I Don't Live There Anymore

Chapter 1
One morning during my walk, I stopped to eye an unusually large dragonfly that had landed on a leaf nearby. It was staring curiously back at me, and as engrossed in what it saw as I was. We examined each other in the greatest detail, our eyes knowingly locked in contact. It had four tiny wings, so beautiful and fragile. The larger size of its body gave it a pixie look. There was something magical about this moment. I had never seen this insect so close, so still.
I knew the dragonfly was a spiritual sign. This ancient symbol had many interpretations through the ages. It is said to represent change, self-realization, mental and emotional maturity, and a deeper understanding of life.
They symbolized power, agility, victory, prosperity, good luck, harmony, purity, even being sinister and evil during the Middle Ages. They represented swiftness and activity in Native American tales, and in Japan they represented strength, courage, and happiness. They are amazing insects with the ability to dart and change direction in midair, even while flying backwards.
But that is not the only amazing thing about the dragonfly. The larva stage of these insects can take up to five years, and once emerging from their watery, embryonic state they may survive anywhere from two months to three years. The majority will fall to predators during the first month.

I could only imagine the trauma that this poor little creature must have already gone through, to get this far, and a new appreciation came over me. That thought made me compare that dragonfly to my own life in a split second flash within my mind, during a period of inner silence.
An image filled my head with a scene from long ago. It was one of me at the age of thirty-two, sitting down and writing my life story in several spiral notebooks, not because it was so great, but because it was so horrible. It was the only way I could find to soothe my soul and move on in my life. This morning I would retrieve them, and read them for the very first time thirty-two years later.
They were filled with child abuse of the worst kind. Every page, every story, every pain, laid out there on paper aged with time. That was me before evolving from some embryonic state. Sadness filled my heart and I wept a long time for the little girl in my story that was never allowed to cry.
I could feel the strength and the courage that it took from all those in my past, regardless of what life had handed them. Now, thanks to time, I can understand, and see the picture as a whole, with all the pieces of the puzzle in place.
It may be true that we can't undo our past, nor do we have to succumb to its lasting effects. We don't have to sleep in our bed once we've made it. We can always get up and change the sheets any time we want. That's called determination, and it's the beginning of change.
It requires strength and courage, sometimes more than we think we are capable of producing, but it's there. We were born with it. We bring it with us, we already know what we will be up against, and it’s all part of the divine plan. Trust yourself, know you can, and the rest will come naturally.
The wisdom we gain from each experience provides us with all the opportunities we will ever need in life. Lessons don't have to be repeated. They can serve as reminders of how far we once fell. Once we have bottomed out a time or two, most of us know where we don't want to be again. It becomes like walking. We finally do learn to pick up the pieces, utilize the knowledge, and move forward in our lives.
Most of us anyway, but not all of us. These are the souls I reach out to. It is you I want to help. It becomes our healing; together you and me, hand in hand, we will bring about visible change, for all to see.
Many say it takes a long time for change, especially in thinking, while some say it never happens. I really don't know. This story only reveals the way it was, when I did live there.

Chapter 2
My mother was born in 1923, and grew up in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a railroad town where the Allegheny, Little Kanawha, and the Ohio Rivers meet. It was a typical little town for that time frame and location of the country.
It was my grandparents' house on Broadway Avenue that I loved the best; full of intrigue and mystery, and the only real home I'd ever known. My grandfather was a railroad man working long hours, a quiet, gentle man by nature, but had been known to tip the bottle a time or two. Grandma would find him passed out in the empty bathtub with his feet hanging over in the commode, after some family event in the evening.
His diminished hearing caused many heated disputes between him and Grandma, especially after his retirement. She often commented how his selective hearing was what aggravated her the most. He would only grin and ignore any further comments.
A smoker all his life, he sat in his chair in front of the TV, beside a standing platter-size ashtray, which he never could seem to hit with the long, wormlike ash that dangled from the end of the cigarette he held.
This would infuriate Grandma further as he ignored her verbal reaction to the fallen ash on the floor. Having later thought about this scene I wondered, why is it that among couples never does both of them go deaf? It seems only one loses their ability to hear, or do they, and why? Thoughts I often ponder along the way.
Grandma, or Mother as we called her, was active, outgoing, dominant, and loving, but not one you would call affectionate. She was a petite, outspoken Republican, marrying Grandpa only after she and her real love separated in their early teens.
Lillie, my mommy, became Mom in later life. Mom was an attractive brunette, and the eldest of three girls, all only a couple of years apart, teenage beauties dating during the World War II era.
Mom was married to a friend of Grandpa's, twenty years her senior. It was an agreeable arrangement. They were afraid she would run wild, and Mom yearned for freedom. My eldest sister and brother were born of this marriage. Divorce followed, blamed on his gambling and their age difference.
Mom went back home with her two children, feeling alive and free, stretching her wings more than before. Gang life became her excitement and their leader, Rich, her new love. Mother immediately took control of Mom's two children. Lillie became the problem child, and Rich well known to the law. Proud and happy, Mom was, as she told us in her many tales, a real Bonnie and Clyde. Rich was eventually given a choice between prison or the military, so he joined the army at the age of seventeen.
Mother and Grandpa kept both grandchildren, and never revealed to them that Mom was their estranged mother. Of course they were angry and hurt when they were finally told the truth, especially knowing that the rest of us already knew. It didn't matter to me. I always felt like an outsider anyway. We never were a family, and only in our later years have we been able to come together as siblings, but the bonding just isn't there, at least not for me.
It was my grandfather who put his foot down and said no when Mother tried to convince him to take me at the age of two. Mother told me she wished she had pushed him harder, and that was her deepest regret.
Mom married four times. Her radiant, optimistic personality and good looks left strings of admirers and lovers, up until her death at the age of fifty-seven.
I never really knew her. She worked at local taverns, bars, and restaurants. She always tried, it seemed, but we continued to live in poverty and shame.
Her exuberant love for life produced seven children. Mom seldom expressed love for any of us. It seemed we were always in the way. I was a commodity for babysitting, and became the matriarch for my younger siblings.

