Month: January 2019

Can I Get a Witness?

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 2 Comments

My older brother Tony turned 21 on May 1, 1987. He came to my apartment, and my roommate and I threw him a small party. We drank Michelobs, and I told stories about Tony and me from the old days when my father owned The Leather Shoe Shop.

One memory is of Tony and me, holding hands, watching a fight between our father and his girlfriend Cathy. She slaps Dad’s eyeglasses off his face. In another, Tony and I walk along the sidewalk at the Vestal Plaza amid a frighteningly loud thunderstorm. I’m bawling. Tony has his arm around me, and repeatedly pats my shoulder, saying, “It’s okay, Cindy.” And in another, I’m on my tricycle, and he nudges me down a steep hill. I remember nothing after the crash, but for a week, I had one hell of a shiner.

When I was four, Tony talked me into stealing a Planet of the Apes squirt gun from Grand Way department store. planet-apes-galen-water-gun-pistol_1_88852e60c2be6a48e133f52a290bfd7eOf course he didn’t say, “Steal.” He said, “Take.” We walked back to the shop where my father’s new girlfriend interrogated me and promptly dragged me back to the store to admit what I had done. The next time we visited Grand Way, Tony handed me a Magic 8 Ball, and said, “Slip this in your sleeve.” Without hesitating, I said, No.

The stories made him laugh. Sometime during the party, he pulled me aside and said, “I love you. I’m looking forward to spending a lot of years hanging out together.”

As kids, Tony was timid; I was hyper. When my father brought out the video camera, Tony hid and I danced around. When I complained to Tony about our stepmother’s abuse, he said, “Just keep quiet.” He never complained. Instead, he started smoking cigarettes and pot, and drinking at 12. When our stepmother slapped him, he stared her in the face and took her abuse. I screamed when she hit me, hoping the neighbors would hear and call the cops.

Tony and I rarely fought with each other, but when we did, it was about the dumbest things. I hid the remote so he couldn’t change the channel, and he punched me until I gave it back. I called him a “Buck-Toothed Beaver.” I punched him in the arm as hard as I could, and he stood motionless, then said, “Did a fly land on me?” But, if I wanted to send him into a rage, I sang “opera” at the top of my voice. I laughed so hard his punches were painless.

By the time Tony and I were in high school, there were no more fights. We became allies fighting against a common enemy. “If you don’t tell Dad you saw me smoking, I won’t tell him you were with a boy, and not at the movies.” Deal.

In 1983, after coming home drunk too many times, running away from home too many times, and getting kicked out of high school, Tony joined the army at the urging of my father and his wife. Tony earned his GED in the military and was relegated to being a cook. After two years, he was done. He moved to California, fell in love with an awesome young woman named Erika and came back to New York.

I was delighted. Tony planned to take over my father’s shoe-repair business, and he told me I could work there too. I could quit my job at McDonald’s and have a career. Tony and I were going to be together again! For the first time in years, our family spent Christmas together.

Two nights after Tony’s 21 birthday, my uncle Joe called and told me Tony was killed on his motorcycle. He’d been riding to the Great American grocery store on Main Street in Binghamton, our hometown, and was struck by a red Dodge Demon. Tony died instantly. My father and his wife were on an emergency flight back from Florida where they had been looking for a house.

Because I was 18, I had zero coping skills to manage my grief. All I could think was How could he do this to me? He was abandoning me. I would have to live without him and deal with my stepmother alone for the rest of my life. How would I get through this? I took a cab to my paternal grandparents’ house, so I could be with my family while we waited for everyone to get the news.

That night was a blur–falling asleep on my grandparents’ couch, crying, listening to the grief-stricken wails of my relatives, watching the EMTs fail at giving Tony CPR on the TV news. My father called from an airport and asked how I was feeling. All I could say was “What are we going to do?” He said, “It’s gonna be all right.” When he and his wife returned to Binghamton, I stayed at their house, and slept in the extra bed in my 11-year-old brother Jack’s room.

