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In this week of being thankful, I’m so very thankful I understood the message above before I became a father.
In corresponding with Ed, I’m learning how difficult it is to make your child understand you’ve changed – that you are no longer the monster who would beat his sick young child for throwing up on his shoes, or for getting hurt at a church picnic. You are no longer the man whose thought processes are so cruel, so flawed, so rooted in violent and uncontrolled rage and aggression, you are capable of ignoring the pleas not to be beaten again by the child you have beaten repeatedly … no longer the dis-compassionate animal who gives no thought to what his child wants, needs or feels. No longer the insufferable idiot with an authority complex who would force his son to eat zucchini – despite the son’s tears and pleas, his gagging and choking, until he threw up all over the table at a family dinner and then beat him, pants down, in front of everyone present, for throwing up. No longer the ignorant asshole who thought it was OK to make his son a victim – not only at home, but at school.
It’s damn-near impossible for me to see Ed as anyone other than the man in the paragraph above, because that is who he was every single day of my childhood. These are not isolated incidents, they are what stand out most clearly in a sea of identical incidents. This is who and what he is … was.
Was? I don’t know that yet. My wife and mother-in-law, two very wise women whose opinion I respect, tell me I won’t know for sure until I’ve seen him – until I’ve spent time with him … I believe this is likely true.
But … he can’t now do the things to me he once did–not because he has changed and is incapable of such reprehensible behavior today, but because I’m an adult with the power to disallow him to hurt me, or cause me harm in any way;
that does not mean he wouldn’t if he could – all it means is that I have grown-up …
and right now, this is the only Absolute in play.
Absolutes for the Future … at some point:
I want to know and feel and believe that if I were five years old I would be emotionally and physically safe in my father’s care.
I want to know he is different than the man I know him to be because he is actually and truly different – better.
I want to be able to look back at who he was while looking at him today and see two different people.
I want to know the man he is today abhors the man he used to be, finds him an abomination.
I want reason and cause to believe him when he tells me, as he has, that he is sorry for the what he did, and for what it caused, and he is here for me now in whatever way I need.
I want to believe such things can be … true.
Silence Shattered 