When I was a teenager, my grandparents took a trip to Sweden for a religious retreat. That trip was supposed to last a little over a week. It actually lasted for a few months. towards the end of the trip, my granddad suffered multiple strokes, and ended up in a coma. In my opinion, that was one of the best places for this to happen because they have socialized heath care over there, so my grandma was not charged for the lengthy hospital stay. Some nice people in the church gave my grandma a place to stay while he was in the hospital. And, when the doctors determined that it was safe for him to travel, Sweden paid for their flight back to the United States. He was still in the coma with IV feeding tubes, and had to travel on the gurney, so he was transported in cargo section of the plane.
Upon their return, he was admitted into the VA hospital where he eventually started to regain conscious thought, though he became permanently paralyzed on one side of his body. It took him a while to speak again. He didn't know anybody, nor what was going on. He had been reborn. As his memories slowly started to return, my grandma became more hopeful that he would recover. To help him, she made a memory book filled with pictures of their lives together, and family photos with names under each one. She would read the book to him at every visit, until he was finally able to read for himself, again.
They were both active artists, so she made sure that he had a sketch book by his bed along large markers that were easier for him to grasp. At first, he ignored it, and a few years later, he was able to articulate why. I've always found the reason to be fascinating. He said that he couldn't see colours at first: It was just a box of black and grey markers. He recounted how his vision returned. He remembers enjoying his time in Sweden, and then waking up in the VA hospital. Everything was high-contrast black-and-white. Shadows were black. Mid-tones were black or very dark grey. Highlights were white or very pale grey. Then, slowly, the contrasts started to soften, and he started to see colours as faded pastels.
After a lot of physical therapy, he was discharged and allowed to return home. But, while he was in the hospital, it became apparent that he was having severe emotional/mental troubles. He was diagnosed with multiple personalities disorder, and the doctors suspected that he had been living with the disorder for many years. It is something that generally appears in the mid twenties to early thirties. And, thinking back on it, that was right around the time that my grandma noticed a change in him. He had two sides. At times, he would become cruel and unyielding. And, would sometimes beat his children with the slightest provocation. Even as an adult, my aunt would sneeze so softly that you'd think she was only whispering the words, "ahhh choo." Most of the time, however, he was the sweet and creative gentleman that she had fallen in-love with and married, but other times he was as evil-hearted as the worst person in the world.
After the strokes, it all came clear as more personalities emerged. There was the child who had been emotionally and physically abused, and later abandoned, by his mother, who was herself an abandoned orphan. He was beat by the nuns at school for his non-conformity, and for being left-handed as that was thought at the time to be connected to the devil in some way. There was the creative and mentally active young adult who was absolutely in love with my grandmother. And, there was the sad, self-pitying old man who realized the limitations he was facing, and vocally longed for the physical affections that my grandmother would no longer give to him. But, thankfully, the horrible monster never returned.
My younger sisters do not remember him as anything but a sweet, funny, intelligent man. In fact, most of the people who knew him thought he was great. He had been a surrogate father figure for some of the boys in the church. He was charismatic and boisterous member of the church for several decades. He would invite families from the church who lived in town out to the
farmhouse for the day or the weekend. The children would run and play all over the countryside that
my mother and her siblings called home. The parents were regaled by my
grandmother's warm hospitality, and my grandfather's charms. He loved sharing trivia and riddles. Some of the people could tell that he would exaggerate his facts the more times he told them his stories. But, if you called him out on it, he would say that he didn't have a head for numbers. But, very few people got to see the man he could become behind closed doors.
My mother once made a comment about what a relief it was to the rest of the family when they would get visitors because he became a different person. I think he must have had some crude understanding of his condition if he was able to hide it from public view. My understanding of all of this has been gleaned over the years, as no one in the family directly talked about it with us grand kids. I overheard my mother and aunt talking about it while loading up groceries from a shopping trip once when I was a pre-teen. I think they thought I couldn't hear them because I was busy wrangling my little siblings into our minivan. I am certain that my younger brother and sister did not hear a word they were saying. But, that day, I found out that my grandfather was a pedophile. My aunt was talking about how hard it was to try to forgive my granddad because he had abused them, and my grandma, "in every way possible."
