The Rest of the Story

As Paul Harvey (a well-known radio commentator; incidentally of the same faith as my family), was fond of saying; “And now it’s time for, The Rest of the Story.”

In the private of their room that night (my mother later reported to my aunt from her hospital bed), she and my father argued until just before dawn. Several times during the night my father choked her until she was very nearly lifeless, then he would ease up and allow her breath again. (I confirmed my aunt’s version of events with my own recollection of that evening when, upon thinking I heard my mother crying out, I opened their bedroom door only to see my father choking my mother. I screamed but they laughed it off and convinced me they were just joking around and then asked me leave so they could finish their discussion in private.) My mother’s doctor confirmed that the obstructed blood flow to her brain likely caused her stroke. She was too weak to fight him off AND maintain her silence which was the only way she could keep up her masterful illusion of normalcy.

Normalcy might seem an odd thing to want to allude to but once you understand one important fact from my mother’s childhood, it all begins to make sense. From a very young age, my mother knew she was different; an odd duck so-to-speak. She was smart enough to know that something wasn’t right with her. She began exhibiting some ritualistic behaviors such as compulsive counting, facial tics, and involuntary movements. (Her later research revealed she’d been suffering from St. Vitus Dance: “a neurological disorder characterized by purposeless, rapid, involuntary movements, emotional liability and muscular weakness; a condition often associated with rheumatic fever.”) She was ridiculed in school by classmates and this wounded her deeply. She wanted desperately to be “normal” like the other kids.

My mother later told me that it was a teacher who encouraged her to write who turned her life around. This teacher’s encouragement was just what my mother needed. This was one of her first memories of human affection in the form of hugs, and it was the first time that anyone had made her feel special. I believe she spent her life frantically trying to hold onto that feeling in an atmosphere that was anything but special or normal. This special event happened to coincide with my mother’s remission from the clutches of St. Vitus Dance.

Now, years later my mother finds herself facing a humiliation far greater than any she suffered in her darkest childhood memories; the shattering of her carefully crafted illusion. All the dirty little secrets would be exposed, her façade of normalcy stripped away forever. I can almost feel the panic rising in her. The disgrace she felt must have been incredible. Here she ministered to an unhappy co-worker and helped lead her to God only to suffer betrayal at the hands of the two most important people in her life other than her children. There was no greater motivator in my mother’s life than humiliation. It had fueled her existence since the time if the rheumatic fever. The only stronger motivator for my mother than wanting to regain her pride was her dedication to serving God. But this time she made the conscious decision to find smug satisfaction and bring it home.

My mother was usually a push-over, especially at the hands of my father who was a master manipulator, but anybody really. She played the martyr very well as I mentioned. But when my mother had her fill of a situation, it would come to a screeching halt. Her dander would go up and then she would either beat you at your own game or she would die trying.

My mother had been a virgin when she married my father. They were married when she was barely 18. She told me that her mother’s brand of a premarital birds and bees talk was to hastily agree to sign a permission card so she could order a book on the topic of making love (she didn’t have a single clue). (Incidentally, my own sex education was derived from a XXX novel I found under my parent’s mattress when I was 12. They couldn’t ask for it back because they would have to admit they had it in the first place. That book was responsible for the sex education of the entire seventh and eighth grade class that year. It was finally confiscated by one of the teachers in my church school but it was never traced back to me… but they all knew, that I knew, they knew because it was my book. No one would rat me out to save their own skin and the book infraction was never pinned on anyone.)

Imagine the shock my mother must have felt when the books she’d come to accept as her closest friends also betrayed her. Depicted in the book her mother had signed for were many variations of sexual positions and descriptions on how to pleasurably carry each out. But when she married my father, her experiences were very different from the descriptions in the book (she told me only a few years before she died). She said my father could last an excruciating length of time with her in the missionary position, he insisted on. (Let me tell you, for a young married woman, hearing this from my mother was TOO MUCH INFORMATION. She said that just out of curiosity she decided to time him once and she gave up timing after the three hour mark. Three hours of straight intercourse, this didn’t include foreplay; I asked. My mother found it punishing and demeaning.) She loathed sex and said she most times she just laid there and prayed for it to be over. How tragic for her.

Given my mother’s distaste for sex, her single act of revenge is all the more remarkable. My mother had a quickie with one of my dad’s friends. This man and his wife had been casual acquaintances of ours for a couple of years. We would occasionally take a trip out to their house after church and spend the afternoon. However, this couple had recently split up, the wife had run off with another man leaving him with four young children to raise. My aunt told me of this affair but wouldn’t tell me whom it had been with. It took me months to wear my aunt down and I had to make a solemn promise not to tell my father she’d told me about it because she feared he would kill her. I think I mentioned that I learned to never accept anything this particular aunt said at face value because she was known not only for distorting facts but for out-and-out lying. The reasons this rang true are twofold.

The first is that as soon as my aunt revealed the name of the man my mother had the affair with I knew what day it was and where I’d been. I remembered coming back into the house later with all the other kids and being unable to find my mother and this man. A little fumbling around and we later and found them upstairs in the kids’ room. My mother said she was helping him “make the beds.” I questioned her about why her hair was so messed up and she laughed a nervous laugh and said, “Oh, is it?”


Directly following on the heels of that realization came the answer to another question I’d had about why my father had been so upset to learn that my brother and his live-in girlfriend had moved a couple of miles beyond my folks’ place and were sharing a place with this guy with whom my mother had had a sexual encounter. I’d asked my father once why he didn’t like this man anymore and I was given a very evasive, “just because” kind of answer. Now it was all making sense. All the pieces of the puzzle were fitting together.

The ultimate payback had provided my mother the smug satisfaction she craved but at a steep price for her personally. She carried the guilt of that day until right before her death. Her innocence was gone with her illusion of normalcy. She would forever be trying to regain her ground with God; she felt she had to earn her way back into His good graces.

How has all this affected my personality and my life? I’m willing to play the martyr for the sake of my children or for some other noble cause but not as a matter of course. I will not take abuse from anyone, least of all someone who is supposed to love me. I will not let a man belittle me or humiliate me and then stick around for a repeat performance. As I stated in an earlier post, “Unfortunately, we are supposed to turn the other cheek. But once you’ve slapped both my cheeks, you better start runnin’ bitch ‘cause I’m swingin’ back!” This applies to men who think women were put on this earth to abuse. FUCK YOU! I don’t put up with that shit. Gimme some gas, honey, we’s makin’ a remake of The Burning Bed!

Maybe, just maybe; my mother’s martyrdom has paid off at long last. I am halfway to freedom from the emotionally detached influences in my life by recognizing my propensity for polarity towards emotionally unavailable me and its causes. My mother’s grand-daughter is free because she is with an emotionally available man and she knows how to love her son the way my mother never could love me; openly. My grandson will be the first in generations to grow up with emotionally available influences as the norm in his life. Thanks too Great-Grandma Martyr and Grandma Pooh-Pooh, my grandson will be naturally drawn to emotionally available women and is expected to be able to form healthy, lasting relationships.

And in the words of our beloved Paul Harvey, “And now you know, The Rest of the Story. Good-day!”