Frailty, Woman Is Thy Name, - A Life Time of Abuses, And The End Of The Movie in Ecco Domani

I knew things weren’t right or normal, to begin with, at home, growing up. It came from somewhere deep inside me. I couldn’t say I understood everything, but it came out in my imagination as a child. Dinner time with the family was like torture. I remember picturing myself as a bull (or Taurus) adopted, and being raised by hyenas around the table. I was popular. I was always well liked by my peers at school, church, neighborhood, and baseball teams. I would be “adopted” by my friends’ families, and spent every free weekend away from home beginning at at least age 13. However, at home it was constant chastisement from my brothers, and father. My eldest sister was too self-involved to be directly involved, but my younger brother, A_ was her baby. I was my mother’s favourite albeit unspoken by her. It’s true, she was easier on me than the others, but I attribute that more to my good nature, or merit. And, favourite or not, she was never the coddling type. My priviledges came more out of mutual respect than any unfair judgement. My eldest sister was my father’s princess, and my younger brother later became his favourite. It’s true, my oldest brother, M_, did get the brunt end of the stick. As a child watching it all, I attributed it to his selfishness, stubbornness, and hard headedness. As an adult now, I realize he was a troubled youth in need of therapy, treatment, and professional help. My siblings tend to vilify my mother in how she handled him, but I blame my father. He was absentee, and neglected the family (we were home schooled out on a beautiful farm in Kentucky,) and, like most Republicans, he doesn’t trust “professionals, and psychologists.” That would take him admitting that he didn’t know everything, and that he wasn’t the most important man around. He facilitated the environment. He threw us all out in the middle of nowhere with an angry, dangerous young man, and left it up to my mother to home school us, cook, clean, work his farm (cattle, and tobacco), be his preacher’s wife, and never have a say in our finances, or family business even though our small fortune was paid for with her inheritance. She just trusted God, and the church.

Years later, after my father squandered everything we had, she began her independent professional life after she divorced him ending a 33 year marriage. She worked harder than any woman I have known, but it wasn’t on paper. My father never opted into any retirement, and probably not even social security. So now my mother will retire by age 85 as a school teacher even though she taught her 5 children at home, as well as the other home school children in our co-ops, and groups for at least 20 years. (She actually invented a private school, home school group made up of other home school moms with degrees, or talent. She named it “White House Co-Op,” because we began in our white rental house in our back yard. Another one of our investments that my father let go to waist. Our lucrative pastoral farm was run down by a locust: a preacher who spent his time, and our money eating out, and watching Coloured TV. I’ll never forget thinking to myself “Why did he like this Trump guy on The Apprentice? It doesn’t look good at all.” This was around the time I was 16 with the flu. I had to miss the church event in Gatlinburg I had been looking forward to so much. I had been reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and madly in love with a girl from church who I loaned that book to. My father went to Gatlinburg with the girl I loved, and my mother and I were at home when he called from a mini vacation to tell me that our cattle had escaped. In 3 feet of snow, with the flu, I herded the cattle up into our field, and mended it. I will never forget the bone chilling pain I felt that day.

The mature, and positive thinking side of me always believed my siblings would grow up; that they would mature, and blossom out of the malignant normality we grew up in. I know I had some tangles I had to brush out when I moved out on my own. I just figured it was taking them longer during my early 20s. But they never did. I had a falling out with my father 3 years ago, and haven’t spoken to him since. Previously, my siblings would’ve agreed with me, but now they have cut me out of their lives. I know this is because he is back to making good money, and basically paying them off with fancy vacations to Hawaii, and so on. The very same money he should be saving for his own retirement, and hospice care. He’s banking on living off of his children when he gets too old. He’s conning my siblings the same way he conned my mother, and they refuse to listen to my advice. They have his pride. Listening to me would take admitting they don’t know everything.

The exotic bird or cockatoo inside of me wants to scream “Snaaaaaake!” And, and not even my mother will listen to me. She’s back to trusting God like she did before. I can’t really blame her, though. She just wants to forget about everything. I am a little disappointed in her though, because I was always there for her when he was losing it all, and being abusive at home while I was in college. She would call me in my dorm room crying to me, scared he was going to hurt her. It hurts a little that she can’t return that favour to me now. I want to talk to my siblings, and her about my feelings on the situation, but they just push me aside, and shut me up; and there I am again stuck on that farm at that table suffering their abuses, name calling, ridicule, and being treated like I have no value. Except this time they are doing it with neglect. I’ve sent them apologies, cards, Christmas presents, and so on. I guess I can’t really blame them. I’m like a spoiler alert. I’m spoiling the end of their movie.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

-Uptan Sinclair

Last updated May 12, 2023