I don't know if it was worse for my mom or my aunt, but while my parents lived on the farm for a few years after they were married, my aunt left home as soon as she graduated from high school, and barely, if ever, talked with her father again. I think my mom wanted to stay close to my grandma, great grandfather, and great granduncle. She was shielded from the abuse by my father once they had started courting. I remember my mother say that the church had not helped matters by having a doctrine that place the man as the absolute head of the household, directly under God, as the authority figure. And, this was taken by my grandfather as a mandate to mean that whatever he thought and did was right and righteous. He told me this, himself.
He actually told me more of the stories than anyone else in my family. He told me that my aunt had disowned him, and refused to speak with him, or be present if he was there. He also said that because she had abandoned him so unjustly, he has disowned her out of retribution. I remember telling him that was not fair, and he should think nicer thoughts about her because, aside from their rift, she was a wonderful and caring person. I never heard him say a mean word about her after that. I was quite young (maybe nine), and I think he thought he could manipulate me with his opinions. And, I guess, in some ways, he did. I just didn't work it all out of my head until I was older.
When I was six or seven years-old, my parents were renting a house in town, and my grandparents had come to live with us. They had lost the farmhouse some years before, and were traveling from spare room, to unused garage, to travel trailer, trading my grandmother's labour for housing. My grandfather always blamed my grandmother's father for the loss of the property. Grandpa Joe had taken out farm loans every year, and paid them back at harvest time. The last year on the farm, despite his failing health, he decided to take out another loan, and the property was seized by the bank. Grandpa Joe once told me that it was my grandfather's laziness that caused us to lose the farm where I was born.
This was something that I did not have a hard time believing, for as long as I knew him, he had used a walker or wheelchair, but he had no trouble getting out of it quickly if he felt that my little brother or I were acting up and deserved a spanking. And, he never did that when any other adults were around. I knew he had strict rules and a short temper, so I quickly learned to outwit him in verbal sparring. That way he would remain seated, and try to find ways to stump me by intellectual means. However, most of the time, he was caring and kind towards me. He would tease and tickle, sing songs, pose riddles, joke around, hug and kiss like any other affectionate grandparent.
But, in that house, when I was six or seven, he crossed the line once. I remember it clearly, though at the time, I didn't know he was doing anything wrong. And, my parents had clearly thought that he was changed by becoming a grandparent. They would let me go say 'good night' to Grandma and GrandDad in their bedroom. My grandma was always in the room with us. I would give my hugs and kisses, tell them how much I loved them, and wish them sweet dreams. And, occasionally my grandfather and I would talk about what I learned in school, and my plans for the following day. One time, and that was all it took, my granddad asked my grandma for a cup of tea to help him sleep. When she left the room, he started talking to me about marriage, and 'the duties of a father and a husband.'
He asked if I wanted to get married when I grew up. Of course, I said 'yes.' He asked me if he could touch me inside my underpants to make sure that everything was 'alright down there,' and to get me ready to be a good wife. I wanted 'to be a good wife, right?' he asked. Fortunately, my school had recently told us that if anyone ever touches us on our privates that we are to tell another adult immediately. They said it was wrong. They told us that kind of touching was for married adults, and that any adult trying to touch a child was sick and needed other adults to help them get better. When I told this to my granddad, he backed off. He never touched me. But, then his brain found a logic that my little mind could not dispute. He asked if they told me not to touch someone else's private parts. 'Well, no.' They hadn't specifically said that child should not do that.
