A blessed life

I’ve really led a blessed life.  You may be thinking, "If it’s so blessed, why do you complain about it so much?"  I said it’s blessed, I didn’t say perfect! 😉

There has been a fair share of life’s negativity, but I have almost always learned a valuable lesson from it, which makes it a blessing. 

For example:

I was raised by an abusive father.  He was verbally and physically abusive.  In the years since his death, I have come to realize just how similar I am to him in many ways.  I feel I understand WHY he was abusive and that he did not realize he WAS abusive.  He was raised in a very difficult manner, mostly by his grandparents, as a "little American bastard" in Germany, at a time when, though apparently common, it was not yet politically acceptable to be a child born out of wedlock.  I must say, before I go any further, that his grandparents never called him a bastard.  Just almost everyone else.  The amount of pain and shame he must have felt eventually hardened him, to some degree.  He was a sensitive man, I’ve come to realize, but he had a very hardened shell around him, which made him seem detached and, sometimes, mean.  Though I am explaining his behavior, don’t think I’m excusing it.  I’m not.  He was in the wrong to be so harsh with us all.  But I DO understand it more now.  He was a damaged person, himself.  Just imagine if we’d dropped our grudges a little sooner than we actually did.  Instead of one good year together, we could’ve had who knows how long?

On December 20, 1989, my father died at age 43.  I was 14, at that time.  This was, thus far, the greatest tragedy of my life.  Again, though, behind every storm cloud, there is a silver lining.  While I will never be happy or glad that my father is dead, I can appreciate that certain events would never have occured in my famiy had he lived. 

As a result of his early, violent death, my family became embroiled in a wrongful death lawsuit.  Eventually, in 1995, we reached a settlement out of court.  That settlement allowed me to buy my first home.  I became a homeowner at the age of 20, which seems like such a lucky strike, until one remembers the REASON I was able to purchase that home.  But still, I cannot just NOT COUNT my good fortune in owning a home so early in life.  Every single day I owned that house, which was for four years, three months, and 24 days, I felt guilty for owning it.  My father’s hard work, not my own, paid for that house.  I bought it with what I considered "blood money".  When reflecting on my parents’ struggles, I felt ten times as guilty.  They struggled for years and years to buy the home I grew up in.  Had it not been for my father’s parents stepping in to aid them, they might NEVER have owned it!  And here I was, a 20 year old with no real life experience aside from family matters, in my very own home in which I had not invested one single work day.

They say parents want better for their children than for themselves.  As a parent now, I can say that this is true.  The hitch, though, is that I always felt I was not as good a person as my parents, particularly my mother.  I felt like I had no RIGHT to have better than they had, so when I DID get it, I was wracked with guilt. 

At a very young age, my parents had told me that as long as I followed their rules, I was welcome to live with them as long as I wanted.  I asked, "What if I get married?"  They said that even then, the same applied.  This is one way where I was truly blessed, too.  I’ve come to realize that most people were not raised in an environment like mine.  I took so much for granted and focused so much on the NEGATIVE that I only saw the positive of it much later…in some cases, too late.  Too late for Daddy’s benefit, anyway. 

I truly believed that I would never leave my parents’ home.  Back then, I was too young to consider the stigma that goes along with being an adult living "at home with Mom and Dad".  Just the fact that I COULD consider this as an option shows how lucky and blessed I was to have my parents.  I’ve heard and seen so many parents who just couldn’t WAIT until their children grew up and got out of their homes.  It was as if they resented their children, while mine appreciated us. 

Daddy wasn’t always mean.  NOW, I remember a lot of good times with him.  Sometimes, things I viewed as bad when I was a child have transformed in my memory.  I can recognize the positivity of situations that eluded me, as a child.  For example, my father would call us into the living room sometimes, just to hug us, hold us on his lap, and tell us he loved us.  He would ask if we loved him.  At the time, I felt I was lying when I said "yes".  Now, I know I wasn’t.  I DID love him…still do…always will.  Looking back, I am very touched at this quite frequent display of love between a father and his children.  No, not "a" father…MY father.  Lucky, huh?

One way I’ve always KNOWN I was fortunate is my relationship with my mother.  Mama was always "my savior".  Not like Jesus.  My EARTHLY savior.  She was "the good guy".  Daddy was "the bad guy", I’m sad to say.  Mama was almost always patient, kind, understanding, reassuring, loving, comforting.  There were a few times when she exhibited human behavior, such as bad moods. 🙂  Mostly, though, I remember her as more of an angelic figure than a human being. 

My father was the type who worked all the time, brought home his paycheck, handed it to Mama, she’d give him his "allowance" for the road (he was a truck driver), and she’d pay the bills and buy groceries and everything else with the rest of it.  At some points in my childhood, Mama thought it necessary that SHE work, too.  Daddy was of the old-fashioned attitude that it was the husband’s job to work, BUT he encouraged Mama.  He told her she didn’t HAVE TO work, but said he’d support her if she did.  Later on, when I was nine years old, Mama decided she would go to college to pursue her lifelong dream of being a teacher.  Again, Daddy told her to "go for it!"  How lucky can you get?!  I’ve discovered, since then, that most people were NOT raised in households like mine.  Apparently, it is far more prevalent for a working parent to keep his/her paycheck and do what he/she wants with it, rather than contribute to the household/family.  It also strikes me that most husbands are NOT supportive of their wives pursuing their dreams.  I am very thankful that my parents were the exception!

When I was younger, my grandparents were a Godsend. Well, in a way, they still are, the two grandmothers I have left.  I was brought up with a very special attitude about Memaw, in particular.  Mama WORSHIPPED her mother!  Again, not literally, but I always teased Mama that she thought of Memaw as a goddess.  I can

understand why, now.  As a child, the attitude kinda rubbed off, so Memaw was always the favored grandparent.  Nanny and Daddy had a very complicated relationship, much as Nanny and I have had since Daddy’s death.  He once told me that he was raised by his grandparents, and he never knew "Helene" as his mother until he was already grown.  He told me that he was just beginning to enjoy a mother-son relationship with her.  At the time he said this, he only had about five more years to live, if memory serves me correctly. 

Nanny treated us very kindly when we were children.  She was sweet, doting, loving.  She was our guardian, our secret-keeper.  We were her "little angels" who could do no wrong, in her eyes.  Maybe that’s why it hurts so much that things changed so drastically just because one person died.  It is as if she truly believed she was the ONLY person who suffered a loss.  Yes, Daddy was her only child, but he was Mama’s only husband, our only father, too.  She NEVER, not one time, acknowledged that WE lost someone of value to us.  She still hasn’t!

Ok, this is not about that.  This is about blessings.  I don’t want to go on a rant about my grandmother…I do that often enough. 

I’m getting physically tired again, so I’m going to wrap this entry up, but I want to flash forward to the present.  I am happily married, a father of two wonderful daughters, grandfather of five wonderful grandchildren, and we are buying a home together.  Not too bad for a 35 year old, is it?

I’ve had a really GOOD life.  It’s been HARD.  It’s been sad, sometimes.  Sometimes, it’s been downright tragic….but it’s been good.  Nothing good comes easy, they say.  All I can say to that is "Amen".

Love to everyone,

Jack