You Will Kill Me, Daddy

Along with bringing back to life, blogs from Facebook past, I continue to read the many other creators on Vocal+, as well as a couple from Medium.

I have to admit that scary tales are not my favorite, even though I wrote about The Bridgewater Triangle, it was more a documentary than meant to cause fear.

My few attempts at fiction, did not come easy, which has opened me to reading the thrilling pieces of others, like Joshua Mason and his Lake of Souls piece from this morning, and many others.

I have the advantage of many years, 74, and these days I am able to see my family grow from my four beautiful children to nine grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren, at least at this writing. Via Facebook (or is it, Meta?), I see pictures posted by my daughters of themselves and their brothers from pictures they have kept since my split with their mom, many years ago. They bring back clearly, what I think of as the good years. From March of 1967 to September of 1971, a boy, a girl, a girl, a boy, four tiny reproductions in 5 years. 1971, married, 24 years old and having quit thoughts of college, working full time for Kemp Transportation an Allied Van Lines Agent from my hometown of West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Easy peasy, right? We rented a house on Annis Court, in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts.

This was our home for a year or two, where I worked 10 to 12 hour days and as many Saturdays as I could eat, and my wife waitressed to help us keep our heads above water. Each night I would come home and shower the days dirt from my body, put on a tee shirt and shorts and come downstairs to feed the kids, as their mother had gone off to work. The complaint was always, “oh dad” not Campbell’s Chicken Rice soup or O O Spaghetti-o’s.

After eating, it was do the dishes and I would tell the kids to play and watch television, while I rolled back the carpet in the living room, to do, what I loved doing at the time, putting huge jigsaw puzzles together on the floor, it really relaxed me. I would yell at them to quit fighting, kiss boo boos, and generally let them do what kids do, short of murder, until it was time for them to go to bed. The only thing I asked was that no one touch my puzzle, and that I would kill anyone who messed with it. During the day, a big braided rug covered my masterpieces so I didn’t worry.

I must have repeated this warning so often that one night, while they kids were fairly quiet, my oldest daughter, Kathleen, came flying into the room, being chased by her older brother, David. She tripped over the rolled-up part of the carpet and skidded to a halt, ripping up a week’s worth of puzzle. All in the house went silent, you could hear a pin drop and fear gripped the little face of Kathleen, with quivering lip she said “you will kill me daddy?” I reached for her and surrounded her little body with my arms and said, no, I would never kill you. I hugged her and kissed her to asway her fear; the other kids, David and Jennifer joined in, to the best father children family hug ever. Michael would have too, but he was an infant and already sleeping. From then on, it was play with the kids until bedtime, which had its own set of must do’s until I could shut their lights out for the night.

The older I get, the more stories, like this one, show just what impact parents have on their children. Sayings like be careful what you say around children, and children hear everything, or children repeat everything their parents say, ring true.

For me, as I sit here, writing about my childhood, I think of the times my father would say to my brother, Chris, why can’t you do it like David, or other statements using me as some bright and shining star he should aim for, or calling him stupid. I’m sure these things added up to a brother thinking he was somewhat less than he really was. Chris began drinking in high school and joined the Navy right out of high school, and we laughed at his exploits of the times he got in trouble, all of which were hampered by drunkenness. After the service, he continued drinking and only when threatened by his boss, the Post Master of our town, to "get help for your drinking problem", did he, in fact, get help and, thankfully, got sober.

As adults, we had conversations with our dad, tear filled reminiscences of things said when we were little. Papa never realized what he had said or done, and one can only think it was a carryover from his childhood.

I figured that, even though I heard him saying those things to Chris, that it validated the ego of a young boy, in a positive way. I have begged forgiveness from my brother, and he says he now understands that we were children and I had nothing to ask forgiveness, I still think I could have done better by him; but we are passed all that. We always were close and still are to this day.

My reason for writing today is to illustrate how easy it is, as parents, to affect our children, even in subtle ways. I know, too, just from reading the stories from some of my new and most cherished friends from Vocal+, that some have lived through much greater pain and suffering.

Breaking the negative cycles and replacing them with affirming words to all and especially to children has been in place for me, since the day that Kathleen asked those awful words, “you will kill me daddy?”

Just sayin’, Love you all