There was the wake, the funeral, and the burial. It was raining like hell that afternoon, and the cemetery was all mud. Beneath the sagging tent, my entire family gathered in folding chairs. I sat beside my father and held his hand. When they lowered Tony’s coffin into the ground, I started sobbing. He was my only witness to our abusive childhood. The truth about Dad’s wife and how she treated us was buried with him.10339581_10152373663143187_8140426827575809783_n

When I interact with people who have an acrimonious relationship with their sibling or siblings, I’m often surprised and sad. Tony was my best friend, and for 18 years I worshipped him. He’s been dead for almost 32 years, and I’d give anything for five more minutes with him. They say the strongest bonds are forged in fire. Our chaotic childhood bonded us for life. His impact on me was profound and lasting, and I still think about him every day.

 

 

 

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

My father died in 2012, when I was 44 and he was 66. The week of his funeral, his former girlfriend Angie, whom I hadn’t spoken to since 1972, called me at my paternal grandmother’s house to offer her condolences. We were talking a while, catching up, when she started laughing. “Oh, Cindy,” she said, “when you were little, you said everything that was on your mind at that very moment.” I started laughing. “Nothing’s changed,” I said. “I’m just older. Every day is a challenge to keep my mouth shut.”

I appreciated Angie’s comment. It was cool to gain insight into my behavior as a kid, since I only had my family’s perspective and my memories. Also, Angie reaffirmed what I had always suspected — I was born spouting the truth with little awareness of the consequences.

My father once told me, “You couldn’t be more like me if you tried.” I liked that my big honest mouth might have come from him. He was the kind of honest that only a tolerant, easy-going person might appreciate. And, although I’m sure he had to have told some lies sometime during his life, I remember him as always being brutally honest. If you wanted flattery, my father was not the man to talk to.IMG_2494

I often wonder where this compulsion to tell the truth comes from — Some of it, I blame on the catholic church with its confession obsession. My father attended catholic school, and so did I. And as long as I can remember, I’ve never been able to keep a poker face and bluff. I’ve heard some people say things like, “I don’t have time for bullshit.” That resonates with me. It takes a lot of time and energy to be fake and a lot less time to be honest.

Part of me likes to believe my father and I never lost the childlike innocence that leads someone to tell the truth, even if it’s brutal. One time, my father lost a customer at his shoe repair shop because I stood beside him while he was ringing her out, and said, “Daddy. That lady has green teeth.” I love that he didn’t punish me.

My father always said, “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.” As I came of age, instead of following his advice, I saw him as intensely cynical and lacking trust. I had no idea about wisdom and learning from experience, and I projected my honesty onto others–thinking that everyone around me told the truth. Hah!

One of my favorite lines from an episode of Friends is when Phoebe says, “People will believe anything as long as it’s complimentary.” Although I’ve always seen that as a half-joke, a recent issue of Harvard Business Review includes an article, “How to Negotiate with a Liar,” by Leslie K. John. She says, “Humans are particularly inept at recognizing lies that are cloaked in flattery.” Insert here, the fable “The Fox and the Crow” where the fox, seeing a hunk of cheese in the crow’s mouth tells her what a lovely singing voice she has. The crow caws and the fox catches the cheese in its mouth. Liar!

When I was 16 and fell in love for the first time, the boy I liked said, “I’m really attracted to you and want to be with you. I’m just not a commitment kind of guy.” So, I let him have his way with me, repeatedly. Imagine my dismay when he showed up in my independent study class sitting next to one of the girls from the popular clique. I learned later that day that they were exclusive. And it’s not only teenage boys who tell that lie. I fell for the same lie from a 40 year old man. What he should have said was, “I don’t want a commitment with you.”

Back in 1987, when I dated my first pathological liar, his untruths piled up like so many of our household bills I ended up paying. “Scott” was highly skilled in lying, having been severely abused by numerous stepfathers as a boy, spending time in a boys’ home, dealing drugs, etc. The day I realized I had wasted 18 months of my life with this selfish, demented jackass, I rode the city bus to downtown Binghamton, walked into the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station and enlisted in the navy.