Well, that's were he got me. Logic won out to my innocent brain. He had me hold his erect penis. He held my hand on it with his, and made me stroke it. He told me that wives who love and care for their husbands like to hold and kiss their husbands' penises. And, that was part of being a good wife. He told me that my grandmother did that for him. He told me that it was the father's responsibility to prepare
his daughters for marriage. And, the mother's job to prepare her sons
to be good and caring husbands. He said that he did this for my mom and my aunt, and he made sure that my grandmother 'taught' my uncles. And, the worst part, the lingering part of this experience was that he told me that if my daddy was not helping me to be a good wife, then he was not doing his job, and must not love me as much as he should.
They didn't live with us for long after that because I had said something to my mom about hugging GrandDad while he was naked. She got quite upset, and asked me if he touched me. I said, 'no,' but that he had asked to touch me, and told her what they told me at school. But, because she was very upset, and I didn't want to make her start crying, I didn't tell her that he made me touch him. I cannot recall if I ever told her the whole story. I have told a few people, but I always minimize it because for the longest time, I didn't even realize that I had been abused. It was just once, and it was over so quickly that I thought it didn't really affect me. It took several years to piece everything together. My parents and other relatives didn't like to talk about it. And, certainly didn't want to take our innocence away by telling us the stories. So, I was unprepared for dealing with the swirling thoughts that later came from this one early encounter.
It was later that year when I had my first sex dream. Still filled with innocence, I dreamt of two tall, beautiful, and elegantly dressed adults dancing with each other while kissing and laying down. Mind you that they were full clothed the whole time, and she was not straddling him. There was no pelvic motion at all. But, I knew that they were having sex. I was excited by this dream, but it was the first dream that I could not talk about with my parents. The first dream that was not a nightmare, anyway. I never talked about my nightmares in detail as a child because I didn't want to relive them. But, I was never allowed to talk about sex at all as a child, because of what my mom experienced. It was a taboo subject in our house. Even the word "sex" was so outlawed that it fascinated me. I remember as a preteen I would write it ever so lightly on walls and furniture, look at it for a while imaging what it meant, and then erase it before I was caught.
I remember my mom getting noticeably uncomfortable whenever an adult seen would appear in a movie or TV show. She didn't stop us from watching it, because she probably didn't want to make a big deal about it, for fear of us asking too many questions. But, it was clear that it bothered her when we were watching those scenes together. It didn't help matters that both of my parents are James Bond fans, and own all of those movies. But, the subject was so difficult for her to speak about that the one time I did build up the courage to ask more in-depth questions about human sex and reproduction, she shut me down immediately but saying she had already explained how babies are made when I was younger. She had, when I was seven. But, I was thirteen by then, and full of curiosity. I had thoughts and urges flooding over me so often that I thought there was something wrong with me. And, my mom pretty much confirmed it by refusing to talk about it with me.
I had a crush on every boy I knew, even though I couldn't bring myself to talk with very many of them. I felt so guilty for wanting to have sex with every male I found intelligent or attractive, and I made a promise of chastity until marriage to my mom. I started to daydream about ways around that promise, and the guilt I was feeling about it, by cooking up elaborate rape fantasies. I figured that I could have sex, and keep my promise, if it was someone else who was at fault. The most convenient boys for these fantasies were the sons of our closest neighbors, who were a remarried couple, so the boys were not there all the time. They lived in town with their other parents. They were a few years older than me, not in my church, and went to public school. And, I barely knew them, so they were the perfect fodder for my secret imaginings.
It has taken me decades to figure out the sources of my darker desires. And, to deal with the emotional bullshit that my grandfather tried to put into my head as a small child. My mom, of course, had to deal with a lot more from her childhood, but because of all the exposure to sexuality that she endured, she had to repress all of that trauma. But, the nature of taboos is that they often work in the opposite ways as intended. Her refusal to talk with me about sex just made me that much more curious and adventurous. As a young adult, living two states away from my family, I was quite open. I would talk about anything. I would try almost anything. I thought I was free. But, what I didn't realize until later was that I was not free. I was only on a pendulum that was rebelliously swinging in the opposite direction of my repressed upbringing. Moderation is something I have since learned is the more healthy attitude.
