I Think I Will Function Well In An Institutionalized Environment

I Think I Will Function Well In An Institutionalized Environment

I am in shock, totally numb. I can’t believe the words that just came from my sister’s mouth. We are sitting in her therapist’s office and she has just revealed that I didn’t save her. How could that be? I sacrificed myself for her safety. For three years I unwillingly traded my body for her well-being…as if I had a choice.
It was 1962, I was six years old and mama had just moved us in with her grandpa, following her divorce from my sister’s daddy. It was one of those old houses with pebbly tarpaper siding and a tin roof that would lull you to sleep during a soft falling rain, just an old country shack inside the city limits, complete with an outhouse filled with spiders. There were two full sized beds set up in the living room to be near near the fireplace, the only source of heat during winter. I had seen many houses set up like this out in the country. Over one bed hung a quilting frame suspended by ropes. Grandpa has an old chair and footstool set up near the window where he would sit for hours and watch the only tv station his old set would pick up. We all lived in this one small room. Grandpa in one bed and me, my little sister, Anne, and mama in the other. I remember it being dark and scary. But, nowhere near as scary as grandpa and mama could be.
Mama has no idea how to function on her own with two kids to raise. There are actually three of us. I have an older brother who lives with our dad, the dad I get to visit on most weekends. Mama is taking in ironing to earn money to supplement the sixteen dollars a month she receives in child support from Anne’s dad. She gets nothing from my dad because when they divorced it was agreed that he would get my brother and she could have me…I lost out in that trade. I can still see her standing at that old wooden ironing board, sprinkling strangers clothes with water from an RC cola bottle, then rolling them up and putting them in the refrigerator to keep them fresh until it’s their time to be ironed.
On Saturday nights daddy would come pick me up for a weekend visit. I would know it was time for daddy to get there because grandpa would have Saturday night wrestling on his old tv. Occasionally I would fall asleep and if that happened, mama would not wake me up so I could go with him. So, I developed a nervous habit to trick her. I would shake my foot or push against something, as if I was rocking, in an attempt to appear awake. Fifty years later and I still do that “foot thing“.
I loved weekends at my dads. I had virtually no supervision. But, best of all, Anne wasn’t there for me to tend to. Grandpa wasn’t there to grope me. Mama wasn’t there to beat me for every small infraction of the rules that changed daily. I didn’t have to be the mother, I could actually be the child I was. Mama was a full blown raging alcoholic when Anne was born prematurely and suffering from the affects of mama’s drinking. Not quite two years old, she really only had me to take care of her. Maybe that’s why she just didn’t thrive. She was so tiny and fragile. A simple mosquito bite would turn into a massive, pus-filled sores. She had chronic diarrhea that left her weak and dehydrated. She also suffered from asthma and mama didn‘t make it any easier for her with her two packs a day Pall Mall addiction. I did my best to keep her clean and fed but I was just a kid myself. I would get so frustrated and take it out on her. My heart breaks to this day when I think about it. So, that will be another story, I just can’t think about that right now.
Mama has brought home a man. It is the man who rides on the back of the garbage truck. I’ve seen him many times hop off the truck and grab the garbage can with one hand and dump the contents in one swift movement into the gaping mouth of the big truck. He’s strong. He’s scary. She says his name is Junior and he is going to be our new daddy. “But, I already have a daddy“, I say. I can tell by the look on his face that he didn’t like this, but, he just smiles and says he wants to be my daddy, too. Mama snatches me up by the arm and tells me to apologize to Junior for being rude. Of course, I apologize. Maybe it will be nice having two daddies. Junior is taken with Anne right away. Who wouldn’t be? She is tiny, quiet and sweet. All she wants is to love and be loved. All I want is to be left alone.
Within three months, mama has married Junior and moved us out of grandpa’s into an old house on Woody Ridge Road. The windows are broken and patched with plastic and plywood. The house is full of flies because we have to leave the unscreened doors open to catch the stingy breeze occasionally offered during the hot humid Alabama summer. Junior, now known as the monster, is screaming for me to come into the living room. Since the fight broke out, I have been hiding with Anne in the secret stairway behind the trap door at the back of our closet for what seems like hours. The air is so hot and thick it feels as if you can chew it instead of inhale it. The monster is threatening me from the other room so, I know I have to leave my hideout. I know if I don’t do what he wants he will hurt Anne, he tells me this all the time. I tell Anne to stay in the stairwell. She is looking more pale than usual, I assume, from fear and on the verge of having an asthma attack. I have to figure out a way to get her out of the dark, dusty, stifling air of the stairwell and into the fresh.