Chapter 3
My father, Paul, was a friend of a friend who had been killed in action during the war. He came to Mom's door to give her the bad news. Paul appeared at a time of conflict between Rich and Mom's parental pressures. He was tall, way over six feet, thin, blonde, a face heavily scarred by acne, and cold, steel, blue-gray eyes that "seemed to pierce the soul."
Mom married Paul, and they moved to Cloquet, Minnesota, where the rest of his family lived. The marriage was mixed with dominance, abuse, and alcoholism. Mom became pregnant with me shortly afterwards.
Mom told me that she and Paul had an agreement before my birth. If I was a boy I would belong to him. She could then leave, but could not take me with her. If a girl, I was hers, and he wanted nothing to do with me. She was free to take me and go.
I was born female, blue-eyed, and blonde, on March 9, 1947. It seemed no one ever really wanted me from the start.
One day while Mom was preparing breakfast, trying to stretch what little food they had for the three of us, Paul became angry and threw a fork across the room at her. Turning her head, she reached up for something just as the fork went whizzing by, grazing her cheek and imbedding itself deeply into the wall. It continued to vibrate for the longest time afterwards.
She talked about our dog, Blackie, and how she would place me on a blanket and tell him to take care of me. Blackie would lay dutifully by my side watching over me. I would crawl to the blanket's edge, and he would grab my diaper in his mouth, carrying me back to the middle where I had been placed. He would share everything with us, including Paul's cruel abuse.
Mom told me about the beatings and pain with her unable to get out of bed to fix breakfast. Paul would fly into further fits of rage, kicking her endlessly until she crawled into the kitchen. My endless crying infuriated him more, and the abuse became more frequent.
I have pictures of a frail young woman, twenty-four, weighing barely one hundred pounds, standing five-feet five, a beautiful face, but enormous hurt and pain in her eyes. The abuse continued, Mom finally realizing she had to leave Paul, or he would eventually kill us both.
Mom wrote many letters to Mother during those years, but revealed little of what she was actually going through. She never wrote of the long nights of parties, alcohol, abuse, or the lack of basic needs for herself and me. She knew Paul read all mail, coming and going, and she would rather have mail than another beating.
Her letters reveal surprisingly little about me as an infant, only that, "This baby is different from all the others. She thinks!"
Her final letters told of the poor dog and bird she had to leave behind, knowing what would become of them once he found her gone. Tears still fall when I think of the pain and cruelty we endured, and of the fate of that poor bird and the dog, Blackie, she left behind.
Agnes, a surviving member of Paul's family, was more than happy to talk about my past, making sure to let me know that it wasn't just Paul that was to blame. He died of heart failure at sixty-one. I obtained his death certificate.
Agnes told me how Mom would place me as a baby in my bassinet, and cover me snuggly with her coat. She put a sugar-whiskey filled pacifier in my mouth, so I would sleep, while she and Paul went to the local tavern for the night. This was a common occurrence on many cold, snowy Minnesota nights in a house without heat. Yet nobody ever came to my aid. They were afraid of Paul and besides, "It wasn't their business."
I remembered seeing Mom removing the tops of baby bottles and filling them with sugar. She poured in whiskey, making sure to saturate all the sugar. She would cover the opening with tape, any kind she could find, and stick it in the baby's mouth. It worked! The baby settled down and went to sleep. I had seen her do this before with my siblings. I could understand part of her actions, but not leaving me all alone.
I have kept these many letters, not able to throw even one away. They belong to Mom's past, and are her thoughts along the way. They have helped me to understand and forgive. I choose to be neither judge nor jury. May she rest in peace, for she knew little in life.
It was difficult to hear the many stories of abuse and cruelty by both my parents, all the long days and nights in a house with no heat or food, and no one to turn to for help. Everyone knew about Paul's temper and violent beatings but dared not interfere, warning him instead that the day would come when Lillie would leave him. Jealously Paul watched Mom's every move.
He never confronted her many admirers but instead punished us both at home, making Mom's life unbearable. He would tie me in my high chair wearing only a wet cloth diaper, and place me and the high chair outside in the high snow drifts and sub-zero weather for a long time.
He would laugh at my cries and ignored her pleading for him to stop. I have decided that God must have been there because nobody else ever came to my rescue. I survived, probably to both of their disappointment, and never even got sick.
Mom couldn't go back home to Mother. They refused to care for her and another baby, or go through what they did before. Mom stayed with Paul until she could no longer endure the cruelty and beatings.
One day she waited for him to leave the house, then wrote a letter to Mother revealing what Paul was really like, pleading for their help. She took the letter to a neighbor who agreed to mail it out for her. Mother and Grandpa finally gave in and they wired her enough money for us to leave Minnesota for good.
The day of our escape finally arrived. Mom waited for Paul to go to work at the paper mill. She took me, walked to town, and we boarded a train for Parkersburg, West Virginia, leaving behind the misery she had been living in for over three years.
I have faint memories of the train ride and her tears along the way. They haunted my dreams for years, even as a small child. I couldn't understand, but knew something was terribly wrong in our lives. I would be the one to comfort her.