Detecting a liar is difficult for most people, myself included. According to Leslie John, a reputable study shows that regular people tell one to two lies per day. If that’s the average, imagine the sociopaths we come into contact with and the whoppers they tell! If only the Pinocchio nose were a real thing, none of us would ever have to wonder if someone was telling us the truth. Moving forward, I will continue to be honest, and to work toward being as diplomatic as my friend Hailey, and to trust my gut. They say flattery will get you everywhere. As long as what you tell me is really what you believe, I will believe you.                                                                                      78966166c3571e822f9bd384aa578434--disney-love-disney-stuff

Breaking Bad (Behavior)

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

Back in the summer of 2009 I started seeing a therapist because my childhood haunts were interfering in my eight-year marriage in a very real way. I was blissfully married, and I was afraid I was about to destroy everything. But why?

My therapist “Bruce” was (and is) one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. His face is careworn, and his hair hangs to his shoulders in thin white strands. He looked sort of like Bill Murray, and we joked about how much we loved the movie What About Bob?

Bruce was old enough to have been in practice during the I’m OK; You’re OK phenomenom of the 1970s. However, Bruce developed his own version of the mantra: “I’m fucked up; you’re fucked up.” That saying felt so much more real and relatable. And, after I left my sessions with Bruce, I felt sane and normal.

Bruce and I discussed childhood abuse of all types, and the lingering effects. I was sure those “effects” were leading me to think Eric was going to dump me. Other than his being extemely introverted and pensive, there were no real signs. And with the gift of hindsight, it may have been better to talk to Eric instead of the therapist.

Regardless, another topic Bruce and I talked about was breaking the cycle of abuse. He said the statistics show only about 1 in 5 people is able to succeed. I wondered about myself. By this time, I had a 17-year-old daughter, a 13-year-old daughter, and 4-year-old son. I had given them spankings on occasion, and did my fair share of yelling. But abuse?

When I had my first baby, Jessica, she was so beautiful and precious with the most perfect little fingers, I could NEVER imagine hurting her. Her father and I agreed there would be no spankings. Then he left to serve on a navy meteorological team in Japan, and I stayed state-side with his parents and Jessica.

After Jessica learned to walk, like most toddlers, she ventured around and got into things she shouldn’t touch. One day, I tried repeatedly to keep her from sticking her hand into the kitchen garbage. After numerous unsuccessful attempts, I took her right hand and lightly slapped it. She started crying. My chest ached, but she never touched the garbage again.

When compared to the “spankings” I received as a kid, I would say my kids got off easy. I never used any weapons, like leather belts, wooden spoons, or knuckles or diamond rings to the head. Slaps across the face were also a no-no. I’m aware people have strong opinions about physically punishing children, and as for me, because of the severity of the beatings my brothers and I endured, I dislike anyone hurting someone smaller and weaker than they are.

Now that my daughters are grown, they blast me for being a fiery-tempered smart mouth when they were young more than inflicting physical punishments. I was 23 when Jessica was born. I divorced her father when she was two. I remarried when Jessica was four. Nine months after that wedding Josie was born. Then her father died when she was 18 months old. That’s a lot of chaos for two young girls and one woman to endure.

Although I’m resilient and loving, I am also brutally honest–like my father. He wasn’t always tactful, and he sometimes called me names like “goddamned dummy” or “nutcase.” At the same time, he was slow to anger. So, if he punished me physically, I had to have done something really wrong, like when I accidentally set a fire behind the Vestal Plaza in New York and got the belt. That only happened once.

There are definitely times I have snapped at the girls, yelled, or made a huge deal out of nothing. And, when I catch myself sounding like the icy voice of my former stepmother, I clam up. Fortunately, I apologize to my daughters when I’ve done something wrong. With my son, it’s so different. I was 36 when he was born, and although I’d like to say I have mellowed, to be honest, I was just plain tired.

My son was wild as a toddler. He had blond curly hair and a crooked smile. When he ran out onto the volleyball court midgame, then turned and grinned at me I wanted to thrash him. But he was so freaking cute, how could I? When his father and I eventually separated (my prediction of wrecking the marriage came true), Vinny was five.

