the way he knows

I was cleaning out a drawer today and found a letter written 91/2 years ago by my father. He was in prison at the time, and we had been through the ups and downs of our relationship so many times I was dizzied by the process. My parents divorced when I was very young, and I was adopted by my mothers second husband when I was 6. I saw him only 2-3 times again throughout my childhood, none of those times good ones, they were colored by the attitudes and emotions of the bitterness and hatred and anger of the divorce. I remember mostly being scared of him. But I was fascinated too, by the man I imagined him to be. In my mind, he was tall, dark and handsome. But more than that, he loved me, and there was no way he ever chose to be gone from our lives this way. I was wrong.

The truth is, he is a short, handsome, man ravaged by a lifetime of alcoholism and drug abuse. He has lived a hard life, violent and abusive, on both the receiving and the giving ends of cruely. He was sold as a little boy to a rich woman who wanted a son. A perfect son. He wasnt it. He was one of those bad boys mothers warn their little girls about. No one warned my mother, by the time she came along, the youngest of 16, no one cared what happened, as long as she didnt need anything from them.

I re-met him when my oldest child was born. I was 19. I remember sitting in his truck, recognizing he was never going to be the daddy I dreamed of, acutely aware that history was being rewritten. He was a drunk, he was poor, he was small and old and washed-up. He was my father. I had spent so many years chasing after him in my mind, building him up into something he never was and would never be. In his tired old truck, in his faded jeans and cowboy boots, no license and no hope...he was all I had. Flannels and red-rimmed washed-out eyes. He was not the father I imagined walking me down the aisle. I choked back shame and embarrassment, and replaced it with a burning resentment..he had CHOSEN this life. He had CHOSEN to leave us. The stories were mostly true. One thing that I knew, even then, he always loved us. It is not the kind of love fathers should have for their kids, it was angry and resentful, the love of owerniship versus parenthood. "I have a fine son and a beautiful daughter." Only, I wasnt beautiful, and at that moment I was feeling even less so. Was I never anything more than a Theriault, as I had been told? The apple doesnt fall far from the tree, and no matter how good I was, how hard I tried, I was always going to be a Theriault in the eyes of the world. It wasnt fair, and yet here was I, judging him. My own father didnt measure up. Maybe I really was a Theriault, after all?

I opened the letter, remembering how well he seemed to love me when all he had was time. Letters full of a father's words came weekly, talking about his grand plans for his life, explaining patiently how he had loved us. Many times, they were words of sorrow, for what he had missed, for how he had treated my mother. His honesty was so blunt, when there was no bottle to hide behind. Some people say you get more truths from a drunk. In his case, the alcohol masks who he really is, it allows anger and resentment and fury to come screaming from his lips. He is never to blame, he takes no responsibility, it is all our imaginations. When he is sober for a long period of time, he faces facts and is much more willing to be rational.

The letter talked about how he was a terrible parent. How he should have fought harder, how he could have done more to show us that he did love us. It talked about letters he had sent to an aunt, who never gave them to us. It talked about his childhood, his dreams, who he had wanted to be. It talked about how poverty and a terrible childhood had robbed him of his own dreams, how he had wanted to BE somebody. It talked about his shame at sitting in a prison, behind steel bars, locked away from the world.

Mostly, the letter talked about his new baby granddaughter, Ciarra Nichole. She had just been born, and he had never seen her. He talked about how it reminded him of my birth, and how ashamed he was that he was behind bars, then, too. He talked about how he had let me down, but how he really wanted to be a good Grandpa, if I would let him. He talked about the other kids, Kristin, Jesse, and Alex...and how he hadnt realized just WHAT he was missing with them. But that hearing Ciarra was born with Down syndrome, how much he realized I would need him. That SHE would need him. He told me he checked out a book through the prison library. Count Us In, it was called. He was impressed with the young men who wrote it. He was surprised, he said, that "retarded people" could write so well, that their words could bring him to tears. That they could reach into his angry old heart and make him wish he could scoop up his new baby granddaughter and be for her the man he wasnt for me. He wanted me to know he would be different, forever, from now on, and that being her Grandpa meant so much to him.

