The counselor listened intently as I shared my family history and then commented that she thought my dad did the best he could with what he was given. I asked, “You mean, you just don’t think he had the tools in his toolbox?” She leaned forward and answered, “No! I don’t think your dad had a frickin’ toolbox!”
My daddy only had three-and-a-half fingers on his right hand. When he was 18 months old his older two brothers gave him a ride on a rotary lawnmower, and his fingers got chopped off. The middle finger either wasn’t found or wasn’t able to be reattached; I heard the story told both ways. The three little boys were left totally unsupervised because Grandpa was home, sick in bed with syphilis, and couldn’t work, so Grandma had to leave her children in the care of a young babysitter while she earned money to provide for the family. Grandpa convinced the young woman to get in bed with him, so the kids were on their own.
Daddy was sent away to stay with some relatives for a short while when he was about three, but he returned to his parents and they fruit tramped and camped out with other migrant families. Those were dangerous camps to grow up in.
When they did settle into a home Grandpa took off for extended periods of time, leaving Grandma and the kids to fend for themselves. They knew where he was, always the bars or the cathouses, but he wasn’t available to them. One time Grandma sent the older boys to the local tavern to tell Grandpa they’d been out of food for quite awhile and needed him. He showed up a few days later, backed his Army dump truck up to the house and raised the bed on it. He dumped dead ducks and geese all over the carport and yelled at the kids, “Go tell the ole sow to get out here and clean these things!” He drove off and went back to his “fun.”
The boys remember going with their dad to deliver wood when he was selling firewood for a living. Grandpa pulled up to the “colored cathouse,” and the madame came out and called him by first name. He went in to collect his payment in flesh while his young sons stacked the wood outside. Grandma often said that if you fired a shotgun into the colored section of town you were sure to hit ten of Grandpa’s children.
He was mean and let certain of the children know that he didn’t care for them any. He forced his oldest son to drink castor oil by the bottles for any and every reason.
His own father had been even worse. My dad remembered his grandpa lying in bed drunk all of the time and recalled that he was just plain mean. He’d give my 5 year old dad notes for the store to buy more liquor for him and all the while the old man would stay in bed and rape his own granddaughters. Family legend has it that his wife died at 32, leaving six babies, because when she became deathly ill, he refused to let her go to the doctor. That vile man raised his five daughters and infant son, my grandpa, alone.
My dad ran away from home by the time he was 12, hiring himself out to a local dairy and living in the barn with the cattle. My uncle had run away a few years earlier and has told me that anything was better than living at home in horrific poverty with his parents’ constant fighting.
Grandma divorced Grandpa after the kids were all raised. The horrible, prideful old woman who had given a baby away at age 16 and seemed to take delight in treating certain grandchildren with contempt wanted prestige and money, and she certainly wasn’t going to get it with him. With obvious distaste she told people, “H@&#$ has n____r in him!” The elitist old witch, with no reason to think she was anything at all, didn’t condemn him for his failure to provide for his family, for neglecting or abusing his children, or for cheating on her for over four decades. She thought the nastiest thing she could tell on him was that he had a creole heritage! As a child and young woman I truly hated my dad’s parents.
Every branch of our family is plagued with adultery, divorce, illegitimate births, substance abuse, and criminal activity. Every branch except one.
My one uncle chose something different for himself and his progeny. He married young, like his siblings, but he and his wife treated each other like they were best friends. They built businesses together. They literally built their first home together. He delights in telling how they collected river rock and carried it in the trunk of their car, using it to build the foundation of their first home. He brags that my aunt put the roof on the house when she was big pregnant. They always worked side by side in whatever business they were in. When a surgeon’s mistake caused a stroke, leaving her an invalid, my uncle brought his bride of 55 years home and took care of her himself, disregarding his own medical issues. He bathed her, took her to the bathroom, did her hair, cooked and cleaned, and bought special equipment to make her life as comfortable as possible. He even took her on trips in a motorhome, so she didn’t stagnate in the house. For seven years, until she died, he did it all with tenderness and joy.
Their daughter married young, like everyone else in the family, but she and her husband are still married and still treat each other with love and kindness. Their children, in turn, went away to college, not prison, and married nice young men who treat them with love and support and are actively involved fathers, sons, uncles, and cousins.
My daddy did the best he could without a toolbox. He really tried, and there were times he succeeded. It’s hard to build with no knowledge and no tools and one crippled hand. My uncle went out and found a toolbox and someone to build with him. He changed the legacy of adultery, divorce, illegitimate births, substance abuse, and criminal activity into a legacy of love. He changed the course of his line, for his line. He is living proof that abuse does not have to be a generational curse.
anewfreelife 
A “like” seems … inadequate. What a story; what a life.
Thank you! Yes, it must have been quite a life. My dad died this past April, and the end of his life and his death were such a proclamation of God’s grace. We celebrated my uncle’s 81st birthday today, and his life is a proclamation of God’s ability to redeem the years the locusts ate and give us beauty for ashes. I adored my dad, and I dearly love my uncle–two great men in my book.
It is amazing how the branches on even the most twisted tree in the forest can reach for the sunshine and sprout new, healthy leaves.
Yes, that is so true and absolutely beautifully said! Thank you for that lovely word picture!
