“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” —Rose Kennedy
“The deepest wounds aren’t the ones we get from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.” —Isobelle Carmody (from Alyzon Whitestarr)
“Every family has its lowest common denominator: a member who by all rights should wield the least amount of influence. It’s a sad fact that often this is exactly the person who directs and defines a family’s life. In the case of my family, this person was my ex-wife.” —George Kinnard, Jr. (Coalescence)
Brad and I at my parent’s farmhouse around the time of the divorce (Dad is on the roof behind me)
From the time I was born until I was 24, there was one thing in the world that I knew I could count on irregardless of circumstance: the support of my parents and siblings. As dysfunctional as our family could be at times, there was no reason in the world for me to ever even consider thinking otherwise. We defended each other—even when the member in need of defense was dead wrong. We covered each other’s back. We covered each other’s tracks. We presented a united front without fail. Right or wrong, that was the family mindset; that was the family in practice. That’s how we rolled back then.
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In the spring of 1981 my wife Deborah left me for the last time. She’d rehearsed this final move at least a million times before, beginning two weeks after we married in the summer of ‘79 when she left for the first time. Our split came as a surprise to absolutely no one: it was obvious to family and friends that she and I were two very different people who should have never gotten together in the first place. Although the two of us didn’t care much for each other at that point in time, we didn’t necessarily hate each other either. I am convinced to this day—31 years later—that if we had been left alone to work out the particulars of the spilt and its aftermath we’d have done so amicably.
But we weren’t left alone. For reasons known only to God, fate, or the random nature of the universe—for those are the only entities who could possibly be credited for this—my parents decided to interfere in my separation and divorce from Deborah—and in our lives thereafter.
This interference changed the playing field. Deborah’s side—now consisting of her and my parents—had several advantages: 1) Position: my parents lived within 10 miles of where Deborah had now moved (I was over 50 miles away). 2) Resources: my father had his “ways” of coming up with plenty of money and/or stuff. 3) Time: my mother didn’t work outside the home so she was capable of providing that as necessary.
My parent’s choice to join Deborah’s side in this contest meant that she had all the support needed: money, clothing, transportation and free childcare on demand—when Deborah said the word, she got it. As you can imagine she was thrilled—and as you can imagine this left me nothing at all to use as leverage in the negotiation process. Since she was getting all she could ever dream of and more from my parents, there was zero incentive to work with me and every incentive in the world to work against me—to try to get me to go away—which is precisely what she has done for the past 31 years.
While Deborah lived her life out loud with the help of my parents, relationships in our family changed forever. Trust between my parents and I was severely damaged: what remained was a kind of warped family loyalty. My relationship with my brother Tim would end as a result of fighting over secrets kept from me (related to Deborah’s behavior). My late brother Steve’s four kids would never know anything resembling a normal relationship with their grandparents—all the oxygen was sucked out of that room by what it took to keep Deborah happy. My position and status in the family was reduced to that of irrelevance: persona non grata. My relationship with my oldest son, Brad, would never be anything even close to what it should have been—to this day it’s tenuous at best. Except when I was needed for something that the rest of the family couldn’t manage to do on their own, I became an afterthought.
With no good reason or explanation I had been unfairly wronged by those closest to me. I spent many years more than half-convinced that there must be something wrong with me: otherwise why would my parents do something like this? In the early years I fought often with my mother about this betrayal. That did no good: the more I fought about it the more Mom coddled Deborah and Dad would throw money and stuff at the problem—it was like being stuck in quicksand. Only once did I get any kind of rationale from my mother for what they had done. During a fight she told me that, “God had told her to act as she had: to take the side she did for the children involved.” I told her that I wanted no part of a god that would do this to me—to us.
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In 1981 the choice was between a few months of negotiation and a few decades of pain and suffering. I wish my parents would have stayed out of the mess and let Deborah and I work it out; I wish they’d let the injury scab over and heal. I learned to live with what they had done, but I never forgave either for their interference.