That was 9 years ago. he has seen her maybe three times. He does a good job at talking the talk, but he doesnt know her, nor she him. He got out of prison and found the bottle again, and prescription drugs, the old crowd, and all the reasons to hate. And we have become an afterthought, I suppose. He means well. But his world swallows him whole, and he has enough good excuses to let him get away with it. I love my Dad, but he is not the man I dreamed of. he is not the man HE dreamed of. He is getting old now, and recent events have caused a rift between us once again. I bought his house and land, when the town foreclosed on it. He resisted moving out, even though that was the deal. He would move into Senior Citizen housing, it was safer, less stressful for him. In the end, he moved out angry, resentful, and blaming my mother for all the bad in his life. The circle keeps going round, the merry go round keeps spinning. I jumped off. He is still on it, and he always will be, Im afraid.

I hold on to this letter, nonetheless. It is a reminder of who he would be if the alcohol and drugs disappeared. In the letter, he is the daddy and the grandpa of my dreams. When I am old, maybe I can look back on it and believe again that he was the Daddy I dreamed of, the one who would come riding in and make everything ok. Swoop me up in his arms and make it all better. Dote on his grandchild, the special one, the one who made him cry. The one who like her mother, couldnt change him.

That 70s...LIFE

entering a contest over at http://therollerblog.com/ it is for the best 70s pics. I couldn't decide which I liked better...suggestions? No laughing!!




some of the happiest days of my life were spent in Mass. with my new adoptive family. This is my Aunt Kristin who was a yr older, Me,(loving the mickey mouse shoes!) My Uncle Mark, and my brother Ronnie.





oh MY! This was my Girl Scout uniform. The jammies...lovely!


not sure where we were headed, but we were kinda cute!



showing off (??) our belly shirts. Stylin!!





I LOVED me some Toughskin jeans!






Boy, we dressed cool back then eh?




thats me and my big brother Ronnie. He had a big wheel. No idea whose car that is.




Im the one ON the bed. The other cute kid is my Aunt Kristin.



yes, I am the dork in the middle of the dork parade.

the changing moments

I was thinking today about the moments in my life that have impacted me the most, changed my direction one way or another. I imagine myself, halfway through my life, as a roaring stream rushing over rapids. The rocks that form the rapids are the trials and tribulations of my life. Their sharp edges and dangerous currents are smoothed and softened by the strength of me. At this time in my life, I allow gravity to lead me to my resting place, and I follow along where it takes me. But still, I am strong and powerful, and I leave my mark.

I am not detoured by the undercurrents, just jostled around a bit. My path is fairly clear, it lays before me invitingly, calm and serene, some lake...somewhere out there...waiting for me to join it's calmness and rest gently amongst the trees and rocks of its banks.

It is amazing to me in some ways that I can even see that place, off in the future. It has not always looked so clear to me. Certainly, the beginings of my journey were much more turbulent and rocky.

Although I started out just a trickle of a stream, a joining of two of life's forgotten people, the culmination of a love that would not last, I have managed to make my way here, to this place of relative stability. In retrospect, they each threw their share of stones and boulders into my path, even before I was born. Poverty, hatred, alcoholism, drug abuse, imprisonment. I spent much of my early life looking at all of the neighboring brooks as they babbled happily along, nurtured and fed so fully, wondering what I had done wrong to be needing to strike out on my own carving my own way, alone in the wilderness. At every turn, another pebble broke the surface, divorce, loss, anger, overwhelming grief. And still I gained in strength, at every fork I gathered and forged on. I managed to gain a hold in the earth and grip it for all I was worth, and I left my mark in many places. I even managed to foster three new little brooks of my own, each branching off to their destinations hopefully, joyously, well-fed and nurtured. I came from nothing, I may never be anything that mattered. But I will have fought hard to get where I am, fought hard to overcome a rotten start. My children will never look back and say I put myself first, or loved them anything less than with all of me.

