Missing Piece Looks at the Puzzle

Yesterday I spoke to my cousin “Martha” for the first time in 4 years. This is the cousin I wrote about a few days ago. She is my father’s sister’s stepdaughter. My father’s family is highly dysfunctional, and our own branch has been pretty well shut out of things, so I don’t know any of them very well.

If you heard this woman tell her story, it would break your heart. Her birth mother and her father were divorced soon after she was born. Her mother hit the road and didn’t look back, and her father married my Aunt Norma, who brought an older daughter to the marriage. My uncle brought–I have to count them because I can never remember who they are–three older boys plus Martha. My aunt gave her own daughter a great deal of love and affection, and she rejected and beat Martha.

Sometimes Martha had to share a bed with her older stepsister, “Lulu.” Martha says that because Lulu was heavier, Martha slept on a sort of hill and had to hold onto the bed. My aunt would come in at bedtime and kiss Lulu and so on. In order to do this, she would lean over Martha, who was on the near side of the bed, and ignore her.

Imagine that.

Norma encouraged Lulu to be cruel to Martha, and Lulu complied readily.

Martha was not allowed to go to the doctor when she got sick or hurt herself. She had to pay for her own clothes or wear hand-me-downs from her brothers. She had to do the cooking while holding down jobs. She had to do most of the work of raising her younger sister, who showed up when she was 11.

Norma had a paddle made from a 4-inch-wide board, and she used it on Martha a lot. If she broke a dish while cooking dinner, she got the paddle. If she got home late from her paper route, she got the paddle. Norma hit her hard enough to leave marks.

My Uncle “Melvin” was no help, because he didn’t care for Martha. He let Norma do as she pleased.

When Martha finished high school, her parents (a full professor and a tenured teacher) abandoned her. A relative scolded them for refusing to help her pay for college, so they sent her $35. One wonders how they arrived at that figure. It was their entire contribution to her college education.

The story gets considerably worse, but I can’t reveal everything.

When Norma died in 2014, I was at the funeral. I don’t recall much. I wasn’t all that excited about the trip. I don’t remember a great deal about what was said at the graveside, although I know I heard some stories which portrayed my aunt and uncle as childish. I remember hearing about them rolling on the ground fighting about something.

My cousin Judy, whom I don’t know, supposedly got up and spoke pretty bluntly about the rotten way Norma and Melvin treated Martha. As I understand it, she didn’t get up and call them rotten parents. She merely made sure she recounted memorable events that included facts that should have shamed them.

You can get away with a lot at a funeral. If you have a smile on your face while you speak, and you behave as though what you say is intended to be funny and nostalgic, you can really drop some bombs. Sometimes airing out dirty laundry is the right thing to do, if you do it with the correct motivation. Abuse victims are usually portrayed as whiners and liars, so they need public affirmation, and it’s also important to expose unrepentant abusers publicly.

The weird thing about all this is that Martha is the family’s best product. She is full of love and kindness. She and her husband are successful college graduates, and she has four successful married kids. She was rejected by three parents and four out of five siblings, yet she is the only member of the family I have the slightest interest in knowing. I don’t dislike the others, but it would be like accosting random strangers.

One of her older brothers died young. Another is crabby and mean, according to Martha. The third seems like an okay guy, but he divorced his first wife. I don’t know what Lulu is up to, but she was cruel when she was young, and the youngest daughter has supposedly inherited some of her mother’s temper.

If her parents had a saving grace, it was that they taught her to be responsible and independent. They did it out of selfishness, but it still paid off for her. My dad was abusive, but he taught me to be lazy and to avoid confronting things. When I was in high school, I was not allowed to have a job, because it would interfere with my studies.

Of course, there were no studies. I did my homework between classes, and although I was probably the smartest person in my class, I had a B average. I think my class rank was 29th out of about 100.

Even if I had been allowed to work, I could not face people well enough to go out and apply. I felt crippling shame and self-consciousness all the time. I suppose that’s what systematic verbal abuse does to a person. When people insult and criticize you all the time, you eventually start insulting and criticizing yourself, silently. Also, there is the demonic aspect. I’m sure demons of shame and self-hatred were all over me.

At some point a long time ago, I realized my life would probably have gone better had my father died when I was a kid. That’s terrible. A parent’s function is to make his children better than himself in every way. They should live in a way that makes their children thank God for them and look for ways to repay them.

