A Special Word:
This post provides a sometimes detailed insight into my life as I was growing up in a Pentecostal Family. Inevitably, it is going to refer to members of my family and I fully appreciate that some of the things related are sensitive. For this reason I have deliberately avoided the use of any names of people and places and kept the content strictly anonymous - as is the case with all my posts.
I strongly believe that my life story during those early years very adequately demononstrates the kinds of issues that can arise in Pentcostal (and/or other religious) families when the salient underlying psychological needs of some of those family members are left unattended to or are, perhaps, never allowed to be revealed and the consequences that this can have for all involved. My primary objective, therefore, is to use my experiences as an example in the hope that they will allow some degree of clarity and release to others who have suffered a similar fate.
This account is my experience. It is how years of trying to come to terms with my past have revealed the true nature of what was going on while I was growing up. I understand that many may not agree with my insights but I would ask, please, that you would respect that this my story and I feel that I need to express it.
Setting the Scene
My parents were two of the most fervent Christians I know. Their whole lives were determined by their beliefs. My father had been brought up with strong Brethren and Methodist influences. My mother had come to her faith in her late teens. Both became Pentecostal believers in their early to mid 20s. I can recall clearly my mother's passion for her beliefs. My father, on the other hand, though not displaying the same level of outward emotion for his faith as my mother, held rock-like to what he believed. They complemented each other: one was the driving force, the other the stability behind that force.
Frustration at not being able
to go to the far east as missionaries, due to underlying health
problems, led my parents to focus their attention on activities
nearer to home. It wasn't too long before my father became a Sunday
School superintendent – a position he held for many years. During
his time in this office he developed the outreach to include mid-week
children's meetings and a Junior Church for older children to attend,
which operated along side the Sunday School. Junior Church was really
a stepping stone from which young teenagers were encouraged to attend
the Sunday Gospel services at the local Pentecostal church. My
parents were not unsuccessful in this endeavour. Many youngsters
attended the Gospel services on a regular basis for a number of
years. Not all followed through to a full commitment to Christ but
one or two did, one of whom became a pastor's wife! For the
remainder, my parents believed that the influence they had received
would bear fruit in due course.
Long
after my father's role as a Sunday School superintendent had ended he
and
my mother continued to emphasise children's work in the various
activities
in
which they
engaged – and they enrolled me in these programmes
too!
I did my fair stint as a Sunday
School teacher when I was older and
as a youth leader. I just followed on automatically
without much
thought being given to what I may or may not have felt was right for
me.
Looking back, I was living out the continuation of their dream.
Even as a student at
university my mother would write to me
encouraging me to pray for certain named children
that she was keen
to 'win for the Lord'!
My parents did well, despite my father's chronic illness, at projecting to all around them an image of the model Christian family. Their devotion to their God and their commitment to their church were unquestionable – and my brother and I were given no other option than to follow their example. We were moulded in that frame that our parents thought was best for us. This came to include full attendance at church; a disciplined daily devotional habit; an encouragement to seek out opportunities to witness to all with whom we mixed; a life on guard from the 'wiles of the Devil' and the development of a fervent, on-going desire for more of the fullness of God. People often commented on what a good job my mum and dad had made of bringing us up.
This
was the outward appearance but what lay on the inside? What were the
real
driving
forces behind my parents' absorption in their
faith
and how has my parents' ignorance of
these forces played out in
ensuring the enormous damage inflicted on my brother and me as
we
grew up – innocents under the rule of profoundly unaware
and
sadly misguided
guardians?
Delving Deeper
From about that age on my father worked as a farm labourer, a coal miner and a window cleaner. His mother did re-marry at some point. Though my grandmother was from a Methodist background (I believe she had taken the 'Pledge') my step-granddad was of Brethren heritage and he seems to have exerted some influence over my father's religiousperspective. My father appears to have been a keen believer by his late teens.
I
cannot say, in all honesty, that my own relationship with my
grandmother and step-
granddad as a child was in any way warm or even
that welcoming. I don't recall my
grandmother demonstrating much love
and my step-granddad was quite distant and remote
– though the
relationship did improve for a while as I grew older. How this
apparent lack of
expression of fondness and love played out in my
father's own relationship, if at all, with
his mother I don't know but I strongly
suspect that both this and the loss of his father at such
a pivotal age – and, perhaps, the subsequent requirement for him to buckle
down and
assume new responsibilities after this loss - had a large part to play in restricting his own
ability to express his emotions. He said to me once, in later life, when talking about his
illness, ‘What’s the point in getting angry. It wont change anything.’
