The Gift of Clarity

(Trigger Warning: domestic violence, child abuse/neglect, childhood trauma)

I am five years old and I live with my Mommy. Sometimes, my Daddy can be scary and mean so he lives in one house and we live in another. Almost all of the girl’s I know have a Mommy and a Daddy, all except for Nicki. She is my cousin ‘cept, I’m older than her. Her Mommy and Daddy live in different houses, too. Her Daddy can be scary and mean, just like mine.

I like Nicki. I like her Mommy, my Aunt Patsy, too. I spend the night with them at their house a lot. I sleep at other people’s houses a lot. I love my other cousins, too and I do spend the night with them but it always feels weird. Mostly, I like daytime because just their Mommy is home with us. Everything feels different when Daddies are home. It’s like you have to even worry about breathing too much or too loudly; my chest feels like a giant is squishing my heart and throat.

Every Sunday, we go to my Oma and Opa's "out in the country," for Sunday Dinner. It is actually lunch but everyone calls it dinner… I’m not sure why. My Oma and Opa live on a really big ranch that could be its own town! It even has roads that go all over the place! Those places are way too far to walk to especially when it’s hot outside! They live in a white house made out of wood and their windows have green paint around them, only not green like the crayon, but green like the slimy stuff in the creek when it is super hot and the creek is fixin’ to dry up... On really hot days, if we kids didn’t slam the damn door too much, we get to go botchin’ in the creek, when there is water, of course!

Us kids love it but you have to keep an eye out for snakes, especially cottonmouths. I think that’s a really weird name for a snake. I keep thinking about one with cotton balls stuffed in its cheeks. Do snakes even have cheeks?

Oma and Opa have a fence that goes all the way around their yard. There are three gates: one at the front, one at the side door, and one on the other side. Even though they have a front door, everyone pulls up in the big dirt drive space on the side and parks there. That means they come into the gate by the garage onto the big cement patio and go in that damn screen door.

With seven of us Grandkids going in and out, that damn door is always smackin’ the frame, and the Aunts, my Mommy, and my Oma are always hollering, “Don’t slam the damn door!”

I have lots of Aunts and Uncles. I have four Aunts and three Uncles; plus my Mommy and Oma and Opa. That is ten grown-ups and seven of us kids!

Dinner lunch is always so good. I love the mash-ah-ma-tatoes most but oh my God, I hate milk! They always try to make me drink it and I won't! So, sometimes I get water. Sometimes I don’t get a drink at all!

I hate, hate milk!

Some Sundays, my Daddy comes and picks me up to take me with him to my other Oma and Opa's house. They live in town but have a ranch "out in the country," too and they are building a house there.

When my Daddy gets there, my Mommy always takes me outside to get in his car. He has a big car. It is blue - but not like a crayon, it was lighter like the sky. It is long and it has white seats inside of it that go all the way across. They are not like the seats that have the carpet stuff on them. They are the slick ones. But they can be sticky in the summer. I don’t understand. His car is LOUD and it sometimes goes so fast it scares me... Sometimes I like going fast in the car… and sometimes I don’t like it at all. There is this road with a really big hill and if we go fast it feels just like a roller toaster. I bet anyway- because I’ve never really been on one. I’m too short.

Sometimes, though, my Daddy makes me feel scared and my stomach feels like when my cousin, Emmie, "double-bounces" me on her trampoline. It is like it goes up in my throat and then back down – real fast. I don't like that. I wish he wouldn’t do that. He yells a lot when he drives super-angry-fast and it makes me so afraid I might die.

I don’t want to die yet!

One time, I knew my Daddy was coming and I watched for him kinda nervous-like because he and Mommy always yelled and SCREAMED and said mean words. Every time they do that, I cry - but not because I’m a baby. I’m a big kid but when they SCREAM at each other it makes that giant fist squish my heart really hard and crying just sort of… comes out. I can’t help it.

I heard his car making its grumblin’ noise. When it pulled in the drive space, I ran outside real quick to get in the car. If I hurry maybe they won’t even have time to yell? They are gonna yell now, I just know it...

I push the big silver button to open the door but it is so hot it burns my thumb and I try not to cry. Oh, no! It’s too late. Mommy is right there and she opens the door for me.