With all the strength and courage I can muster, I push open the trap door and climb out of the closet. Before I even reach the living room, I can hear them both crying and begging each other to stop. As I step into the room I see Mama is lying with her back down across the seat of an old ladder back kitchen chair. Her arms and legs are flailing in the air, trying to grab hold of anything for leverage. She sees me and starts begging me to help her. I can still hear her weak raspy voice saying “help me, please, help me”. But, I can’t! The monster is pinning her to the chair with his knee. He is holding the old black telephone receiver out to me, daring me, saying, “come get it, come get the phone and call the police, come help your mama”. I can’t get the phone, that would mean getting within his reach. I don’t know what to do. They won’t stop crying and screaming. I am so afraid. I have to go. The last thing I see before I run from the room is him hitting mama in the face with the phone and wrapping the coiled cord around her neck. Mama’s face and body go still. The last thing I hear is the monster telling mama it was her fault, that she made him do this, mama squeaks out another, “help”.
I have abandoned her. She was counting on me and I have let her down. I run back to the closet and pull Anne from the dark stairway. I drag her from our room and out the door, shielding her view of the scene unfolding at the other end of the living room. I take her to an old abandoned house farther up the hill and hide. After a while, I see the police and ambulance leave our house. I guess the neighbors did what I couldn’t, call for help. But, it’s not time to come out. We spend the night in that old house, sleeping on some old cardboard scraps that had been used by previous inhabitants. It was to scenes like this we were routinely exposed and it seems that my whole childhood was spent playing hide and seek. But, it was never a game, it was survival.
On most weekends I got to go to daddy’s. Sometimes mama would make me take Anne. I didn’t want to. It was my time. My time to be special. My time for attention. My time for love, as close to love as my dad was capable of giving anyway. I had freedom. Besides, the monster loved Anne, he wouldn’t hurt her the way he did me, not as long as I did what he told me to do. We had a deal. She was his favorite, his ‘Little Indian”, as he called her. He would bring her home a little brown bag of penny candy every Friday when he got off work. All I got from him was threats. He would cuddle her on his lap and carried her everywhere in his strong arms. He would tell her she was pretty. He told me I was just like my mama. He would tell her he loved her. He told me to never tell. He gave her hugs and kisses. He gave me pain and fear.
Fast forward to June 2000. We are sitting in Anne’s therapist’s office. She started therapy to help her come to terms with the bad ending of her sixteen year marriage. During much probing and purging Anne reveals the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of the monster I thought I had protected her from. I listen in disbelief and understanding as she recalls the pain of his molestation and then she says something that fills me with so much rage and hatred that I feel as if I will vomit…..mama knew. I had always suspected she knew what he was doing to me because there were times when she would unexpectedly walk into the room, causing him to jump back and make excuses for my tears. But, how could she let that monster hurt Anne? Not just once. For three years. She was just a baby. Anne tells me that on the weekends I went to my dad’s, the monster would wait for mama to pass out, then, she was his. This is more than my already guilt ridden mind can accept. This was on a Monday.
I have to say that growing up I was never exposed to any information about God or Jesus in my home, except for the time the monster shot a man during a poker game and as punishment he had to attend a church for one year. Church was not a positive experience for me. We attended Pine Glade Baptist Church every Sunday and I could always count on getting at least on whipping before getting back home. I was never still enough, never quiet enough, never good enough. I hate to say it, but, if that man had died, the monster would’ve gone to prison and we would’ve been free.
But, January 16, 2000, after years of bad decisions and failure, I made a choice to listen to the little voice inside my head whispering to me, “I am here, I love you, I will protect you”. I accepted Jesus Christ into my life when I was forty three. I was just a “baby” in Christ and still learning His Word when Anne revealed her secrets. On the Wednesday in June of that same year, following Anne’s therapy session, I was reading the local newspaper and imagine my surprise when I saw a personal post about a family reunion, the monster’s family reunion. It was to be this coming Sunday at the park just two blocks away from my house. I was so filled with rage and fear that I took this as a sign from God that He was orchestrating a meeting between myself and the monster I hadn’t seen in decades. That’s all it could be, God‘s divine intervention.