Now, Vinny is a chill teenager. I couldn’t tell you the last time I spanked him or yelled at him. And over the past 18 months, with his sisters out of the house, and his father extremely busy with his new life, my son and I have spent an enormous amount of time together. We spent 8 days in New York, took two roads trips to Portland, OR, and many road trips to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. In the car, we don’t listen to music; we talk. We talk about anything and everything. No subject is forbidden.

In my childhood home, there was no talking about feelings, no apologizing. There was no, “How was your day?” or “Do you want to talk about something?” When I watched the Brady Bunch, I was so envious when the mom or dad knocked on the kids’ door and asked to talk. Especially since there was a character named “Cindy.” If only my parents had come into my room with a soft voice, and said, “Cindy. Are you okay?”60354929

One of my favorite things about my relationship with my kids is our inability to keep secrets. I have always talked to them as if they were adults in training (because they are). And, as much as I loathe when they gang up on me, make fun of me for mispronouncing current band names or rappers, or pointedly argue with me — that is how their father(s) and I raised them. They need to advocate for themselves even if it pisses someone off.

My oldest daughter once said I was too easy on her growing up. My middle daughter says I was abusive. My son may be too young to look at me reflectively, but right now, we are as close as siblings. There are three things I have taken away from my father’s parenting: 1. Never be afraid to act silly in front of and with your kids. The humility will go a long way. 2. Tell the truth. 3. Don’t be afraid to apologize for your bad behavior. In that way, you teach forgiveness. I had to learn that one in spite of my father. I’m fucked up; he’s fucked up. We’re all works in progress, eh?

How I Met My Mother

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

My mother, Carla Bosch, was born in 1946 in a displaced persons’ camp in Bucholtz, West Germany. Her father was loving; her mother was cruel. After WWII they moved to Amsterdam, Holland, where they lived until my mother was 11. Then they moved to the states. The school district bumped her up two grades. I know little about her life during her teen years except that her mother constantly called her “ugly,” and if she showed signs of angst, her mother checked her into the psych ward at the local hospital.

In 1965, my father and mother met in a pizza parlor in Binghamton, New York. She said he looked like Woody Allen with black hair. They started dating and within several months, she became pregnant with my brother Tony. My parents married in Nov. 1965, spent their honeymoon in Cooperstown. Then they moved into a rented house on the south side of Binghamton. Tony Jr. was born in May 1966, and slept in a toy chest. My parents paid for diapers by hustling pool at local taverns.

My father doted on my brother, however, he was not a man easily tamed. He believed women stayed home, and men went out partying. In an attempt to keep him out of the bars, my mother became pregnant with me. No matter how cute I was, and I was cute, her plan failed. She started leaving my brother and me with sitters, and according to gossip, sometimes alone. When I was six months old, my father kicked her out of our house, filed for divorce, and took full custody of my brother and me. He told her never to contact us again.

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Growing up, Tony and I were not allowed to talk about “Carla” in front of my stepmother who insisted we call her “Mom.” And if I asked my father’s family about my birth mother, they said, “She left you. You don’t want to know her.” But I did. There were only about five photos of her in the entire house. I studied her high cheekbones, green eyes and square chin. Did she ever think about us? Where did she live? And when I walked around town, every woman I saw was a possibility. Is that her? Is that her?

As I came of age, I tried to make peace with not knowing my mother. Tony always said, “Don’t bug Dad with your questions.” But, Tony was three when she left! Surely he had some memory of her. He said he remembered her throwing a plate. And that she taught him to read. But I had zero. Not a voice. Not a scent. Not an image. I stored a few memories of the women my father dated before he married my stepmother.

After I graduated from high school, Tony was killed in a motorcycle accident. That cemented my dislike of my stepmother. In 1989, I joined the navy. Perhaps, I thought, if I “traveled the world,” I might eventually find our mother. In 1992, while stationed in Monterey, California, I became pregnant. The doctor asked, “Did your mother take drugs when she was pregnant with you?” I said I didn’t know. He said, “Can’t you ask her?” I shook my head and waited until I got into my car before I cried.