This statement is quite
revealing, I feel, on two points. First, my
father did not deny the presence of anger but,
secondly, neither
could he appreciate the value of fully acknowledging and accepting
this.
His seems to have been a defeatist response.
On
my mother's side, the history is a little better defined. It is
enough, I feel, to go back
only one generation and to a particular
determining event – namely, the suicide of her
grandmother. The
whys and wherefores as to the reason my great grandmother took this
course of action are not important here. What is significant is the
effect that her action had
on her six year old son at the time and
how that trauma played out in his life and, in
particular, later on
in his relationship with my mother.
violent father. Prior to the Great War my maternal great grandad is said to have been a model husband and father. Quite a dapper chap, too, by all accounts. On his return from France, though, he was a changed man who took to physically assaulting his wife and, at times, showing very scant regard for his children. It has been interesting for me over the years to discover first hand the distinctly different accounts of their father from my nanna and from her brother. A distinctly Oedipal complex seems obvious. My great uncle often spoke of his intense dislike of his father and of his love for his mother – and he had good reason to do so, being badly neglected by his father as a four year old, reportedly running off to a neighbour's house for shelter after being thrown across the floor while trying to protect his mother during one of his father's outbursts. According to my great uncle's report, it was a day or so before he returned home but his father didn't care to look for him. Eventually, years later, he was told to find his own way in life when he was turfed out of the family home as a young adult, preference being given to his step-brother. My nanna, on the other hand, who seldom, if ever, mentioned her mother, spoke differently of her father and kept his photograph in her living room for years. She spoke of his political and business exploits, of his successes in life. When talking about her father he always came over as being someone in whom she was very proud. Did she align herself to him so strongly as a child as a way of ensuring her own security? Could any hint of affection towards her mother have, in her young mind, been construed as a threat to that security? She would not be unaware of her father's darker side but chose never to emphasise this in the ways that her brother did. Children have an obvious and innate need for security and will develop a variety of ways of securing this in the face of threatening circumstances. Such patterns carry consequences for those adhering to them.
Of
all my grand parents, my nanna was, actually,
the
one who demonstrated her affection
for my brother and me the most,
though we had to watch that we didn't cross her. Even as
children she
could take offence easily. My grandpa (her husband) could not really
engage
with either my brother or me on any meaningful level. I
believe his childhood trauma made
him very timorous, a characteristic
which manifest itself through him being very possessive
where money
was concerned. Any monetary gifts supplied from our nanna were done
so in
the strictest secrecy – the implication being that if our
grandpa had found out then he would
give my nanna a bit of an hard
time about it. She would stand her ground with him but it
wasn't
worth the hassle so he was best left uninformed.
When
I was older I tried to get along side my grandpa on a few occasions
but he couldn't handle the closeness and soon brought such occasions
to a close. He taught me to swim when I was a youngster but this
never seemed to establish any kind of fledgling bond with him. When I
was perhaps 10 or 11 years old I met him by chance outside a model
shop in our local town. I enthused greatly
about a small model aircraft kit on display in the window. It was
only a few pence. I
hadn't got the money but the grand-child in me hoped that my grandpa
may treat me. He didn't and eventually walked away to catch his bus.
How subtly we are taught by the unconscious errors of others that we
are not of any real value.
As time went on my grandpa's insecurity led him into manipulating
wills and thereby cheating my mother and my brother and me from
certain inheritances. The obvious dishonesty that stemmed from this
kind of behaviour only compounded the problems which continued to
develop for my family relations over time. My mother struggled
greatly to both comprehend and accommodate her father's meanness and
their relationship often failed. I can recall her in tears and broken
fury at the way her father had treated her over the years –
the lack of love cut deeply.
Her mother, too, could be hard and unfeeling towards her, even
jealous!
The
child and young woman who was my
mother
had a natural happiness and love of
life. She was an artist. She had
some intelligence and did well at school but as her life
unfolded the
support and love that anyone would rightly expect from one's parents
was not
forthcoming in the ways that she needed it.
Her
relationship with her parents was difficult. At some point she was
told by them that
she was 'an accident'! My grandpa even admitted to
me, more as a statement, an excuse for
his own inadequacies, than an
apology, long after my mum had died, that 'we couldn't love
her as
she wanted.'
That
lack of love, that deep need for acceptance, I believe, drove my
mother into the
arms of religion. God the father became the
substitute for the father she never really
enjoyed. Her zeal for
Christ - and for the salvation of children in particular - became the
outward manifestation of her inner child's profound need for
recognition. She desperately
craved the enfolding, reassuring arms of
love about her and found that support in her later
teenage years in
the faith that she was to throw herself into wholeheartedly and which
was
to become the defining influence in her life.
My mother was damaged by her upbringing, my father limited by his and the forces at work in bringing about these deep flaws in their make up continued to be at work as my parents embraced a life of faith together. My mother's need was constant: that need was her driver. Whatever life style she had chosen for herself that unfulfilled yearning, formed through her broken relationship with her parents, would continue to determine her behaviour. It was an unconscious urge, a constant thirst for something she could never really have – the unconditional love and acceptance of her parents. Not being able to recognise this for what it was she could not learn to let it go. Consequently, it coloured the rest of her life.
On
the other hand, my father's experience was that of one 'brought up in
the faith'. He
knew his bible well and lived out his Christian
commitment with conviction. He was
grounded in his faith – but he
was not one to explore ideas, concepts and beliefs. In fact, as
far
as I can tell, he believed much the same things when he died as he
did at the beginning
of his life. There was no growth. His was
invariably
a
black and white outlook on life. He
didn't really have the
inclination to take on board any fair
consideration
of alternative views.
There wasn't with him a desire for knowledge
and understanding. He knew what he believe
and little was going to
make him believe otherwise. I think he probably saw this as a badge
of honour.
His
siblings have a very similar
outlook
today. Quite uninterested in anything
other than what they believe.
Not
long after my mum and dad married, my father was diagnosed with a
chronic
disease that was to gradually take over his body and severely
limit his physical ability. Over
time, this was to have a significant
effect on his relations with his immediate family which,
it seems to
me, acted itself out unchecked in the main.
This
has been a lengthy introduction but one which is necessary, I feel,
in order to lay
out those salient points that were to become the keys
to understanding the shaping of my
own upbringing. These forces carry
through from one generation to another until they are
recognised for
what they are and arrested.
Corporal Punishment
I think I must have been about nine years
with a stick! For what, I have no idea but how could such a young boy have come to
deserve such punishment? What would prompt a man in his mid thirties to set about a 6
year old boy – and that boy his son - in such a way? Did my father feel any remorse for
what he had done?
I don’t remember there being an apology. How was my brother’s relationship with his
parents, affected by that particular incident, especially with his father?
I can’t recall clearly
how I felt on witnessing the aftermath. I think it likely that I was
relieved that it was not me
lying there on the bed suffering. No
doubt it made me more
fearful of my father’s ire – and
so more desirous to keep him on
side in order to guarantee, as best I could, that such never
came to
be my lot. Did I accept it as being what happened when one crossed
certain lines?
Probably. At nine years old I had no frame of
reference with which to compare. My
experience of growing up with my
parents was my only frame of reference and though this
specific case
was the worse of its kind that I can recollect, physical punishments
were the
norm for my brother and me. We were
no strangers to being smacked, strapped or hit with a
stick or
slipper. Never had I seen my dad inflict such a beating as he did on
that occasion.
(Even my mother commented that he may ‘have gone too
far’ as she tried to comfort her
son). Nonetheless, some kind of
corporal punishment for relatively minor misdemeanours
was not
uncommon. I don’t believe that I was ever beaten so badly as my
brother was on
that day but I clearly recall
thinking when I was in my early teens (when I had
become taller
and
probably stronger than my dad) that
I didn’t seem to be getting smacked as
often as I
used to. For myself, I cannot remember specific incidents
– my counsellors over the years
believe that I may well have pushed
them out of memory – but I can recall going to bed at
night crying,
sometimes, I believe, without any supper. Despite the vagueness of my
memory in some quarters, that powerful image of my brother’s wounds
on that particular
occasion has remained with me.
Why
would a devout Christian man who engaged so much with other people’s
children in a deliberate effort to bring them to a knowledge of his
god; who had gained the respect of his peers at church as being a
sanctified, godly person choose to vent such fury on his own son(s)?
What deeply seated force was really at work here? My father would
sometimes justify his actions with the well worn phrase, ‘spare the
rod and spoil the child.’ But this act was manifestly
disproportionate to anything a 6 year old boy could have deserved.
I’m curious as to how my father would have processed what he had
done and why he had done it. How did that experience make him feel?
How was it for him to wield such overbearing power? Did he experience
some kind of inverted control over his own life which, as hinted at
above,
was
being increasingly affected by an illness over which he knew he had
no control? How much had the certain threat of that illness already
compounded pre-existing and undealt with feelings of anger and rage?
Did he really believe that he could justify his actions through the
Bible? Where is the love?
Years later,
when living with his step family, my father, who by now was at an
advanced age, once reported to me with some determination
in
his voice that, ‘what she needs is a real good thrashing!’ He was
referring to an adopted
young
teenage girl with considerable learning difficulties whose somewhat
loud and disruptive behaviour had been an irritation to him.
If we don’t live in our authentic life we are not living by our
true self but instead live out whatever masquerade we have come to
adopt as being our true self.
In the army my father had taken up boxing alongside regular bible studies with his CO – which on occasions, I understand, allowed him to skip sentry duties. I find this to be something of a curious contrast. On the one hand here was a young man (he’d be about 18 or 19 years old) pursuing intently a personal faith in a religion of love and compassion for others and yet, simultaneously, he wanted to fight - and even won medals for doing so!
Did
my father have
an
unconscious need to rail against
the
loss of his father at a time in
his life when he needed him most? How
did my dad process the loss of his father? (Come to
think of it, how
did he process the loss of my mother? I can't recall anything
specific here
and yet I lived through this loss with him). Did he
ever really properly process either loss -
did he know how to - or
was it just accepted, buried and moved on from – as, especially
with his father - was much the required attitude in those days. What
was his relationship like
with his own mother? He used to quote her
as threatening the use of a ‘copper stick’ on her
children but I
don’t know if it were ever more than a threat. Was he beaten as a
child? His
father was very ill and feeble. If he were beaten then did
such come from his mother?
I
don’t know enough of my father’s early life and of his real
relationship with his parents
and grand parents
to
say more. He never really spoke of them in much detail. However,
whatever the nature of the causal chain here, it would seem that
something had gone wrong
for him that he could venture such anger on
his children.
Faith v Feelings
Looking
back over those formative years, I don’t recall very much genuine
intimacy
with my father. I can just about remember being carried on
his shoulders from the bus stop
to the church on the other side of
town to attend Sunday School when I was about two or
three years old.
I can recall him arriving home from a spell in a specialist hospital
in
London when I was very young and not being sure of who he was for
a while on his return
and I can recollect parts of
our
visits to Manchester on the train where he attended what I
believe
were sessions of acupuncture. But I don’t have any particular
memories of that day
by day closeness that is so important for a son
to have with his father – and which I now
enjoy
with
my sons. I can't recall any regular engagement with me in my hobbies
and
interests.
Actually,
as time went on I developed into something of a loner. I liked my own
company and enjoyed doing what I wanted to do but things were
happening as a result of
my circumstances to which I was too close
to
see any harm and too young to understand the
dynamics. As my father’s
illness progressed and my physical ability developed so increased
his
reliance upon me to help him with the daily tasks of life. My mum’s
health was never
robust. She was frequently under a lot of strain
with her own health issues; with those of my
father and with the
never quite healed relations with her parents. My brother and I grew
up
in a household that was no stranger to an underlying sense of
stress,
pain
and suffering. Of
course, we were only too willing to help our
parents and wanted to look after them in every
way possible but
things were not right. The family nucleus was not healthy.
This
mix of illness and our parents increasing reliance on their children
for support,
coupled with the controlling religious expectations
which pervaded our relations made for a
pretty damning
cocktail
for my brother and me. Illness only fuelled my parents’ zeal for
Christ, as they submitted
themselves
to his will while simultaneously searching for healing.
They
interpreted their day by day experiences through the lens of their
faith which only
served to compound the real issues at play here. As
a little lad I followed my father to the
front of the church on more
than one occasion to see him being ‘slain in the spirit’ as,
almost lifeless, he fell backwards into the caring catch of a trusted
aide hoping that this
would be the moment!
But healing did not come his way (neither physical nor psychological) and neither did it for my mother. Those dominating forces, hidden from their view, prevailed time after time and yet still the real picture continued to evade them.
My
father’s illness, forcing greater and greater disability upon him
as the years went by,
played a key part, I believe, in stifling
any
potential for a meaningful and deeply connected
relationship with his
son. Of course, I don’t blame him for being ill – far from it! I
loved
him dearly and would have done anything for him but, looking
back, I can’t help wondering
how things may have been between the
two
of us if that illness had not been there or had
been dealt with
differently. And yet, I also wonder if anything would have been
really all
that different, illness or no, given my dad’s seeming
inability to express his emotions, to live
through his feelings
instead of living through his religious mind set. One victim of
circumstance unconsciously inflicting the sorrow of his past upon his
own.
It’s
not untrue, but it is very sad, to admit that my father came to see
people not as
individuals in their own right with whom he could enjoy
genuine and unique relations but in
terms of their usefulness to him.
He had an habit of picking fault with people who had been
very kind
to him behind their backs. I’m not unaware that in referring to
events in my past,
invariably his comments
would
carry a negative tinge. By my early thirties I was looking
back and
noticing just how much I had become expendable to him – and, at the
same time,
sensed
a
growing favouritism from him towards my brother – upon whom he had
come
more to rely than on myself and, perhaps, towards whom he still
felt some sense of guilt
from the past.
The Cracks Begin to Show
I
was 26 when my mother died. My brother and I were still living at
home. Neither of us
had a girl friend. So closely had we been
involved in our parents lives; so dependent had
they become on us; so
limited had been our experience
of
life
as a result
that
this was the
immediate consequence.
Regular
patterns of co-existence began to fracture after our mother’s
death: the old
drivers began to poke through the cracks. Of course,
these were not immediately self
evident but now, when I look back, I
can see the edifice that was our parents’ dream for
themselves and
their children beginning to fall apart. The deeper truth was, at
last,
beginning to show! The
controlling
influence of our mother over our lives as both
individuals and as a
family had been removed. There was now room for the possibility of
change. Don’t you just love the phrase, ‘the truth will always
out’!
I can see now that by my
mid to late twenties cracks
were
beginning in my relationship
with my brother. We were becoming more
distant. To my mind
he
was certainly becoming
less trusting of me and more easily offended
by me. There was less regard shown.
As
I was
planning to leave the family home for a place of my own my
brother was finding his place,
whether by default or design, to be
along side our father in the family home.
Big
differences developed
between
my brother and me. He had had it hard after leaving
school finding a
steady job and securing a regular income. In fact, he never did find
that
steady job but came to
discover
self-employment to be his forte
– something
with which
he
has enjoyed a
degree
of success. By contrast, life seemed to just open up for me as I went
through university and straight into a reasonably well paid job. I
wonder now how this may
have made my brother feel? Was I ever
sensitive to his feelings? Did he ever express them?
Was there ever
any resentment? Were either of us ever really encouraged to consider
our
feelings? I’ve often pondered
if
something like this was fuelling
the
growing chasm that
was developing between us at that time. How was he dealing with the fallout of his mother’s passing? What dark drivers were starting to surface for him? All this would have been unfamiliar territory for both of us back then. We would be faced with strange feelings which we would not really know how to deal with except to, perhaps, ignore them or to revert to prayer and Scripture for answers, if we paid them any serious heed at all. Our parents didn’t do feelings, remember. My father once retorted, ‘you live by faith, not feelings!’ In this statement alone one can see, no doubt, how he had sought to deal with his own very real and painful experiences of life. My brother and I have been made all the worse for this!
In
addition to the above, it has to be said that my brother was also in
the peculiar
position of having not two role models in the home
but
three. As his older brother, I too
would have been someone up to whom
he would have looked for example and security. But
what example had I
set? What security could I have provided? As a young nine year old I
certainly had no way of protecting him from our father. Neither did
our mother step in to
prevent the mayhem that was inflicted upon him.
He must have felt very much alone and so
very much scared at that
particular time. I’m confident that this incident alone would
carry
powerful but subtle influences well into the rest of his life.
Certainly, in the time leading on
from our mother’s death the bond
between my brother and father seemed to develop further.
Once I had
moved out of the family home my brother and father lived together for
some
time. Does the aggrieved and wounded child cling closely to the
perpetrator of those
wounds in order to ensure that there is no
repeat of the violence? Does some form of
appeasement take place
between the two parties where the victim seeks to secure the favour
of the culprit? Psychological theory would suggest so. The advantages
are obvious.
A New Family and a New Focus
One
would imagine that in living together for some time a close bond
would have
developed between my father and brother. I think
my
brother thought so but when my father
decided to remarry and move in
with his new wife, my brother experienced the awful pain
of being
‘dropped’
for
another. I spoke to my father about this, at my brother’s behest,
and
his simple reply was, ‘well, I’m married to … now. My life
is with her.’ Do I need to
explain here the resoundingly
self-evident limitations of my father’s seemingly profound
inability to connect with his children?
That
must have been an extremely hard time for my brother. I know he had
problems being accepted by his new step family, mainly, I believe
because by then he did not profess the faith of his childhood. What
made matters worse was that he was dating a divorcee. There were
times when he was made to feel unwelcome (even by his father) at step
family occasions because of this
– despite
some of
those
occasions taking
place
at his family home!
I often found
myself during this time pleading my brother’s corner with my dad,
trying to get him to understand how things were for my brother. I’m
not sure what success I had, really, but I tried to be
there
for my brother endeavouring
to
help in whatever ways I could.
As
the years went by my father immersed himself in his new family. They,
too, were
Pentecostal believers. My father now had not only a new
wife but three step-daughters and a
step-son. He was well looked
after by them and enjoyed a period of relatively stable health.
During this period in his life he spent a lot of time going out with
his wife and being
involved in her
church.
It was during this time that relations
between my brother and me really hit a nadir. I have
never fully
understood why but my brother chose to distance himself and his
family (he was
now married and had two children) from me completely.
Perhaps, unconsciously, he was
retreating into himself, becoming less
and less trusting of those around him. He moved
house twice never
telling me on either occasion of his new address. At one time, he cut
off
contact with me for over seven years. Sometimes the situation
would thaw and we’d be in
touch with each other again but not for
very long. Then would follow further blocks of years
where I was
ignored by him.
At the same time, my father showed less interest in my family and me. I had two beautiful young sons but he never really bothered with either of them. He allowed himself to be subject to the whims of others at the expense of his own kin. Increasingly I felt that old feeling of being expendable, that underlying sense of rejection, as if I didn’t really matter to him. Was my brother experiencing the same feelings? I recall visiting my dad in hospital during this time. I’d travelled about 80 miles, round trip, just to sit with him to pass the time of day while he waited for a long blood transfusion to complete. While there he got talking to his nurse about one of his step-daughters. He spoke with enthusiasm and delight about how good she was to him, how she was "more like a real daughter than a step-daughter" to him, creating a very positive impression of what he thought about her. I don’t think he even troubled himself to introduce me to the nurse.
The years rolled by and the separation between the three of us grew broader. The more I began to understand what had really been going on under the surface in my family the more I was determined not to allow my father to control any further part of my life. I felt abused. I had given such a great deal to him over the years in terms of love, care and support and miss-guided expectation. I had lost an enormous amount as a consequence of his particular brand of religious parenting - which I can never retrieve! Now I was being side-lined, pushed into the edges of his life. I had had enough. I had to protect myself, my integrity. If I were ever to survive the effects of my past then I had to stand my ground. He could lean on me no more. This didn’t mean that I wasn’t there for him. Not at all. I would be there for him but on my terms, not his.
On
the other hand, from what I could tell, despite everything, my
brother continued to
make himself available to his dad. I’m not
suggesting that he should not have done so but it
would have been
useful, I feel, if my brother could have explored
the
real motivations
behind his behaviour. He may have done so and
concluded that he wanted to maintain his
relationship with his father
as he did. One could say it was love that drove him. Perhaps it
was.
Maybe my brother really did love his dad to the point where he would
do anything for
him however unfairly he may have been treated. To my
mind, though, love is a two way
thing which requires itself in return
from another to flourish and blossom. Given all that had
transpired
over the years I feel that love was probably the least of my
brother’s motivations.
There’s so much other baggage here that I
don’t feel that anything positive could thrive as it
should. I
think the more likely
explanation
is an unrecognised longing
for
acceptance; a
need for reassurance; a wounded child’s distorted
desire
to
please; perhaps a feeling that
without his father, he would be lost.
Who really knows the goings on of the human psyche.
What I do know,
though, is that in the events leading up to the end of my father’s
life there
was neither love nor understanding emanating towards me
from either my father or my
brother.
My Great Uncle
I
mentioned at the beginning of this article that I had a great uncle.
He lived a long way
away from me so I didn’t get to see him much at
all as I grew up. There had been an heated
quarrel between my mum’s
parents and my great uncle when I was in my early twenties
and
for a good few years no contact was made between either party. The
feud made it
awkward for my parents to remain in contact with my
uncle so things were just left to drift
with no attempt at any
reconciliation. At the root of this fallout was my grandpa’s greed
but
that’s another story.
In
my late twenties I decided that this discord was not of my making and
so I was not
going to be held by it. I had always got on really well
with my uncle. He was that very
special type of uncle that every
child should have in his or her life. Why should I lose out in
this
relationship as well? My girlfriend and I were holidaying in
the
area where my uncle
and aunt lived so
we
decided to call in on them, unannounced. When they opened the door
my
uncle welcomed us
with
open arms. Then began, (or rather
continued
after a long,
unwanted break), for me a wonderful relationship with a
man who eschewed religion as ‘the
greatest con ever’ and loved me
for who I was. For the next twenty years or so that
relationship
really blossomed. I felt accepted for who I was. He made no demands
of me
and I loved him for who he was. He was a very kind and loving
man who embraced life and
enjoyed sharing his life with others. He
was astute and entertaining. He had class and a
myriad of fascinating
stories to tell.
I
can see now that the connection I had for so long sought with my
father but which had
not been forthcoming, I had found in my great
uncle. He lived to be 101. I was blessed to
have been able to share
with him so happily
the
last 20 years of his life.
Guilty as Charged
In
this time, my relations with my brother and my father continued to
deteriorate and for
reasons which I really don’t know for certain.
I was prepared to be there for my father but
my offers of help, often
with big practical tasks, were invariably requested and then
rejected. My brother maintained his
distance.
I had a sense that secrets were being kept
between my dad and my
brother. I felt increasingly pushed out to the perimeters of their
lives. My family and I felt no longer important to either.
Suspicion and spite were afoot. Miss-placed jealousy was to split apart completely what little family connection remained. A little while after my uncle’s death, my father ‘phoned me. His tone was somewhat challenging. He accused me of various things concerning my uncle and my uncle's will and went on to support his accusations with a number of supposed events that had been related to him by my brother. (For some time before my uncle died my brother had made contact with my uncle and, to my mind at least, appeared at times to want to interfere and take over my special relationship with him. I'm not sure if my brother was envious of my closeness to my uncle or was driven by other motives but, whatever his reasons, the manner of his interference was unwelcome). I found myself having to defend myself against my father over what were, at best, miss-construed notions and at worst out and out lies. In the course of the conversation I discovered that my father had a little time before removed me as an executor of his will in favour of my brother's wife.
After the call, I sat back in complete bewilderment. How could such an innocent and loving relationship that I had with my uncle be turned into the cause of so much miss-trust and vindictiveness? Why would my brother automatically suspect me of meddling with my uncle’s will? Why would he create such malicious stories about me and then relate them to my sick father in such a way as, effectively, to manipulate him? What baffled me the most was why my father would so readily believe such tales? Neither my brother nor my father thought to ask of me if such things were true. They played judge and jury and came up with the desired verdict which was served to me after the event with no right of redress.
I
wrote to my father a number of letters trying to get things sorted
out but I never
received any replies. Nor was the subject ever
discussed again. From then on my
communications with him were
laboured and effectively meaningless. Oh, he was chatty
and jolly, to
a point, but it continued to be
glaringly
evident as time passed that things were
increasingly not right
between us and he didn't seemed to show any concern about the fact.
In our conversations he never veered from the superficial and the
mundane. As he
approached the final years of his life, as his health
began to deteriorate further, he never
discussed with me those things
that a father might be expected to discuss with his eldest
son. I
felt well and truly excluded, cast out to the margins of his life. My
father was holding
things against me but to my face pretending that
nothing was wrong.
Being Disinherited
Eventually,
my father died. Nothing had been resolved between us and I came to
discover
something of just what had been going on behind my back in
the last few years of his life.
In
a nutshell, I had been virtually disinherited. By the time he died my
father had already
given away most of his wealth to my brother. In an
earlier will which, I am given to
understand was made out some years
prior to my father’s death and about the time just after
of
my uncle's passing, I was to inherit nothing. However, a
few
months before his own death
my father changed his will to allow me a
minority amount of what was left – it wasn’t
much! With that will
came a letter berating me for my supposed lack of care towards him –
written by my brother and signed by my dad! My meagre inheritance was
intended as a
punishment!