Monday, secrets were revealed. Wednesday, I read about the reunion. And come Sunday, revenge. Finally, closure.
Unfortunately, mama died when I was twelve I can’t exact revenge upon her for her betrayal. But, considering the beatings she endured, personal demons that plagued her and the painful way she died from the results of a house fire, maybe God “got” her for me! But now, God has been generous enough to give me Junior. I have written the script for what is to happen Sunday. I have lived the events over and over in my mind:
1. To be able to get to the park on Sunday morning. I will have to tell my husband a little white lie, that I am sick and will have to miss church. I regret this, but it is for a greater good. I am ridding the world of a disgusting animal, actually this is an insult to the animal kingdom. But, I have faith God will understand and forgive me. After all, this is His idea.
2. I will get to the park before people start arriving so I can watch for him. Even though it has been a long time since I’ve seen his beady eyes and curly red hair, I am sure God will reveal him to me.
3. I will conceal the hunting knife in the long sleeve of my blouse as I walk up to him and reintroduce myself. I can’t wait to see the curtain of recognition open in his eyes.
4. When I am satisfied that he remembers me, in front of his family and friends, I will publicly charge him with his crimes against me and my sister . His relatives should know they share DNA with this monster.
5. I will then pull out my knife and plunge it into his black heart. I have practiced this so many times in my mind. I know just where and how to do it. I know how much force it will take to penetrate the bony chest wall, past the ribs. I know how it will feel when his venomous blood spews out, wasted on the sidewalk. I want to see the light fade from his eyes. I want him to be afraid. I want him to beg forgiveness.
6. By this time, I assume, I will be restrained by onlookers and if not, I will simply walk next door to City Hall and turn myself in. It will be over. We will have been avenged.
I know there will be consequences to my actions and I am prepared to accept them. I will plead guilty and take God with me into prison. That’s why I know I will function well in an institutionalized environment. It’s all about being prepared. Maybe I’ll start a bible study while I am incarcerated, share my infinite wisdom.
Well, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, none of this came to pass. Not that I didn’t try. I did tell my husband the little white lie. I did take my knife to the park and watch for the arrival of the monster. But, while I was sitting there my husband pulled up and parked next to me. He said he had a “feeling” something wasn’t right. When he arrived at church he called home to check on me. When he didn’t get an answer he said he just knew where I was and what I was planning. I looked into his eyes and saw that he understood my pain. Being the man of God he is, he tells me I have to let it go, give it to God. I start to weep. I don’t know how to do this. He tells me what I already know deep in my heart, that is not my place to exact judgment or punishment on anyone. Only God has that right. I had taken all my guilt, fear and pain and wove them into the coincidences of finding Junior and convinced myself it was what God wanted for me. In reality, his family had been having those family reunions for years in that park. Broken and ashamed, I allow my husband to drive me home. Would this be considered a failure or success?
I was a new Christian when these events took place and it took me about three years of studying, devouring His Word before I took what I knew in my mind and truly applied it to my heart. Forgiveness has been one of the greatest struggles in my walk with God. I still have so much anger when I feel like my personal space is being invaded. But, God hasn’t given up on me, nor I, Him and I have spent a lot of time on my knees praying for guidance.
I have forgiven mama for making us live in hell and not protecting us. When my family finally decided to unburden themselves of their secrets, I discovered the secrets she had hidden about her own life, I knew she had actually done the best she could with us. She was sick and nobody helped her. I love her and pray she is in Heaven with our Father, waiting to hold me in loving arms I never knew here.
Surprisingly, forgiving Junior was not as hard as forgiving mama. I don’t know what secrets his childhood held that formed his character but, I know he was a sick, weak man. While my sins may not be considered as evil as his, by most, he deserves forgiveness, too.God says he will measure you by the way you measure others and I want Him to be gentle with me.
Like I said, and I hope nobody is offended by my analogy, I think I will function well in an “institutionalized environment”, imprisoned within the jasper walls of the golden city of Heaven, strolling the golden corridors, and sleeping in my own mansion, prepared just for me by my eternal Warden, my Father, My God.