One night while I was nursing my daughter “Jessica” and watching the news, a segment called Finder on the Money explained “How to find a long-lost relative.” I took down the number. They put me in touch with a private investigator. And though I knew my mother’s name, birth date, and birth place, he said he needed her social security number.

I ordered my birth certificate, and my parents’ social security numbers were on it! Within a couple of days, the investigator called with my mother’s address in Newport, Rhode Island. I drafted a letter. “Hi, Mom. It’s me. Your daughter Cynthia. Do you want to know me?” Then I bought a pack of Marlboro Reds and chain-smoked while waiting for her response.

In her very first letter she asked me to imagine being a 21-year-old mother, pregnant with her second child, surrounded by the tumult of the late 1960s–the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The Vietman War. And then she asked, “Does your brother want to know me?” I had to write back and tell her Tony was dead. She sent back a short note: “How tragic. I broke my glasses. More later.” I can’t imagine the guilt she must have felt — leaving us behind — knowing she would never see Tony again.

Several months later, my mother and I made plans to meet in Binghamton. I was 24. She had gotten remarried the year my brother was killed and was bringing her husband Bill. I had to keep the entire thing secret from family, because my father would not be happy. (A friend dropped the dime on me, and I got an earful from my dad. See earlier post–Secrets Cause Cancer.)

My mother and I met at a restaurant that no longer exists. It was encased in glass, and I saw her before she could see me. I looked in and waved, and she got up from the table to greet me. My mother is 5 foot 11, with salt and pepper hair cut in a bob. She wore a linen blazer and long skirt. She leaned over and gave me a half hug, then invited me to sit with her and Bill. He stood to shake my hand. He had black hair and glasses, and an inviting smile.

The dinner conversation was superficial. With Bill there, I was hardly interested in poking into my mother’s reasons for leaving. However, when he left the table, she said she was sorry she left. I didn’t quite know how to respond, except to say Thank you. One thing I did appreciate was that my mother wore silver jewelry, which was also my favorite. At the end of the dinner, I went to where I was staying. The next day, before they left town, my mother and Bill stopped by to meet Jessica. And then they were gone.

Now, my mother and I are pen pals. She does not have a computer. She does not have a cell phone. She will never travel to Idaho. I send her a birthday card every August, and an Enjoy Your Day card in May. At this point, we will never be best friends. However, I am glad I got to meet her. My father made his peace with it as well. I’m hoping someday we meet again, but I have no idea how that might happen.

 

 

 

On the Broken Family

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

My mother and father split up when I was six months old, so my experience with the broken family started early. My first memories include my father, my older brother Tony, and many members of my large extended family. We are Italian-Americans from upstate New York, and except for mafia ties, we live up to the copious stereotypes: loud, romantic, passionate, beautiful, dramatic.

In 1975, my father remarried. I was six and Tony was eight. It was a different time, and we were not invited to the wedding or reception. In fact, Tony stayed with a friend, and I stayed with a friend of my stepmother’s. And although I don’t remember the woman’s name, I do remember playing the piano, and incorporating “turd” into an impromptu song. She yelled, “Hey! We don’t use that kind of language in this house.”

Six months after the wedding, my father bought us a house on the west side of Binghamton. My stepmother was 19, Tony was 9, and I was 7. My baby brother was 9 months old. We were told he was a “preemie” — but he weighed six pounds, six ounces at birth. You do the math.

Tony and I started at a new school. Although I wasn’t sure how we were different from other families, I knew we were different. My father was a shoe-repair man who owned a cobbler shop. Instead of wearing a suit to work, he wore denim and leather. My stepmother was a stay-at-home mother who wore no bra beneath her T-shirts, had Farrah Fawcett hair, and marble blue eyes. One of the young men in our neighborhood asked her out.

Mine was not a peaceful childhood. There was a lot of fighting between my father and stepmother about Tony and me. She was intensely jealous of anyone stealing attention from her. She was a screamer. My father was slow to anger, but once he broke, look out. And while he was not quick with the belt, she was. Any small thing could set her off–pots and pans “shoved half-assed in the cupboards,” food splattered on the floor, a crass remark. And she hit in public.

