Memoir: Perfect Peter: Prologue- Installment 13; Thanks Mom, Bro, Sis...
Big brother, little sister, me. Circa 1975
One reason I’m sharing my memoir is because I have realized as a health coach, often, when we are struggling, like when trying to be healthier, our childhood may be holding us back. Until we address our past, our present and future may be affected.
Another reason is, when I shared it with friends, many said, “I feel the same. Can we talk?” (The answer is yes. Please contact me if compelled to. I welcome it.)
And, the most important reason; Right now, somewhere, an adult is harming a child. They may not know they’re doing it.
If what you read affects you, please reach out to me via email or phone, or leave a comment. My hope is to connect authentically with you, so we can support each other.
Caution, Dear Reader - Some of the content is graphic, and I have been told, disturbing at times. My goal is not to upset, but to share honestly. Only reflection and honesty have helped me glimpse what has eluded me for 50 years-happiness. Please read at your discretion.
*Most names have been changed.
Click here to read my memoir from the beginning.
Click here to read installment 12.
Excerpt:
The other responses I wasn’t expecting were; “I can relate to this,” and “I want to tell you something about my father,” and, “Though our childhoods were different, I feel the same.” I realized that sharing my story might help others. The unexpected responses compelled me to be as truthful as possible because, maybe, someone would read this and it might help a child crying in the back of a van, or waiting on a deserted curb, or hiding in a dark basement. I hope that’s true.
Installment 13
Bella recently got her driver’s permit and loves to drive my car. Driving us home from her volleyball practice, both hands on the wheel, leaning forward, looking straight ahead, she asks me a question that catches me off guard. Switching from talking about what it was like playing college football, she asks, “Dad, why did you write a memoir?”
I tell her, “I didn’t intend to, honey. If anyone had asked me to write my life story, I would have said that’s a lot of work remembering and getting everything in order.” We pull up to a railroad crossing with flashing lights and lowering gates. I remind her to stop at the white line. Waiting for a train to unload commuters, she checks her phone, and I think back to what I thought a year and a half ago. I confess to her, “I thought writing my life story would be so incredibly overwhelming for me, especially because I'm a perfectionist. I was sure I could never do it, nor want to.”
“Then how did you start?” Bella asks.
“I started with one journal entry because my program encouraged it. Then when I did Step 4- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, in my program, after a slow start, I quickly filled in the several pages provided. Writing it down and rereading it helped me see what was wrong. But I kept remembering more, so I kept writing. Soon I had a stack of loose pages that were falling out of my workbook, the memories kept spilling out of my mind. I was worried I’d lose everything I had written, it was months worth of work. One day, I opened my laptop, created a file, and wrote. My favorite author, Erik Larson, said, ‘After you’ve done enough research, at some point, you just have to sit down and write.’”
She asks, “Did writing it help you?”
“Yes,” I say. “It helped me to heal, and allowed me to stop hurting you, Kara, and Nicholas. I never beat you, but I hurt you guys in other ways, like withholding love when you didn’t act the way I wanted. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know that came from my childhood.”
“It’s okay, dad. I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Thanks honey, but I’m still accountable for my behavior. I’m grateful for that awareness and that I can apologize to your brother, sister, and you. But the writing also made aware of something else I either never realized, or had forgotten.”
“What,” Bella asks.
“My mother, brother, and sister, were, and are, remarkable people in my eyes.”
Back then I didn’t look too closely at my life. I think that’s one way to survive what may appear hard to survive in hindsight. Looking back, they were always there for me, even when I wasn’t; my mother stepping between my father and me when he’d rage, “I’m going to kill you.” My older brother trying to shield me, “Don’t worry, daddy isn’t really going to blow his house up.” My younger sister always in the stands cheering loudest for me, handing me a scrapbook she kept of my clippings when I left for college. They helped me survive then, and help me now by loving and accepting me unconditionally. This may sound strange, but in a way I’m lucky. Many of my program friends are still tormented by their tormentors. Though still alive in my head, mine is physically dead, and I haven’t had to separate with love from my mother and siblings, like many of my friends have.
