Healing requires a willingness to let go of any frustration that hold you to a particular narrative. It was my narrative, from the point of view of trauma, that kept me stuck in a particular narrative.
Case in point, I have always told the story of my step-father as an abusive alcoholic and he was. He would come home drunk every Friday, start a fight with my mother and we kids would spend the rest of the night wondering when the neighbors would call the police.
I imagine drinking was the only way to relieve the stress of work and coming home to a family that was his step-family. He had no connection to the children he left behind to marry my mother. I know he loved his job. I know this because he was proud to take us with him to show us what he did all day. Honestly, I didn't get it. He loved working with numbers and I was a dreamer. The tour of his workplace was lost on me, except when he showed us the supply closet. My eyes lit up because there were so many colored pencils and paper; what a dreamer like me could relate to.
I can't imagine that he and our mother were in love when they married. They were both survivors of early childhood trauma. He was the son of a Southern Baptist preacher who believed that a good beating would correct any behavior. My mother suffered under her siblings who abused her, with a mother who turned a blind eye. I would gather they married to escape. He escaped from three children he sired and had no emotional connection to. Such an emotional connection would not be required of step-children. My mother had four kids with four different men. Her siblings used every opportunity to remind her that no man would want a ready-made-family.
What I am now present to is my step-father, Ben, was the first Black man who protected me from being taken advantage of. I was so used to not being seen or protected that I thought his distance meant he didn't care for me. He saw me, saw that I was young and naive. I believe now that he even knew what had happened to be before he came along. I was groomed early to follow without question. When a boy was nice to me I dreamed of happily ever after. I would have done anything for a nice boy.
I'm sure Ben saw that in me. He interrupted one of my brother's friends on top of me on the living room. The boy didn't know Ben was home. I'm not sure why he was home, but in retrospect, I am so grateful that he was. Just like my brother's game of tickle, I'm sure this game would have ended with me being violated. I had a crush on this boy and thought his motives pure. He was nice to me after all. He complimented my glasses when everyone else made fun of me. He was impressed that I was home on a Saturday night studying. Called me smart. I blushed and he started to tickle me to make me smile. I didn't smile much in those days. He knew his kindness would disarm me. I told him to stop. That my brother wasn't home. He said he didn't come for my brother. I thought it a compliment, that he was here to see me. Next thing I knew I was on the floor and he was strattling me and Ben was standing over us, pulling him off. Told him to go home and me to go to my room.
He must have called Mama and told her I was on the floor with a boy. I'm sure that is why she came running home to whip me. I tried to tell her I didn't do anything. Told her he started to tickle me and I fell on the floor. I got a whipping anyway.
In retrospect, however messed up it was, Ben saved me. I have never thanked him for his kindness. From now on, when I remember him, it will be with affection.
Healing touches every unaddressed wound. Healing has given me the opportunity to incision other possibilities and in those possibilities there is freedom.
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