Tony started running away from home at age 14. I hid in my bedroom with books, TeenBeat, and sketchpads. My younger brother was beaten so often that when I reached to touch him, he ducked. When my father was home, my stepmother never yelled or hit us, and spoke with a sickeningly sweet voice. When my father was gone, she was a ticking bomb ready to go off at the occurrence of spilt milk. To this day, when I meet a person who reminds me of my stepmother, my antennae lift in response. And I have a sincere distrust of people who bully children. A therapist I saw for a while told me, “You have strong feelers for a reason. Trust them.”

In 1998, my father divorced this wife, after two decades of her infidelity, fighting, and confession that she stuck around for the money. One day I asked him, “Why did you stay so long?” He shook his head. “Ah. When you and Tony were small, whenever I saw your messy hair and dirty faces, it broke my heart. I wanted you to have a mother.”

The decisions we make out of love, or what we think is love, are often ill-fated. Self-delusion has to be one of the most powerful tools of the mind. Think here of the spouse of the serial killer who says, “I never knew.”

My first pregnancy and marriage was at age 23. It took me less than two years to rip that apart and create what I loathed–a broken family–all because some guy said I was his true love. Luckily, my ex-husband Jeremy is not a grudge holder, and we are still friends. God bless that guy.

Something about turning 50 has made my brain go wonky. I keep having dreams about my two ex-husbands, and my late husband, and I spend a lot of time wishing I had done things differently. Perhaps made decisions based on logic instead of “love.” Regret, coulda, shoulda, woulda, etc. Because of childhood abuse, I have been in therapy most of my adult life, and I am still working through a lot of the muck.

The therapist I’m seeing now is helping me connect the pain of my current heartbreak over losing Eric and the chance to rebuild our family with the lingering issues from my childhood. It’s a scary process, however, I’m determined to reach a place of peace and happiness. It’s easier to run away–drink, have sex, ignore your kids, and pretend everything is great. But at this point, I’m way more interested in doing the hard work if that’s what it takes to become unbroken.

 

Secrets Cause Cancer

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

When I was 14, I told my younger brother that his mother was not my mother, and that we were half-siblings (we never have and still don’t use that term.) Within a day, I stood before my father, staring at my feet, listening to his diatribe about my stupid decision. He punctuated the lecture with a hand in the air, and said, “You gotta b–iiiii–g mouth!”

Even as I write these words, I’m not entirely sure why I told my brother the truth, and I still feel pangs of regret. However, if we look at the overall picture, how long would it have been before he figured the truth out himself? Our father was born in 1946. My stepmother was born in 1957. My older brother Tony was born in 1966. I was born in 1968. My stepmother moved in with my father, my older brother, and me in 1972. She was a 16-year-old sophomore at Binghamton Central High. And then, my younger brother was born in 1975.

The weird thing about getting yelled at for telling the truth is that my father detested being lied to. If he caught my older brother or me lying to him, the punishment was immediate and severe–my father had us open our hands, and he slapped them with his hand or a leather belt. In today’s “never harm a child” society, I realize this makes my father look bad. He hated lying.

There’s an episode of That 70’s Show when Red asks Eric to keep something to himself. Kitty, with her stiffly sprayed hair and infectious giggle, says, “Secrets cause cancer.” 276968f5a3b460c7c52492fbc73ad0d0--best-mom-kittyI believe wholeheartedly in this statement. My daughters, 26 and 22, and I, often recite this quote. And now, my 13-year-old son has come on board. One thing I love about my relationship with my kids is that we have very few secrets. There’s yelling and tears, and there’s hugging and laughs. So many laughs.

I have been criticized by people who practice more discretion with their children and families. My boundaries with my kids are as flimsy as boiled lasagna. I’m okay with that. And, I have a circle of true friends, a group whom I refer to as the “truth tellers” I can call on. There are too many to mention here, however, when I want the truth, I ask Andrea, Sandy, Aimee, Stacy, my daughters, and a few more. Someone once said, “Enemies stab you in the back. Friends stab you in the front.” I’m okay with that too.