Chapter 4
Our return to Mother's house was a forced reception. They made Mom promise never to reveal her true identity to her other two children. She was to be their older sister, and I their cousin. Mom, feeling both anger and guilt, immediately told me the truth, and even though just a small child, I promised to keep our secret. This emotional turmoil remained with her all her life, while it meant nothing to me.
There were many fights between me and my siblings. They were often forced to care for me and their hostility came out when no other adults were around. I seemed to always be defending myself from smacks and fist fights, although I am sure I instigated many on my own. I felt only coldness from my sister. Perhaps it was our age difference. I never really knew. I only recall a huge distance between us that remained all my life.
My brother was the apple of Mother's eye, and my sister very popular at school. I was jealous of their happy home and the family life that I never had. Although knowing the underlying truth, I never spoke a word to anyone about the deceit in our estranged family, not even to them.
For me the feeling of never being wanted echoes from my soul today. I realize that no matter what results in my life, I will always feel like I don't belong, or I shouldn't be there. This seems to be my constant theme, my baggage I drag along in life today, behind the scenes, with nobody ever knowing.
My older sibling says her feelings center around the lack of love she has felt all her life. She was to be the forgotten one in all of this, never considering her emotional turmoil. Mother was not a touching or an outwardly loving person. My sister is the opposite, a very affectionate person, an ideal in every way, and sensitive to everyone's feelings.
Telling Mother, "I love you" would make her blush with discomfort. It took many years before Mother would tell any of us she loved us, and that was only because we would say it first.
Mother was never taught to display affection. My sister taught her this. Neither Mother nor Mom ever totally dealt with their relationship with my sister, a lingering problem that still haunts her today.
If only "I love you" had been said more often, whether it was meant or not, what a difference it would have made, in so many lives today, but it wasn't.

Chapter 5

Mother's house on Broadway Avenue was haunted. There were always noises, doors slamming, footsteps going up and down the staircase, eerie happenings that we all treated casually, made jokes about, and always without fear.
The spirits were never shy, making their presence known at all hours. The occasional living guests that would drop by seldom did with frequency. Many refused to venture about the two-story house and seldom went upstairs to use the bathroom.
I remember the clatter, day and night. We would hear the front door open, blinds clanging against the glass window, and the ringing of the cow bells attached to the door handle. We could hear the door open and shut. Yet, no one entered, nothing ever moved, not the door, the blinds, or the bells. We would hear footsteps crossing the floor, going up the stairs, hesitating on the L shaped central landing, then continuing up the stairs going directly into the bedroom at the top.
The footsteps would hesitate, and then leave the bedroom traveling quickly down the steps, crossing the living room, passing into the dining room, and into a room we called the laundry room, disappearing through a little door on the left. Once inside this laundry room there was nowhere else to go, except through the small door or out the window.
The small door always reminded me of the one in the Alice in Wonderland story, the one Alice was almost too big to get through. Our door led to a small, odd-shaped room that was built beneath the staircase. It was always cold, musty smelling, and never had enough lighting.