I climb up into the car but the front seat is so hot! I keep putting the heels of my shoes on the edge of the seat, trying to keep my thighs from touching it. My butt is hot, too, just not as bad as my legs because of my shorts.

They are right outside my door now and at least they are using their ‘inside voices.’ My stomach feels kinda sick because I feel so anxious (that’s just a fancy word that means scared, I learnt that word last week!). I get so anxious about them yellin’. Sometimes worry that my Daddy will get so mad that he will just run my Mommy over with his big, blue car and then, she will be dead.

I learnt that dead means gone forever and they cannot come home! Who would I live with then; maybe Aunt Patsy, or my Oma and Opa? I would miss my Mommy so much but I wonder if she can have summer-parties like when you spend the night at somebody’s house even if she goes to Heaven?

All of a sudden, they start yellin’ loud. I feel like I might throw up. They keep yelling and then they start yelling bad words and standing closer and closer to the other. They both keep looking like they are standing on their tip-toes because the more they yell, the bigger they get.

The words they are sayin’ can make you go to ‘H-E-double-hockey-sticks’ forever! It’s called Eternal Ham Nation. Oh no, I bet Mommy wouldn’t be able to have a summer party with me then. Sometimes I hope my Daddy will go there. Then he would just have to shovel coal for the Devil all day and all night and it would be very hot.

The more they yell and the louder they get, the more I cry. The Boogers are almost to my nose now! I am hot and sweaty and sick at my tummy and afraid and I cannot stop crying.

I remember at the church I go to with my cousin, Emmie, they taught us to squish our eyes closed and pray hard when we’re scared and God or Jesus is supposed to hear you and help you, so I try.

I try so hard.

I open my eyes again, just a little bit at a time… and nothing is better. I have tried that before, a lot, but it never works. Sometimes I think they are telling fibs to us and those are bad, they are lies. We do not lie if we love somebody and but Jesus says we’re supposed to love our Mommy and Daddy and the people next door, even! So, I try to remember that. I try to love my Daddy but I hate him.

I want to see outside of the window but I’m short so I can’t. Besides, what if one of them sees me and then they start yelling LOUDER or they start yelling at me? I decide I don’t care if they see me. I want someone to see me! I want someone to take me home with them; anyone but my Daddy. I scoot my feet back up onto the seat and then press my shoes into it. I sure hope they don’t melt because these are my very favorite Jellies’ because they have sparkles! My bottom goes up off the seat and I’m like Alice when she ate the mushroom.

Guess what? There are all of my Aunts, Uncles, Oma and Opa! I’m betting the Aunt’s shooed the kids inside because I could see their stupid faces pressed up against the glass of some of the windows. They make me feel like a fish that’s stuck in a fish tank. I wish they would stop staring, already! It’s rude! I look at the Grown-Ups on the patio; do they even see me?

I’m thirsty but I’m maybe gonna puke and I sure do not want to do it in Daddy’s car. He loves his car! Sometimes, I think he’s nicer to his stupid old car than he is to me and I’m his ‘damn daughter’, too! I see my cousin’s faces again and I hate them, hate them!

Why do they get to go home later with their Mommies and Daddies, and why do I have to leave early? Why do I have to sit in the car with my legs burning and have boogers in my mouth?

My Daddy opens the door on his side and it makes me jump. I had not even known he moved. My Mommy stands by my window and is saying something but I cannot not hear it; probably because I keep crying so much and because my heart sounds really loud in my ears!

I wonder if my Daddy can hear it. What if he can and he gets madder? I try to make it slow down. Through the glass of the passenger side window, my Mommy’s mouth keeps moving and her face looks angry and afraid. That makes me feel ever more anxious because my Mommy is strong. She doesn’t get afraid.

Daddy starts the car and makes it go very, very loud. I let out a super loud scream because I know he’s going to run over my Mommy and she will die. That means ‘never wake up.’ I want her to take me out of this car. She doesn’t. She steps back until her feet touch the fence.

He pulls the big silver stick down and then the tires spin in the gravel. He’s going to mess up Oma and Opa’s drive space! Quick-like, the car starts to go backwards; I swallow over and over because I feel the throw up starting to come up my throat. Then the car whips to one side and my sweaty legs go sliding across the long, hot seat right at my Daddy.