Before I close, I have to give props to my father because he was the first person to insist I tell the truth. And, to be honest (hah!) he was one of the most honest people I knew. His honesty was hardly tactful, and he pissed off a lot of people. Then again, so have I. Not everyone likes to hear the truth. Phoebe from Friends once said, People will believe anything as long as it’s complimentary. I believe that is also true.

 

 

 

Writing About People Who Hurt Us

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 6 Comments

In 1997, I was a junior in Humanities at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. The journalism program was defunct, and since I had just become a 27-year-old widow with two young daughters, I switched to creative writing and enrolled in my first creative nonfiction class. I just wanted to learn how to write.

I wrote my first nonfiction piece when I was about five. It was a typed paragraph, and the paper I used ended up with a small coffee stain in the right corner. The text read something like, “I asked my father for money, but because we don’t have a lot, he said no. But at least I have a new mother, and I love her!!!!!” My father found and folded the letter, and hid it in his safe for years. In 1989, when I was in the navy, he sent me the letter with a sticky note that said, “I hope you still feel the same.”

At age 20, I did not feel the same. As a matter for fact, after my beloved older brother Tony was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1987, my father turned to his wife not me, to grieve. I blamed his wife for Tony’s death. She had been an abusive monster when we were growing up. My brother turned to drinking and drugs, I turned to men. The night my brother died, my grief trickled out into absolute hatred for my stepmother.

I mention the letter because it shows how long I’ve been in love with writing “the truth.” As I came of age, even when I wrote fiction, I used the first person “I” and described events from my actual life. Write what you know they say. As a teenager, I knew blackheads, bullying, and boys. If my stepmother had ever caught me writing negative things about her, she would have shown them to my father and I would have been punished. I was the “big mouth” who complained all the time.

When I was 13, a woman I babysat for gave me the memoir Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford, actress Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter. My life was never the same. Mommie Dearest is an expose on child abuse. Christina’s biological mother had given her up (just as mine did) and she was being beaten, ridiculed, and shamed by her “new” mother. I had no idea that other kids suffered abuse. No one at school EVER talked about it, and when I told Tony our stepmother was mean,” he said, “Shut up. Dad doesn’t need to hear that shit.”

By the time I was in college, and had gone on to graduate school, writing my “truth” left some of my colleagues unsettled. “How can you write such nasty things about your family?” they asked. I wrote the truth, nasty or not. And since my father had divorced my stepmother in 1998 and she lived 3000 miles away, I felt somewhat safe. Writing about people who hurt us is no new debate. If you’ve read This Boy’s Life, The Liar’s Club, Hungry for the World, or Mommie Dearest, imagine the criticism those authors faced.

If anyone cares to know, writing nonfiction for me is telling the truth of my experience to the best of my memory. My father once paid me an enormous compliment after reading my work, and I keep that in mind when I write. He said, “I remember it differently, but those are your memories.” For a man with a high school education and shoe-repair man’s apprenticeship, I thought he sounded damned professorial.

And speaking of professors, my first writing teacher, who is also a dear friend and mentor, once said, “No one is all evil or all good. You have to show them as a rounded human being.” Believe it or not, rounding out my stepmother is not that difficult. Writing about my brother Tony, however, whom I worshipped until the day he died, that’s a whole other story. I was his patsy, his sidekick, Laurel to his Hardy. One day, I may sit down and write the truth of our story. But I’m still working on it —

 

Unlucky in Love

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

My father was not the best at picking women. My biological mother who was “the most beautiful woman he had ever seen” became pregnant several months into their dating. They married, had my older brother, and fought all the time. I’ve heard both sides of the story and my interpretation is this: My father was a good-time Charlie, and my mother was a feminist. He liked the Doors; she liked the Beatles. Neither was flexible. She became pregnant with me to keep my father at home. When that didn’t work, she had an affair. He kicked her out of our house and our lives. (I didn’t meet her until I was 24, a story for another time.)

The woman my father should have married, a lovely artist named Angela, was brushed aside after my father met the woman who would become my stepmother for two decades. She was a bleach-blond hourglass and 10 years his junior. She quit high school, moved in and they got married. She cheated on my father during the first year of marriage, and though he stayed married to her, he later told me “I never forgave her.”

