Living In the Shadows
My last post...I was yammering on about.. my failed marriage..wondering why... after ten years...it would seem like you could just ...Let it Goooooo....! rite...!...??....i don't really dwell on my failures that much...I live in the shadows of an Abusive childhood... which for many years I blamed myself.. because it was my fault...Look what you made me do....Jeesh last time i saw the woman she was tellin me what a mean little kid I had been...yepp ...86 years old... and all she could see was what a mean little kid I had been...That was in 1996...all because i couldn't find a latter tall enough to replace a piece of trim on her 150,000 dollar house in Cedar park Texas... yepp....boy she was madd... We my oldest son and I had just finished rebuilding her fence.. and replaced the Gate post and re hung the gates ...mowed her yard.. edged and trimed.. We had just finished some other odd and ends she requested us to do...AWE gee .... but since her neighbor wasn't home.. and there was no ladder tall enough to replace that small garnishment in the gable of her home...she blew a fuse........Reminded me of all the years she'd cuss me tell me what a draggass I was.. how I was never gonna amount to a dam thing....I just looked at the poor woman... My grandmother... adopted mom...yep she adopted me all legal like when I was 16... even got me to change my name...My mom ... she was hurt real bad because of this adoption.. my dad... said he felt sad.. but didnt' hold it against me for being so dam stupid.. (well he didn't call me stupid)...but he knew how my grandmother could be so darn controling... ...that day..in 1996........I looked at this woman....so filled with pain and hate... this fine christain woman... who's last words I'd heard were so...mean and full of hatred for Me... because she saw someone else in me... someone she had nothing for but anger and hatred....and I never understood... it.. this ....HATRED... this ANGER.... this black heart that was as relentless as the mornin sun....How had it endured all these years...would she ever find any peace...?.....How can you love someone who is so abusive ...well with all your heart....that is how...but even in love ... the abuse must stop...I left her home that day....right or wrong... I had my final say... I looked her right in the eyes... for a spark knowledge that she would be able to understand what I was about to say...I told her...that no matter what I loved her.. but I wasn't ever coming back to visit her... I told her she was all alone.... I was tired of being her whipping post...that day was goodbye... she can have my place in heaven.. but I had enough of her abusive nature... Her only response was would I promise to come to her funeral....aint that a heck of a request for a mother ... grandmother to ask of her Son........Yeah I'll be there... and I was....they laid her to rest along side my step-grandfather...some where between Austin and Round Rock Texas ...east side of the I-H 35...Now some 14 years later...all the memories of my childhood... haunt me on a Daily basic painful reminder of how a child beaten cussed and often neglected... a reminder of why I am who I am.. and why I'm in so much pain daily....of all the so many beatings and verbal abuse... one most profound moment that angers me most at 57 years of age.. was her selling my car... (1966 Mustang) while I was in basic training at Lackland AFB........my name is the same as my adopted father... only I'm a second...( II ).. no one ever put the II on my pay checks.. or car title...I was indeed just a shadow for her to hide all her hatred and anger in...she even hated my name....she liked my adopted name even less.. but it played a role in her being able to control her little world and schemes of things.........I find myself being more and more like my old grandmother... in pain.. filled with anger... But there is no Hatred....or is there.....?See I've battled this before.. more and more as I get older.. as my body pays for all the abuse is recieved as a child... I find myself... snappin at every thing... I try to control my world around me.. and when I try to focus on some peaceful memories.. I can't find em......... I'm liveing in the shadows of my abusive childhood...I'm trapped in a body that shuts down a little bit more each years...I'm at the point in life where Life stops giving... and starts taking away........I keep praying my heart can remain free of the Darkness of Hate...I pray I could just forget... Forgiving was easy.....Forgetting... is another story...........whats missing from this story is all the many wonderful moments and memories ...they are there.. they help me thru this pain...I cling to the good memories as much as I can.. out in the sunshine of Love and Life....my greatest joy... is my children... Don't understand what I'm going thru... that to me is Wonderful... Love will find a way.... to end the cycle... but I still get stuck in the shadows...... best wishes and many blessing russ
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