I am tired now. I wish for the stones and twigs and clay beneath me to soften their grip and allow me a more peaceful path to the finish line. I am tired of fighting the current. I have hurtled the hills and I long for the valleys. I take stock of those around me who are ready to slow down, too. I am happy to see that some have made the trip in one piece, and some new faces have even joined me on my travels. The lake is ahead, the rapids are slowing, the fight is going out of me. Peace, placidity, the reverance of calm waters, are ahead. I am ready to be enveloped by them, swallowed whole, taken in. Ready.

Paris Hilton is scared?

Some of you may know this, and some dont, but anyway....when I was 17 years old, I went to the state Jr. Exhibition contest. I took 2nd place. My mom and stepdad had recently divorced, and my brother had moved away to join the Air Force. Just my mom and me at home. And our relationship was NOT good. I dont remember why now, but she didnt even bother going to the Jr Ex (speech) contest, she wasnt very involved with that stuff anyway. I was so proud, I won on a story I wrote myself. I walked home thinking maybe she would be proud of me for once. Instead, I found her sitting in the dark at the kitchen table. I knew when I opened the door I was in trouble. Keep in mind, I was straight A, high honors, NEVER smoked, drank, used drugs etc. I did have boyfriends and she called me all kinds of names over them. But I had been dating Jim for a year and then some by then, I was 17. Anyway, she had been snooping through my room, which she ALWAYS did. She would tape up notes I had shredded, read diaries, every little thing I did was scrutinized. Apparently she had found a note I had written several YEARS before, about a boy i liked a lot. It was full of nonsense and teenaged bs and stupidity, asking my friend if I could get pregnant doing this or that or whatever...I was 14 when it had been written. I remember thinking "I was just being stupid, it wasnt stuff I had DONE!" But anyway, she accused me of all of it. The first words she said when I came in, in this sickening heavy voice was "Sit down". My life changed forever that night. By the end of it, I fought back. I was tired of being seen as BAD, I was a good kid, I had just won this big fancy award, if she would have bothered looking she would have seen my name on the news.
An hour later, I was being handcuffed and stuffed into the back seat of a patrol car. I had made the mistake of not leaving when she shoved me out the door and locked it. I kicked it in and went to my room to get my stuff, my puppy and a few other things. I was halfway down the stairs with my hope chest stuffed with clothes and papaers etc when the cops came in. I tried to explain, but there was no explaining. She wanted me arrested for criminal trespass. When the cop grabbed me off the stairs, I kicked the hope chest down the rest of the way where it went through a wall. So they added vandalizing to the charges. I was booked into our local jail, then transported to the city jail in the next town. I went to a school with a zero tolerance policy, my arrest got me kicked out...21/2 weeks before graduation. I lost my scholarship and my diploma. I wasnt allowed to march with my friends. I didnt graduate. I was SEVENTEEN. Instead, I got fingerprinted, tossed in a cell with a sneer "You ought to feel right at home here, your daddy likes this cell real well." I had done everything in my power to beat the odds, and to be someone. And it didnt change a thing.

I sat in that cell for days, until Jim bailed me out. He picked me up in his truck and drove me 300 miles south, to where he had just moved for work. And that was that. And I didnt graduate, and I know all about jail, and being scared. And I didnt have what that little twit has, a family fighting for me. Or a drinking problem. I didnt speak to my mother again for years. Then we did for awhile, then we stopped again about 7 years ago. Then we started again about 2 years ago. I forgive her, but I will never forget what she cost me in my life. I never trust her or anybody else completely. Paris Hilton doesnt have a lock on being scared, or sick, or lonely. She had EVERY reason to stay straight and be grateful for the life she had, priveleged and spoiled. And she has NO right to any better treatment than the 17 yr old *I* was, scared and shivering in a cold cell watching my entire future fly away for NOTHING.