Mary's Husband

I had to think long and hard as to whether or not I wanted to include a page about my father on this web site. However, because my mother loved him up until the day she died, I felt that I needed to tell you about him.

The photo above must have been taken when my father was about twenty and in the army. He is the happy young man on the left. I wish that I had known him then.

The reason I chose this graphic set was because of the photo of the loving father holding his baby. For just a second I could pretend that this is how my father felt about me..

My mother and father were married on Christmas Eve in 1946. She was twenty three and my father was twenty four. It would be six long years before she would give birth to me.

What can I tell you about my father? He was a very hard worker who provided for his family in a monetary sense. He found it extremely difficult to express any feelings of love, perhaps because he was raised in a family where affection was not shown outwardly.

For the first years of their marriage mom ruled the household and my father towed the line. She was full of life and beauty, and she filled her life with fun and laughter. However, as the years went by, her once shy husband became an ogre and an emotional bully. He somehow managed to take away her spirit and made her feel as though she could never survive a day without him.

She never ever stopped loving this man. I would beg her to divorce him but she truly believed that we could not live a day without him. I shall always wonder if she stayed with him out of love or fear.

Shortly before his sudden death I can so vividly remember him saying to both of us that if anything ever happened to him that we would be living on the street within one day. This man who was so wonderful towards people outside of his home was so full of anger and bitterness towards his wife and daughter. The more miserable he became in his life the more miserable he made ours.

My mother used to tell me that the reason my father and I could not get along was because we were both stubborn and too much alike. I never believed this until after he died and I saw that I, indeed, did have some of his traits. I did not have his inability to show love, however, and for that I am most grateful. However, I did inherit his short temper.

My father's entire life revolved around his job. If he would be miserable at work he would take it out on us as soon as he got home. I would get sick to my stomach the moment that I heard his key turn in our door.

However, when he was able to relax and have a couple of beers he was a different person and I loved to be around him then. That is when I was thee perfect daughter...that is when he seemed to love me... Of course, anything that was said during those times would immediately be forgotten the next day and it would be back to normal in our household.

I always swore that if my father ever had a heart attack here at the house that I would never ever come to save his life. I know that is a terrible thing to say, but that man made my life a living hell.

I will never forget the day when he had a massive heart attack while talking on the phone here at home and mom came upstairs to get me.

As I looked at him laying back on the bed, eyes fixed in a final stare, I immediately called 911 and began to try and bring him back to life. Past hurts were forgotten. All I wanted to do was to save him.

For what? For more abuse? Or because I wanted a second chance with him? I wanted to scream..."Damn you...Look at who is trying to save you!! Why can't you love me?"

Mom was too hysterical to do anything so I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. I can still remember when the doctor came out in a rather cheerful mood and I thought for sure he was alive. She told me that my father had died and that my mom was on the phone asking about him and that I had better talk to her and tell her the news.

Shortly afterwards, I asked if I could see my father for the last time. They said I would have to wait until they cleaned him up a bit because he had vomited all over himself, so I waited.

Someone came and got me and took me into one of the ER rooms. There was my father's lifeless body...on the cold steel table. A tube was still down his throat and he was as cold as ice. I can still hear how my cries echoed off the walls of that cold, sterile room. Why was I crying? Why was I grieving for this man? Hadn't I hated him for so much of my life? Why was I grieving?

My poor mother was never quite the same after that day. She grieved for him terribly. I never could understand the depth of her love, and I never will.

At the funeral home I spent most of the time with a chair right up next to the casket. I kept talking to him and holding his hand and trying to keep him warm. I would do the same thing twelve years later, as I sat next to mom on the day she died...

Before they closed the casket I placed inside his pocket my high school graduation photo along with a note telling him that I was sorry that I was not the son that he so longed for.....

Perhaps there was some closure after my dad died. In some way, I guess I forgave him for what he put me through all of my life. There must have been some good in this man that I just could not see because my beautiful mother had indeed, loved him.

At the funeral people came up to me and told me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me. I was in shock because never once had he ever told me these things. He only knew how to tell me what a disappointment I had been to him. I felt very cheated and angry that he was never able to tell me this while he was alive. Instead, he made me feel like I was unloved...unwanted...and that I was nothing.

I am going to end this page in mom's life by sharing with you a poem I wrote expressing just how this man made me feel most of my life. People have no idea just how devastating emotional abuse can be. Thank God mom loved me enough for both of them.

Instead Of

Beat me!
Rip my flesh!
Make my skin bleed--
Instead of my heart.

Break my bones!
Shatter them into pieces--
Instead of my mind.

For a doctor can suture my wounds,
Can make my body good as new,
but a broken spirit
can never be mended.
The will to live
just
slowly
fades
away.

Copyright 2003 Ellen Bryant

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