I don’t want to touch him at all. It’s like he’s a whole ‘nother person when he gets all mad and has a “tantrum.” That’s what Mommy calls it when I get mad because I want a new book or some Hubba Bubba and she says, “maybe,” but she really means, “no.”

But it doesn’t matter what I want. I’m squashed against him and he smells like boy perfume, cigarettes, sweat, beer, and I think I can smell the crazy in him.

He slams the brakes and everything gets still and quiet. Maybe it’s over? I squeeze my sweaty hands together and try to pray but I don’t know what words to say and besides, my heart is beeping too fast to even think.

Then the car ROARS like a lion and starts turning in circles the other direction, faster and faster. My thighs feel like they are on fire when I slide super fast away and hit the passenger door. I feel like I’m being crushed but nothing is on the other side of me. I didn’t want to be beside Daddy but I changed my mind! I start to gag. What if I fall out of the door and the car runs over me? I wish I didn’t have to go with my Daddy!

God, I hate him!

“And that’s the end of the memory.” I say, looking at Bri, my face saturated in tears from the detailed re-telling of the memory. I clench a tissue in my hand and take a deep, shaky breath. I glance out of the window of her office and am surprised to see tiny snowflakes dancing around each other.

She finishes tapping things into her tablet and appraises me. She waits for me to compose myself a bit more and then says, “You talked about all of your Aunts and Uncles and even your Grandparents standing on the patio watching all this unfold. You mentioned seeing your cousins in the windows… Why are you angry at them and not your father? What did you think should have happened?”

I continue to watch the flurries and consider the question. Why was I mad at them and not him? “I guess… because I was jealous of them,” I say, my response more of a question than an answer. This was one of the things I hated about therapy. Why couldn’t she just tell me rather than ask all of these leading questions? I already had to relive this shit!

Silence follows my statement. I curl my sock-clad feet underneath myself on the overstuffed sofa. The quiet stretches out as I think back. “I guess it’s like being unable to look away from a train wreck or something?”

“Okay, let’s try it like this… What would you, the person sitting here in front of me today, have done if you had been there, standing with your family on the patio?” she asks. There is another pregnant pause. I could hear the noise-maker whirring outside of her office door and tried to imagine standing on the patio watching all of this unfold.

“I would have gone and gotten that poor kid out of the fucking car, parents be damned, and I would have taken her inside and wiped her face with a cool wash cloth and given her some fucking water and helped her calm down!” I yelled in response, surprising myself and her. The words had exploded from me in an angry tirade.

I wiped my damp palms on my jeans and with unsteady hands; I leaned forward to grab my water bottle. I felt flushed and a slick sweat beaded my forehead behind which my brain filled with the sound of furiously buzzing bees. My heart raced and my stomach felt like I’d had some questionable supermarket sushi.

“So, you… being the caretaking, warm, nurturing person you turned out to be… despite your childhood, despite it all, would have done the opposite of all of your relatives?” she asks. I always feel like I’m under a giant microscope or as if these questions were being graded. It’s not Bri that makes me feel that way…it’s me. It’s my overthinking brain. She calls it ‘story telling,’ and I sure as shit do it- often, thus, the therapy…

“Of course I fucking would have!” I snap. I look at her, wondering if I was about to hear a spiel about how domestic violence was considered more of a “family issue” back then. I don’t know if I could stand hearing that bullshit excuse one more damned time, especially not from Bri of all people!

Instead, she said, “What compels you to do the opposite of those sixteen people isn't a matter of bad or good, or even wrong or right. You have empathy - so much that you feel like you have to take on all your problems and everyone else's problems and fix them all. But you don't. It's great to have empathy, but not so much that it causes you to feel physically ill from it."

From the depths of the dark, dank well where these kinds of memories are kept came sobs that wracked my entire being. I cried for me now, for me then, for my Mom, and even for my Dad.

As I settled, Bri appraised me, “You have given yourself a gift today… The gift of clarity; putting words to those feelings and knowing that you just liberated yourself from the car you’ve been stuck in for almost thirty years.”

As I walked out of her office, I tilted my head back and let the cold flurries of snow cool my face. A random quote came to mind, "Never be defined by your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence."