10/28/11 – Images
I never realized I was an abused child. In looking back it’s now obvious to me that I was. At the age of six I remember my mom taking a belt to me so hard and for so long that I can still hear my father’s words laced with fear as he yelled, “Caroline, that’s enough!” It had to be bad for my father to intervene. He was the “indifferent parent” of the two.
That particular beating was a turning point for our family. My mother never hit me like that before. I just stayed out a little later riding my bike that evening even after she beckoned me to come in the house. Things were different after that night. Knowing what I know now maybe that’s the day my mother discovered that dad was fooling around on her while he was laying the brick foundation for a home his father was sub-contracted to build. I guess dad was laying more than just bricks back then.
The peaceful family life that I enjoyed for my first six years on earth started to spiral out of control. Things just kept getting worse and they never got better for our family. Much of my early childhood and adolescent years were spent running around the kitchen table or sprinting from one end of our apartment to the other being chased by my mother who was swinging a large belt in her hand and aiming it at the soft body parts of my petite frame. My brother Frank got the same treatment. Dominic, my Dad, was not the complete pacifist. There was one time when he slid a large carving knife across the table at me. I instinctively froze in my seat as I watched it spiral like a bottle spins when playing the game “spin the bottle” before coming to a complete stop with the point of the blade within inches from the top of my chest.
Where my mother’s disciplinary style consisted mostly of physical force, my father was responsible for the majority of emotional abuse. Even my mother was his target. Less than a decade into their marriage I can remember that dinnertime at our house was always a terrible experience for my brother and me. From the moment we all sat down at the table, my father continually debased my mother with multiple criticisms about her cooking. Then they would yell and scream back and forth at each other while my brother and I quietly looked on. The rest of the evening they didn’t speak, just threw out a couple of nasty inquiries or statements. Even if my brother and I had friends visiting us, it didn’t deter my parents from engaging in bitter verbal combat with each other.
I weathered it, though. I even turned out on the better side of normal. I had a buffer, seven actually. Of my twenty-five aunts and uncles, seven would rescue me from my totally psycho family. They became my safe harbor from my sometimes-a-lady’s man, off again on again, alcoholic father and my maniac depressant mother and her multiple suicide attempts. It would be these first-generation Italian aunts and uncles of mine who would create the parental memories that would heal most of my emotional scars.
Their acts of kindness were not obvious to me at the time. In fact, their deeds were subtle and I wonder if they even gave it a second thought that what they were doing would have such a powerful impact on my life. These other parents offered me what I call a family pharmaceutical; a mixture of compassion and encouragement. And I made damn sure I overdosed on the stuff.
