On Death…

 I have tangled and complicated emotions about the death of my mother’s long time partner. He was a part of my life since I was around six or seven years old. 

He passed away over the summer and I have not really talked about it besides with my therapist. I oscillate between being “okay” with it to being sad or some semblance of sad. 

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. But he was not a nice guy. He had his own burdens to carry and was a deeply injured and complicated person. But that doesn’t excuse the things he did to me. Did to my mother. My brother and sister. The physical pain, emotional wounds, the irreparable damage on my family that we have never been able to fix.

He was an alcoholic - barely functioning. His punishments, which were daily, would be classified as severe child abuse even back then. A serial cheater to the point he has multiple women he was engaged to or seriously with while he was with my mother. Which she never knew about - at least the full extent - until the end of his life.

I think my mom sees herself as a martyr. She needs to sacrifice herself on the altar of love to show her devotion. She inherited that from my grandmother. My grandfather had a second serious relationship on the side during all of his marriage with my grandmother. My grandmother knew, his kids all knew. When my grandfather got sick with lung cancer my grandmother retired from her job as a nurse to be his nurse full time. The other woman disappeared into the ether as if she was never there. 

When my mom talked about her partner, Don, being sick she said, “I found out he was buying a house with another woman and was planning on leaving for good. I told him once he feels better he needs to leave.” 

But he just got worse. And worse. And so much worse. 

I hope I am breaking some generational curse and I wonder how many women before my mom in my line stood by and watched as a man beat and kick her kids until they were covered in bruises or until they passed out from the fear and pain. Over a bed not made military style, over a friend stopping by uninvited, over a C on a test, over wearing socks to bed, over just standing there when he came home drunk.

Or was it just mine?

Don was my first experience with a walking red flag - crimson and bleeding. I was a kid but old enough to know something was genuinely wrong with the dynamic. A child should not be afraid to come home on the weekends from their father’s house. A child shouldn’t have to put makeup on their bruises. A child shouldn’t have to jump between a grown man and her brother and sister to take the brunt of the punishment. 

A child shouldn’t have to tell her lovesick mother, “Mom, I need you to be my mom and not his girlfriend.” 

“Mom, he doesn’t love you, if he loved you he wouldn’t put his hands on you. He wouldn’t cheat on you.” 

“Mom, I don’t respect you anymore for all of this. Why do you let him hurt me. Do you not love me? What can I do so you love us more?”

I was always the performative respectful daughter. I’ll do a bow, shake a hand, curtsy in a dress. I’ll be polite. I remained cordial to Don until the end. But every day of his life I wished and I prayed he would go away and leave my family be. That the spell would be broken that he had somehow wrapped my mother so tightly up in his drama with. 

My dad - he loved me. He respected me and treated me as an equal and worked his hardest to give me a secure attachment. I think he was unaware of how bad it was. I like to think if he really knew - if we weren’t so afraid of telling him - that he would have fought to keep us full time. I think the one time I took the chance to tell him my mom told my dad I was lying (I was about 8) & then the abuse got so much worse and I was the laser focus.

My mom cycles between admitting the abuse and outright denying it was bad. 

“He didn’t push the dresser on top of you and kick you in the head with his boot. You were already on the floor. Then he tripped. You made that up because you just hate him.” 

My mother said that to me when my sister had me on speaker about 7 years ago trying to tell my mother about what happened when I was 14 and trying to stop him from strangling her. 

My sister responded, “What did Don tell you that? You weren’t there. Megan saved my life and Don lies to you everyday and you still don’t believe us.”

When they begin fighting I said, “Guys. Stop fighting. Mom when we tell you this stuff we’re being honest. I don’t know why you don’t believe us. But there is nothing we can do now to fix it. We can’t go back in time. Heather, stop bringing it up to her because she doesn’t want to face it yet. She’s not ready. Mom, stop covering for him.”

Then Heather hung up on me.

I don’t like to relive it. It was like some psychological horror movies like some negative energy demon would be in our house constantly. The atmosphere was so thick and I was constantly on edge when I was younger. 

When I was 15 I would sit on the internet for hours trying to figure out how to fix my family. Consume psychological articles, search, “why is my house so dark and negative?” “How do I get my mom to love me?”

I think at one time I read that there was some folklore demon from Irish lore - I forgot its name - I haven’t thought about it for years now. A disembodied black figure that would bring negatively and pain into a home. I remember really thinking that was the problem - that we had some kind of presence because it didn’t make sense to me that I couldn’t have a real family.

Don’t get me wrong - I still think that house is haunted. But I believe more so now that all Don’s anger started at the bottom of a bottle.

——

I’m still the same person. I just want to be loved. My ‘tism keeps me even tempered for the most part. My empathy makes me feel deep pain for others.

—-

June 2023

Don was hallucinating for months. Seeing monsters and men walking around the house. A visibly dead man sitting on the tv pointing a gun at him. He would see multiple versions of my mom around the house. Forget where he was.

My mom called the ambulance - several times. Because Don had a reputation for being the town drunk - they would argue with my mom, and he would argue, and they wouldn’t take him.

He pulled a gun on nothing and shot through the wall. Saying there was a man threatening him in the corner.

No one was there.

I said, “Mom there is something wrong he needs to go to the hospital or you need to leave - if he is shooting guns at the wall it is not safe for you.”

“Oh, Meg, I’ll be fine. They won’t take him. He won’t go. I’ve tried.”

Then in the evening weeks later I got a call from my mom frantic. “Don fell! Don fell out of the bed! He is not waking up.”

“Mom, did you call the ambulance?”

“They’re standing outside laughing saying he is drunk and won’t take him. The neighbor came over he is trying to convince them.”

The ambulance came again and stood outside for 30 minutes telling my mom he was drunk and needed to sleep it off.

They didn’t even bring anything to the house call. I guess when they saw my mom’s address they took it as a joke. They carried him out on a bed sheet. If my mom’s neighbor wasn’t there to also beg them to take him they probably wouldn’t have.

He was dead by the time they got to the hospital. Brain aneurysm. He didn’t fall out of the bed. He probably very likely fell just standing up.

He died in my childhood bedroom, now my mother’s room. She won’t sleep in there ever again. I can’t say I blame her.

She carried a lot of guilt. Thought if she could just convince the ambulance to take him faster - thought if he had went upstairs when he called for her a couple hours before that. 

I think it was probably too late. He was actively dying for two years at that point. A 57 year old man doesn’t hallucinate unless there is something wrong with his brain. 

—-

The energy after he died in the house was chaotic the first week. It was like there was tension but it couldn’t find a home. I don’t know how to explain it. Like something negative was hanging over us as I told my mother over and over again that it wasn’t her fault - he knows that. That she needs to forgive herself for not being upstairs when he fell. That there was nothing we could do. He was a grown man that would not get help.

The house is lighter now. No negative presence or constant pressure. The air is breathable - not thick and uninviting. 

I don’t know if that is because Don has fully left or not.

—- 

I think my sadness is empathy for my mom. I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Don for not letting me have a good relationship with my mom. He had to stand between us and pit her against us at every junction. I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive Don for the trauma. For hurting my mother, my brother, my sister. For the nearly 11 years of fear until I moved out for good.

I am not happy he died. But I am happy my mom gets a few years of her life back. Gets to work on focusing on herself.

—

It’s been a better year.