By age nine, I loathed my stepmother. That was the year I came to new awareness. She had borrowed five dollars from me and promised to pay it back. Days later, when we were at the store and I wanted to buy a toy, I asked for my money back. She said, “I took you to McDonald’s today. So, I figure I paid you back.” I stared at her in disbelief. What? Food is not cash. I want my goddamned money to buy a Magic Eight Ball.

Over the next 20 years, she cheated more, beat my brothers and me, called us names, picked my father’s pockets, and flew into rages for little more than a drop of food on her “nice clean floor.” And then, sometimes, during movies like Sound of Music, Oliver, and Terms of Endearment, she would sit on the couch, and weep like a little girl. She was a puzzle. In 1998, my father divorced my stepmother and when he called to tell me, I danced through my kitchen singing, “Happy days are here again.”

My father, bless his soul, had what one of his brother’s called, “Broken wing syndrome.” He liked to save the damsels in distress. Angela didn’t need saving. I am guessing my mother and stepmother did. Although you can see it as an altruistic method of operation, if you’ve ever tried to save someone, you know it just doesn’t work. If you’re lucky enough to find one person to love who supports you and you support them, hang on tight. When I shake the Magic Eight Ball and ask, “Will I find my prince?” It says, Ask again later.

 

On Growing Up Poor

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 6 Comments

David Spade once said that when you grow up poor you don’t know it until someone else tells you. For the first few years of my life, my father, my brother Tony, and I lived in a couple of rented houses before being evicted because my father was in his 20s and liked to party. We finally settled in an apartment and were on food stamps, although my father never told me until I was in my 20s.

My brother and I went to work with my father almost every day (he owned a shoe-repair business) until we started school. Sometimes we had babysitters, and sometimes my father dated women so there would be someone to take care of us. Unfortunately, some of these women stole his record albums and never came back.

When I was four, my father met a 16 year-old-girl named Vickie who was happy to quit high school and move in with us. (that is another blog by the way) Vickie kept my brother and me clean, fed, and had us in bed every night by nine. She also beat us when my father wasn’t around and insisted we call her Mom.

My father married Vickie two years later and bought us a house. The place was crap brown with a wrap-around porch, a rotting roof, and black windows. My brother and I cried the day we moved in. Over the next two years, although my father spent a lot of money and time to have our “haunted house” remodeled, I still sensed it was shoddy compared to the other houses on the street with their Ionic pillars, manicured shrubs, and intact families. When friends visited, they said, “Oh, your house is nice on the inside.”

When I was nine, my father moved my brother and me out of public school and into Catholic school. We had not been baptized and I only heard “god” when my stepmother said, “You goddamned kids.” Because we wore uniforms, it was easy to blend in. And I was never the kind of girl who could look at people’s shoes and know how much money their parents made.

In middle school, we no longer wore uniforms, and my stepmother bought my clothes (polyester pants, blouses) at J.C. Penney and Sears, which felt normal. One day, the Queen Bee walked over to me, felt the material of my blouse, and said, “Where did you get this?” I said, “Sears.” She smirked, and said, “Ohhh.” I think it was then that I knew. Some of my friends wore Aignier and L.L. Bean. I had never heard of either.

Over the next year, after I noticed the Queen Bee and her cohort wore Izod Lacoste polos, which I saw as a symbol of wealth and status, I became obsessed with getting a shirt of my own. So, my stepgrandmother took me to the outlet mall and bought me two Izod polos. I couldn’t wait to show the rich kids I was not a loser.

Of course, now I know those Izods were like me–slightly irregular. And even though my stepgrandmother bought me designer jeans and name brand clothes, I never really fit in with the Queen Bee and her friends. They played tennis and golf, and I ran track. Their parents had cocktail parties, my father went bowling.

Growing up poor taught me humility. Sometimes I think my life has been one “character building” event after another. I know the value of a dollar and love to do hard work. The things I hold dear, after family, dogs, and friends, are the sentimental gifts I have received over the years–books, toys from my childhood, love letters. I have no idea what it’s like to grow up rich, or be rich, however, I imagine it feels as though you can never have enough.