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2
One evening in the winter of 2006, Patty, Sam, and I took a trip down to my parent’s house for a rare opportunity: a chance to see my youngest grandson. A few days earlier during a phone conversation, my mother had told me how much she enjoyed my oldest son, Brad, allowing her to spend so much time with her great-grandson . . . my grandson. Mom likely intended no slight towards me, but it cut me nonetheless and—fair or not—I let her know it. (I had only seen my grandson three or four times in his entire life and she was getting to see him all the time—another byproduct of the long-term interference.) She quickly negotiated a visit.
The three of us made the 75 mile trip after my workday ended. We pulled into to the drive of my parent’s farmhouse well after dark. Mom and my grandson, “K,” were waiting; my father was waiting as well—but not for a visit.
At this point in his life Dad was in very poor shape, both physically and cognitively. Most days he just stayed in his bedroom and slept. When he did come out to interact, it usually wasn’t good: he was going through a mean phase—a very mean phase. Tonight he was wide awake and—unfortunately—tracking quite well.)
We got to see K for about two minutes when my Dad managed to drag himself into the room. Without a moment’s hesitation or provocation he started in on me about Brad and his family. Dad wanted me to agree with him that Brad and his family (who were staying there a few days) were pieces of trash and it was the right thing to do to require that they all sleep in the garage—like dogs. It seemed perfectly logical to him that I would agree with what he was saying: in fact, he insisted on it.
I asked him what the hell would make him think I was going to agree with him. He told me again that my oldest son was trash. I told him if he was then it was because he helped make him that way—after all, hadn’t he done all he could to take the job of father away from me and raise my son his way. I put things on his terms: I accused him of outbidding me for the job—of buying my family and stealing my life from me. Dad didn’t like this at all and it got real ugly after that.
My father did all he could to make sure I knew how worthless he thought I was. He went through a laundry-list of reasons why this would be true. (Yes: he was quite demented at the time, but every single word he shot at me hit the bull’s-eye.) We yelled and cursed at each other at the top of our lungs for about 15-20 minutes; locked in combat as if there was no one in the world right then except for him and me.
Dad’s ugliness hit me right where it hurt: since age 24 I felt my life had been devalued; now I was hearing that my very existence meant nothing at all. I fought on.
I did all I could do to let him know how pathetic I thought he’d turned out and that I never wanted to end up a lonely, mean-assed, money-loving, old man like him. I punctuated my thoughts with liberal use of the “F-word.”
This was one of the darkest moments of my life and it would take a very long time for me to recover from it.
Brad and his girlfriend, and my former step-son and his girlfriend all showed up at this point and helped break up the fight. Shortly after, Patty, Sam, and I left without a visit with my grandson.
In the weeks following this fight, my father phoned me several times—crying—begging me to accept his apology. Each time he asked I refused. For the next couple of years I treated him as irrelevant: persona non grata.
By the time I was willing to issue forgiveness, there was not enough of Dad’s mind left to ask me for it.
[THE SERIES WILL CONCLUDE TOMORROW]
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AFTERWORD
Divorce is a negotiation between two parties who have decided they can no longer work together. It is a time to divide what can be divided and work out terms for sharing what cannot. It is a time to settle issues involving money, property, and visitation rights if applicable. It is at once an end and a starting point: a chance to push one of life’s biggest reset buttons and hopefully move forward. It is not a time when unwarranted interference is either welcome or productive.
Divorce is also an injury to one’s life which is fully capable of healing given proper treatment and opportunity to scab over. However, handled poorly the injury of divorce is also more than capable of developing into a nasty, leprous ulcer that will ooze, fester, and plague one for the rest of their life until it eventually destroys them. That was how things ended up in our case: interference infected the injury caused by the divorce and enabled it to kill off waht was the Kinnard family.
“Visiting Dad” is a series regarding my father and my relationship with him, as seen through my eyes. The conclusion of this series will post 05-19-12. (Please see my category, “Series: Visiting Dad,” for other posts.)
