My father was a photographer. That was his job in WWII as he was shuttled back and forth to Europe in a ridiculously small submarine. In his later years, he would sob like a little boy while he tried to explain his terror through a cascade of tears. “They sent me out again last night…dirty bast***s! Ya never know! Ya never know where you’re gonna go an’ when you’ll be comin’ back!”
Dementia from alcohol abuse had swallowed his mind, and so he relived the highlights of his past over and over again. He described foxholes in Holland and the farmland of Germany and how terrified he was on the streets one time when Hitler came past him in a parade. I listened and grieved for him and remembered the times I had watched him crush a beer can in one hand and mutter, “They say the Army’ll make men outta boys, but instead they made boys outta men!” And he would cry. He freely cried and felt sad, and we felt sad and scared to see our father cry.
My own tears and the tears of my siblings were lost in the storms of blame and savage fury of those who were meant to protect and love us but destroyed us instead. At some point, I refused to allow anyone to see me cry again and became rigid and withdrawn.
My brother Bill and I are standing outside of our house in Gallatin Gateway, Montana in the above photo in 1965. It is one of the hundreds of photos my father took of us as he unwittingly recorded our journey through unspeakable things.
Bill has secrets in this picture that he has guarded for years. Ugly secrets that have him hiding his head under an old army blanket and sucking his thumb when he thinks no one can see until his teeth began to twist outwards. Secrets that torment and embed his dreams with horror. Secrets that leave him heavy with remorse and guilt. Secrets that he can never get away from. And I had my secrets. Secrets that constantly slithered through the darkness whispering, “Don’t tell!”
We pulled our secrets up close to our chins like oily, filthy blankets that we grew accustomed to and slept a sleep that had no hope of dawn.
A year and a half later we were living in California with welfare benefits including medical care. Bill walked the long miles all hunched over with pain to a doctor in Monterey who had no idea what the disease was that had been eating through his organs. He came home one afternoon with his eyes all rimmed in pink and ran to his bedroom for privacy. Everyone was gone except for us. He soon came back with his face working like he was just going to break out bawling, and with emotion torturing his voice, he unburdened himself.
In a child’s voice, my twenty-year-old brother confessed the things he had watched dad do. With a child’s understanding, he cried about the women screaming and trying to get away. With a child’s broken heart, he told me that dad always said they were prostitutes. Our secrets collided and spun out of control leaving me numb for days. I knew those women were not prostitutes. Dad viewed all women and girls as prostitutes. Bill had also witnessed dad attacking me through the bedroom window because I was considered to be one, but Bill couldn’t completely let go of the need to believe his father.
Obviously, our father had brutally assaulted countless women. Since dad was incapable of feeling shame or remorse, Bill by default awkwardly attempted to carry that burden for him. We were firmly frozen in the confusion of our childhood traumas, and we couldn’t recover from any of it because recovering required a higher level of perception. Maturing emotionally was impossible without enough freedom to grow, and so we remained children. In his childlike perspective on who was to blame, my beautiful brother falsely believed that God was punishing him with a fatal illness for not saving dad’s victims even though he was not older than twelve at the time.
And so now, on cozy summer evenings, we often chat back and forth through the veil. “I’m so glad your teeth are nice and straight again, Bill. You are just amazingly good looking! I never noticed that before when we were kids. You filled out, too. We were both so skinny back then! I’ll be forever grateful that you came to our family. That was a real act of courage you know! You were always so giving and patient with us. We didn’t get a lot of that from anyone else. But you know what? You ALWAYS chose love. The greatest thing is that in spite of all your suffering, you still chose to love. That’s what really makes the difference, isn’t it? Some people get hurt and they spend the rest of their lives hurting others. Then there are people like you. You still chose love, Bill. In spite of all of that. You’re my hero, and how I love you.”
If I find the courage, I might sort through some old photos after a great conversation, but often the photos are far too heavy with grief. “Remember how tenderly you took care of me in the hospital, Linda? Linda, you are so tender. Thank you….thank you…”
And I think about those who urge punishment and pain for all the terrible people and their terrible deeds, and I know it doesn’t work. It never works. All of the possible pain that could ever be inflicted would not give us back one second of our lives nor dry one tear. There has to be a calm in the middle of the storm that can quietly bear testimony with enough power to change the course of human ignorance and indifference. This is the time for a change of heart and mind that carries the potential to reach every corner of society and change the world from the inside out through compassionate wisdom and unyielding determination.
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