People should cry when their parents die, instead of shrugging and feeling relieved of frustration.

When my mother died, people were very sad. When my aunt died, people were very sad. When my cousin’s husband died in a plane crash, people were very sad. When Norma died, the small crowd at the funeral seemed pretty cheerful. I don’t think they were glad she was dead, but I’ll bet they don’t miss her much. It’s hard to touch a person’s heart by taking.

On the whole, abusers who make their kids work are probably less toxic in the long run than abusers who don’t teach their kids good habits. Martha and her brothers were ready to fend for themselves when they left home, because they had to fend for themselves as children.

Keeping a child soft, irresponsible, and afraid of the world is a great way to extend control. You know what they say about keeping your enemies close.

I don’t know what to make of my dad’s family. It truly looks like there is a streak of sociopathy that won’t quit. My grandfather beat his wife, my dad and his sister are abusive, and my sister is abusive. Martha is lucky she isn’t related to me. She might have given birth to a clone of her mother. Or four clones.

I found out what happened to Norma, who was killed by dementia. She had a major stroke while she was visiting Brownsville. I don’t know why she was there. If I have my facts right, three months later, she had another major stroke. Imaging showed that pieces of her brain were destroyed.

For the last two years of her life, she didn’t know who her husband was.

I have wondered why she died younger than my dad will, and I may know the answer. She continued smoking cigarettes years after my dad quit. Cigarettes cause strokes. Also, Martha thinks it’s likely that she didn’t pursue good medical care.

Martha told me how Melvin is doing. He is my dad’s age. He has a girlfriend who resembles Norma. That news really hit home. My dad could never have a girlfriend. If you put him across the highway from our house, he wouldn’t be able to find his way home. If he met a lonely woman today, he wouldn’t know her tomorrow.

Melvin is still playing golf. I gave my dad’s clubs to the Salvation Army without asking him.

My dad has often complained that he had no paper calendar. As a lawyer, he used a calendar constantly. He wants one so he can track his appointments. I won’t get him one. Twice, calendars have arrived in our newspapers without my knowledge. My dad took them out and started writing things on them. I threw both of them out without asking permission, and he didn’t notice. When he has a calendar, he badgers me constantly about things I’m already keeping track of.

Melvin and my dad live in different worlds.

It’s strange that Martha has done so well and appears to be so blessed, given that she and her husband are Mormons. Mormonism is unquestionably wrong in very vital ways, and the history of Mormonism is full of glaring warning flags, yet her family appears to be blessed. Martha is very religious. She believes Mormon doctrine. She has worked as a paid instructor. Why would God permit a family to appear to do so well, when they are caught in a supernatural trap?

It’s not because Mormonism works better than Christianity. Her dad is a Mormon, and he ruined his family. Her brothers are Mormons, and they didn’t turn out all that well.

Mormons have a somewhat lower divorce rate, and many do well financially, but they have problems just like the rest of us. They seem to work harder than most to paint pretty pictures of their lives. Appearances seem very important to their church. They are very aggressive about promotion.

A pleasant life can deceive you into thinking your relationship with God is fine when it isn’t.

A life of stress and disappointment can bring you closer to God. Suffering provides motivation.

I don’t know what would happen if Martha found my blog and learned how I feel about Mormonism. She knows I don’t agree with it, and I told her I don’t bother people about their religion, but I say whatever I think is right on my blog, and I will always do so, no matter who cuts me off. God comes first. I don’t think she’s the kind of person who would get offended and write me scorching texts.

I wish I could go back in time, round up the problem parents in our families, and give them a good slap. It wouldn’t do them any good, though. Sociopaths see correction as aggression. Correction doesn’t do my dad much good today, and it has never done my sister any good, so going back in time and lecturing people would be a waste of effort.

I’m not going to develop real relationships with my other cousins. I’m glad I can communicate with Martha, but I’m not going to get drawn into awkward reunions and Christmas dinners with the rest of the bunch. I hope none of them get the idea that they owe me anything, because they do not. Our family turned out a certain way, and we were young and powerless when the course was set. We didn’t cause the problem.

I still have two uncles and an aunt. I’m not going to their funerals unless my dad is dead or in an institution. He’s definitely not going. I would have to hire a special van and a traveling nurse.

I feel like I’ve reopened the book on Martha and closed the others. Good enough. I expected nothing at all, so I’m happy to get anything.