MY JOURNEY THROUGH INSANITY – THE VERY EARLY YEARS

SOME PEOPLE OUGHT NEVER BE PARENTS

Lynn’s Mother, was one woman who should have never had children. She would agree so don’t think I’m being disrespectful here. I know you’re not to speak ill of the dead and she did the best she could with what she had, trouble was she just didn’t have it in the parenting arena. She told Lynn and her sister this often enough, that she wished she’d never had them and even went so far as to let them know that her third husband, Frank, had tricked her - the bastard - into thinking he couldn’t have kids. That was how Ann came to be and she paid for his lie with every day of her existence.

I don’t remember exactly when I came along but someone had to be there for Lynn. While her sister developed a hard shell early on, Lynn stubbornly held on to unrealistic dreams of having a family like the ones she saw on the television. Between me and Ann, we tried to shield her from more pain than she could take and from the ugliness of the world she lived in but she fractured somewhere along the way. Ann took most of the worst beatings but even the sounds of the belt, stick, or whatever was handy, hitting soft flesh sent Lynn further and further into some dark place I’d have to go and drag her out of. I don’t question God, but putting that tender of a heart into a child who traveled the path she would, never did quite add up to me. I remember this one time, let’s see I guess she would have been about three …

The sun was very bright, too bright for a woman with a migraine and she sent Lynn out to play warning her to be quiet so she could lie down. Ann was at school and there was no one to play with but Lynn shut the door quietly, as she had learned to do to avoid the slam of it just before the spanking came. She sat on the ground digging her toes into the sand, wishing she had some Kool-aid. It was hot. That much she knew when she spotted Dusty laying in the opening of the crawl-way that went under the house. Dusty was panting and the dog’s dish was bone dry. There was a thing along side of the house that made water come out but she wasn’t allowed to touch that. Her world was full of things she couldn’t touch, watch, eat or have and she knew what could happen if she broke rules.

She scooted in along side Dusty and quietly told him a story that Ann had read to her the night before. She loved lying on her bed watching her sister read. She would lay the opposite way and watch her sisters mouth upside down, going open and shut, open and shut like puppets she saw once on tv. Ann usually read quietly but sometimes she read almost louder than the screaming that came from their Mother when their Father came home. She must not have been very good at storytelling because the dog started whining and panting even more. She tried to put her hand over his mouth to quiet him like her Mother did with her when she cried too loud or too long but she was careful not to make his teeth dig into the sides of his mouth. That always hurt. Dusty was having no part of this and wiggled out from under the house and took off around the side. Lynn scrambled after him not willing to give up his company. He was at that thing alongside the house, sticking his nose up and nudging it and to her delight she saw small drops of water falling out. She ran back, got his dish and put it underneath but Dusty was blocking the drops. She knew how it worked since she watched Ann turn it on when she watered the orange tree that struggled to grow in the front yard. Dusty barked - a loud string of barks as a matter of fact - that nearly caused Lynn’s heart to stop. There was no choice but to make the water come out. The dog was going to wake her Mother and either way she knew a rule would be broken and a spanking would follow.

She turned the red thing at the top – hard – and water came pouring, just like that. She filled Dusty’s bowl and then sucked at the water herself, letting the cool of it down her parched throat. It felt good! It was cold as it splashed out onto her hands. She put some on the dog and he liked it too so they started a game. She would put it on him and he would shake it back onto her. She stuck her head under it and shook water back at the dog. Soon, both soaked and full near to bursting from drinking. Lynn thought she’s better make the water stop now. She turned the red thing on top hard again. More water came out, lots and lots of it, so much it was making a trial in the sand toward the front of the house. She kept turning and turning but it would not stop! She spied a rock and began pounding on the red thing willing it to obey!

She heard Dusty yelp a warning but didn’t move quickly enough. A wire flyswatter hit at her bare legs, face and arms, stinging and bringing up welts on her skin. She saw one hand shut off the water and felt the other dragging her by her hair into the cool of the house. No words came from her Mother, so outraged all she could do was keep swinging that flyswatter. When the screen part came off she continued with the wire handle and her free hand. Finally, spent from her rage she looked down at the cause of her actions and ordered Lynn to her room warning her to shut her big mouth that was making her head pound again.

Yeah, I remember that time. I had to get underwear out for her and make sure she hid the wet ones under the mattress. I waited until the Mother went to sit on the back steps with a large glass of iced tea and then had Lynn go wash the blood off her self best she could before it got all over and she got another spanking for that too. I stayed with her until she fell asleep under the bed. Maybe that was the first time I came, but I have my suspicions that it was much, much earlier.