The Son of My Father
Leaving an abuser can mean losing multiple relationships
I have this boy who is my brother. My blood brother. All together I have four brothers, although two have since died, the twins, a year apart.
My blood brother, it seems he also has not survived. Or, rather, the relationship I had with him has not survived. The divorce, the split from the abusive husband (I do not want to say “my,” I don’t want to claim it, that experience which I am ashamed of), it planted a fissure in the relationship with my little brother.
Let’s call him “Joseph.”
Joseph is the youngest of the family, I am the eldest. In adulthood, I’ve had recurring dreams of him when he was little. That version of Joseph was really great. Sounds trite. But can’t think of another way for it to come to mind. His rambunctiousness. Tearing down the hallways in a sleeveless cotton tee in the summer time, so energetic, generating his own excess heat; more often running around shirtless.
Wish we had more videos of that time. Not photos, of which there are also not too many, this was the time before children’s all-moments are recorded with multiple devices. But more videos, I’d love to have now, in mid-life, looking back at this fleeting time I had with Joseph as my little brother.
Videos captured his movement, how his play had to involve running from here to there and back again. An activity we entertained ourselves with for a time was to record ourselves (or, rather, we’d record you) singing Disney ballads. We’d put on the CD and start the camcorder in the kitchen. Joseph would slide on the wooden floor, max speed, getting thrown into the view of the camera. Fist hovering mid-air, he’d silently belt out the lyrics, crooning into an invisible mic.
That little boy energy, firecrackers popping in all corners of the room.
Another game we created was for Mom to lie on the floor, pull her knees into her chest, and we’d temporarily balance our behinds on the soul of her feet. Holding onto her hands, her feet would scoop us up off the floor, and then catapult us through the air, crashing and laughing into the couch.
The photos of you I love the most capture your motion. There’s a photo of you in mid-launch on one of these flights. Face like a big lightbulb, big eyes, mouth in a shout. You’re so happy in this moment holding the photo is electric.
When the split came, and I at last worked up the courage (or the understanding, really) to get the order of protection, Joseph seemed to not understand the gravity of my circumstance.
Joseph and I, me and my siblings, we grew up in a house with violence. What I remember of my biological father was that he seemed to more often than not be angry. And when he was in a good mood, or resting, one ought to be mighty cautious not to trip a wire and ignite him.
As a little girl, I remember him once reading to me. This was such a special occurrence that when I felt my bladder start to protest, I willed myself to hold it. I dared not interrupt this event, for fear that if I left to use the potty, I’d return to the living room and the magic would have vanished. I negotiated with my bladder, telling it that I’d allow one drop, because that would provide a little relief from its unrelenting protests, and I’d be able to stay in this rare scene— being read to by my father.
Of course it didn’t work, I ended up peeing on his lap, which infuriated him. He lept up, yelling for my mother.
Next thing I remember I am kneeling with a bucket and oversized, plastic yellow gloves, using soapy water and a sponge on the sofa. My father continues to complain loudly, my mother in the doorway looking helpless.
Or, another time, again I am a child and he has caught me picking my nose. He does not like this, makes him angry.
Then I’m sitting on the couch, I get to keep watching cartoons. But with tabasco sauce on my fingertips, to quash the temptation to pick my nose. There’s a white round plate on my lap, which I hover my hands over, palm up, to catch the dripping tabasco. I try to be still
My speculation is that growing up like this morphed us all. And the result for my brother Joseph was that he could side with people like our father. He could side with the abuser.
In defense of our father, Joseph might say, “he had his own demons.” In that he was troubled, or struggled, or whatever… that for some reason that man was not fully responsible for his own actions. That he had a rough upbringing, he struggled with alcohol.
Everyone has trouble. The holy books of myriad faiths all promise us that to be alive, to be a human on earth, means that we will continually encounter suffering. I don’t accept that as a pass to pass that on to the next. Nope.
But Joseph did. Perhaps so he could still maintain a relationship with this man. In his mind, Joseph must have had to maintain the mirage, that father was a wounded, imperfect creature. Therefore we must forgive his rages and destruction.
So when I explained to Joseph what had happened to me during my marriage, the roving destruction that marred several years of my life, he must not have been in a place to understand or empathize. He had permitted our father, he would permit this man I’d married.
I'm coming back to this post and see that 4 people participated in the poll. And 100% of those people lost family members when they separated from their abuser. For me, I think it is quite infinitely sadder, from the vantage point of now, to have lost my brother than to have lost the illusion of my husband.
I miss my brother. My little brother.
But in his siding with the abuser, I seem to have also lost the illusion of who I thought my brother was. The relationship with my sister did not fare well either. And both had maintained "relationships" with my father.
And I wonder if he, my father, had something to do with the eventuality of my siblings not being able or willing to stand with me when I had to walk away from abuse. That he had poisoned me, prepped me somehow, to be susceptible to landing in the abuser's snares. And that he had poisoned my siblings, pulling them into the orbit of the abuser's trains of thought.
Plus, #patriarchy.