The stories I wrote about our childhood helped me see more clearly my mother’s and sibling’s inherent kindness and goodness, even my fathers, something I had lost sight of at my angriest times. When I shared excerpts with them, asking to confirm or deny what I remember, not only did they give me their blessings, they added to the narrative dialogue and context I had forgotten, or wasn’t in the room for.
I say to Bella, “Honey, I want to acknowledge Yaya (Grandma), Uncle Chris, and Aunt D, for a second.” I want to thank my foreign born, 3rd grade educated, non English speaking mother who worked on a sewing machine in a factory, confronted by cruelty and horrors no person should face, for raising three decent human beings to be kind, loving, contributors to society. Because I shared this writing, many wrote me about similar remarkable people in their lives. I know these individuals, some born elsewhere, have contributed as much to the United States as anyone. I bow to them. I want to thank my brother for shouldering the responsibility of husband to his widowed mother, father to his abandoned siblings, at too young an age, then go on to become a renowned architect, designing places of beauty for humans to experience life at its most aesthetic. I want to thank my younger sister, the one my father called dirt, who scrubbed herself clean of that moniker to become a physical therapist who not only helps people, but, as a canine therapist, whispers to suffering dogs, for always believing in me. I tell Bella, “Thank God they’re all still here, I get to thank them, especially “Yaya.” They not only survived, but thrived, in spite of obstacles, always maintaining their goodness.
Because of this writing. I also had to face the darker side of humanity, eventually confronting the question, Are there evil people, or just evil acts? One client, a friend I had gone to high school with, reached out to me in my role as a health coach and asked, “Can you help me lose weight?” She weighed over 300 pounds. When I asked her, “Why do you think you can’t lose weight?” she replied with a common misbelief I have heard too often from clients in my 22 years as a health coach, “I’m lazy, and I lack willpower.” When I asked, “How do you feel about yourself, she said, “Honestly, like I’m not worth it.” When we dug deeper, she revealed exactly where that belief came from. She said, “My father would tell me, ‘Once, I fucked your mother in her asshole, and you came out’.” Before this writing I could think there was a special place in hell for a father who spoke that way to his daughter. Now I think, I wonder what happened to him when he was an innocent child? Not to justify his behavior, but understand where it came from. Through understanding we can change, uncover our long dormant true selves, separate with love from our past or present tormentors, and treat the children in our lives better, including our own inner children. During what would be our last session, my friend from high school, referring to what her father told her, her eyes full and spilling over, leaned in, and quietly confessed, “You see, Peter, I am, literally, a piece shit.” Tragically, she carried that belief with her to her end. She died a few weeks later from complications of obesity, the result of trying to fill with food the hole where her father’s love should have been.
In addition to these revelations, when I shared early drafts with family and close friends, I was surprised by two reactions. The first was, “You’re courageous,” and “brave.” Another high school friend wrote, “I admire your dedication to bettering yourself, and the strength you have doing it.” The compliments were nice to hear, but confused me. I didn’t see myself as brave or courageous. That is not feigned humility. Because I pretended to be perfect up to now, I worried people would see me as weak and pathetic, thinking, why was I so affected by my father and childhood? Someone I respect said, “That’s what makes you strong, the fact that you’re unaware of your strength.” Again, I resisted the compliment, grudgingly, because I wished I could feel what she said. The truth is, the work I did, I did because I felt I had no other choice. It was either, find out what happened, heal, and move on, or continue to live in misery, go insane, and do something to hurt others, or myself, like my father.
The other responses I wasn’t expecting were; “I can relate to this,” and “I want to tell you something about my father,” and, “Though our childhoods were different, I feel the same.” I realized that sharing my story might help others. The unexpected responses compelled me to write as truthfully as possible because, maybe, someone would read this and it might help a child crying in the back of a van, or waiting on a deserted curb, or hiding in a dark basement. I hope that’s true.
More to come…