What
kind of a man was my father? Did he ever deal with his demons? How
could a
father leave his son such a legacy as that left to me? The
last thing he said, in effect, through
his letter, was that I was not
good enough to receive more. He disapproved. Why did he
automatically
think so badly of me? Why could he never allow himself to see my
very real
needs and the impact of his life on mine? Why could he not
acknowledge
his own failings?
Why could he not accept the ramifications of his
illness (and of his faith) on his children?
Many a son would have
washed his hands of my father a long time ago after the way he had
been treated but I didn’t. I sought to find a way forward with him.
Why the consistent
refusal to go where he needed to go to find
clarity and release? Is this the behaviour of a
supposedly ‘saved
and sanctified’ life surrendered to the God of love?
What
does this all really mean? When my father died, apart from the token
nod in my
direction, my brother inherited everything. My step-sister
and her husband who had
tirelessly looked after my severely disabled
father for many years were left nothing. My
brother got it all.
Everything. How could my father use people in the way that he did?
People who had been so kind and loving to him over the years. People
who deserved to be
treated far better.
I
think it is clear to see what were the real prime movers in my
father’s life. When the
veneer is stripped away, he did not really
live by the creed he confessed. That was just
superficial lip
service. He professed an undying faith in and love for his god; he
claimed a
life lived in the spirit; he proclaimed the
love
of Christ but when it comes down to the gritty
reality my father was
driven by forces not of heaven but by those of a very different kind.
Forces which he never got to grips with and which he allowed to
destroy him and his family
and to leave a bitter memory in the minds
of those he hurt. I come back to the question:
where is the love?
My
parents' failure to recognise these salient drivers and to do
something about them led
them to lean more and more of their faith as
a way to interpret the world around them. But
their perceptions were
skewed. It was not a safe interpretation. Consequently, they ploughed
a continual and ever intensifying furrow of pain and angst for both
of their children. It is my
estimation that as a result of this my
brother went on to develop some form of paranoia. I
feel that his
insecurities run very deeply. I’m aware of a distinct ‘victim’
mentality on his
part – and who can blame him for that after what
had happened to him. He appears at times
to have idolised his father.
And yet once, he reported
to
me that he gauged
the
depth of his
father’s love for him by how much he gave him in
monetary terms!
For myself, as the real picture began to emerge, I began to pull back and find my own way of securing some detachment from all this while trying as best I could to still be there for my father – I had my own demons to deal with and he had many hands looking after him – but I suspect the deep seated needs of my brother in relation to my father did not allow him this kind of luxury. He still had to have someone to blame but it was too much of an inner conflict for him to blame his father so I became the scapegoat. Transference is what they call it. This is my only explanation for what has happened. I became the bogey man onto whom was heaped all the fury that he held, unconsciously, for his father (and probably his mother). Other than this, I have absolutely no explanation as to why all this has come my way.
Why
my father despised me so much says more about him than it does about
me, I feel.
Was he jealous of my relationship with my uncle? Did he
feel that I showed more interest in
my uncle than I did in him? If
so, did he ever ask himself why? For how long had he held
these dark
feelings against me? I still don’t know the answers to these
questions and
probably never will. My brother once hinted that my
father had said something to him about
me but he would not repeat it.
Some have suggested that my father was angry with me for
leaving the
church, for abandoning the way in which he had raised me. But when I
spoke to
my father about this he replied, rather casually, that it
was my choice. A choice, I hasten to
add, which
he
never allowed me to make when I was growing up!
Throughout
my blog, I have tried to draw the reader’s attention to this theme
of the
underlying reality which inhabits all our lives and how, in
the case of those involved with
Christian fundamentalism, it can
wreak havoc on people's lives if it is allowed to run
unchecked. This
article is not about blame. The sole purpose of this exercise is to
show how,
in my particular family’s case, this problem was allowed
to take root and spread its poison
through the entire 60 years of my
life. In so many ways the cost to me has been
extortionate! Facing
the painful and oft times ugly truth
and
trying as best I could to do
something about it has been my
salvation. But this salvation has not come from some divine
saviour
figure. It has come from a determined willingness to face the pain
and to work
through it. My guides have not been angels, gods or other
ethereal beings but the hard facts,
the willingness for
introspection, the
witness
and testimony of others who have gone before
me along the hard road
of human experience.
Where
does my parents’ faith leave them when it makes them so blind that
it costs them
their children?
Jesus
said, ‘the truth will set you free.’
I
ask my readers, where, in what I relate, does the
real truth lie?
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