Reblogged this on The Wordy Photographer.
I love this story 🙂 and I know that you too have started a new legecy with your children! I know that they are loved by you and that they will make good choices becouse of your love, I also know that if they make some bad choices that you will be there to help them get back up, which is what the best parents do 🙂
Oh, thank you! I hope so. Last night at my uncle’s party one of my aunts asked me how I had managed to raise such good kids in the midst of what I’ve been through. It is the Lord’s doing, not mine. I have faltered and failed, but He has been faithful because I committed my kids to Him and He has been merciful because I know He sees that I didn’t have the tools either. I have clung to the verse==He gently leads those with young. 🙂
What a story indeed. I know someone who describes his family of origin as not working class, but welfare-criminal class. Your family surpasses his, I think, in poverty, neglect and abuse, but it certainly surpasses in that shining model of your uncle. How wonderful what he did. Can someone write his story down before he goes? what it was like for him carving that better path when he’d had no modelling of how to do it.
What an excellent idea! I will! About a year before my dad died I started writing down his story. Sometimes I interviewed him, sometimes I just listened to him talk and I took notes. One time, he drove me up to pick up my oldest son from college for the holiday. It was wonderful; just my infant daughter, my dad, and me. I got a hand held recorder, and I recorded our conversation and his stories the entire drive up. That is precious to have now that he’s gone! We even played excerpts from it at his memorial, which was really, really special. My plan has been to put all of it together into a little spiral bound book for my kids. I’ll just do the same thing now with his brother. Thank you for the wonderful suggestion!!!
The family that took my dad in when he ran away was amazing. The man took my dad to the movies and tried to do special things with him. Their one aunt married a widower who loved all children and constantly did special things for them. He gave them a Christmas one year, something they’d never experienced. He was concerned about their safety in the orchards and. since my uncle had to sleep outside under a piece of equipment, his new uncle bought him a nice pocket knife to carry for protection. He still has it. My aunt had it fixed and refurbished for him a few years before her stroke. He tells how Jack would often buy them tickets to the roller rink. My thought is that Bud and Jack gave my dad and my uncle glimpses of normalcy and love, an idea of real manliness, and that was their saving grace–which, of course, would be a signal call to men in our churches and neighborhoods today to stand up and mentor boys in those situations.
I have heard that social science and psychology research shows that when a person grows up in a really dysfunctional environment, but has one adult role model or one window into how ‘normal’ people live their lives, they can use that single model no matter how fleeting it was, to hook themselves up out of the mire and live a happy and stable life in adulthood. Sounds like your uncle found that. And you are certainly the channel of that for your children.
It’s not a guarantee: some kids from dysfunctional homes see the healthy model but choose not to follow it, preferring to live in sin and degradation. But those who have risen from the gutter often tell of that one model who made such a difference to them. It could be a teacher, a short stay with a foster family, a next door neighbour, a sports coach, whatever. All it takes is one adult and that spark towards virtue to light up in the kid’s heart saying “I wanna be like that! I don’t want to live in this squalid darkness all my life!”
Oh, hallelujah! That research is such a ray of hope! I always had such horrid fears that my boys would just grow up and mirror the image of masculinity they saw reflected in our home. I LOVE that kind of positive news!
That’s what I’ve always told myself about my family – that they did the best they could with the tools they had (or didn’t have, as the case may be). It doesn’t excuse it, but at least it helps me to forgive them, or acknowledge that I may not have done any better with the same lack of tools or resources to be a good parent.
It’s so good that your uncle was able to “find a toolbox” as you put it. It seems that some people are more resilient to the effects of their family, and others become a victim of it, either temporarily or permanently. It’s a vicious cycle, but some people break it.
Exactly! People have often questioned why I’m so sympathetic and forgiving with my dad and not my mom. It’s because I know that, given his circumstances, I couldn’t have done better. His was a tragic upbringing. My mom was raised by wonderful parents and chose to do evil, much worse evil than my dad ever did out of ignorance. It’s like the old saying I’ve heard a thousand times, “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.” It does make the forgiveness easier to give.
So true! Sometimes just the personality we’re born with gives us a leg up in these situations.
Thanks for a great story about how the generational chain of evil and abuse *can* be broken by those who make the choice to do so. It’s the story of what you are doing for your children now, too.
Thank you! Oh, I hope so; I sure hope so. When my kids bemoan what we’re still going through I tell them that we should feel honored that God saw that we have the strength to break this for the next generation. It’s like the frog in the boiling water. Our family has been sitting in it for so long that most don’t even sense the heat. My husband upped the anty, in essence increasing the heat too quickly, so we felt it and jumped out. Why did it have to happen to us, here and now? Maybe God sees something in us we don’t see in ourselves, and He is giving us a great mandate. I really hope they rise to that battle call and don’t return to the sins of our past.
That choice will be in their hands. But you are giving them the foundation from which they can live a better life if they choose to do so. Or to use your metaphor, you’re giving them a good, sturdy toolbox filled with lots of useful tools.
[Big smile!] Thank you! Thank you very much!
That’s some family! And how great that your uncle broke the chain and you are doing the same, now, too. You can be very proud of that. You are providing your children with a different example, and that will be their toolbox when the time comes.
Thank you so much for such a lovely, lovely compliment!
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