me.