Welcome Home (eBook)

Chapter 3

SOMETIMES CHILDHOOD HURTS

So, it’s fall, and we are living in that drafty two-story house in Flint. I’m maybe three years old. My sister, whom I idolize, is outside playing with her friends. My mother is ironing in our kitchen, and she wants me to “keep her company.”

My mom liked to sing and was singing one of her favorite childhood songs, one that says “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch.” It seems, my mother told me, that a petunia bulb looks very much like an onion, so the flower was mistakenly planted within a patch of onions. It was very, very lonely and the song was the plant’s lament about wanting someone to come and play with it.

As she sang me this song, she told me about how embarrassed she was as a little girl, being poor, badly dressed, with no friends. “I felt just like that little petunia,” she told me. “That’s why I like to have you here with me while I iron. It’s so wonderful to have you here to keep me company.” But I didn’t want to be there with her. I made it clear I wanted to be outside with my sister.

I was cold, and as she went into the other room to get more laundry, I walked over to the ironing board and put my hands up toward the iron to warm them.

My mother came back into the room, listening to me complain about wanting to be with my sister, seeing me trying to warm my hands next to the iron. “You want to have warm hands?” she said. “I’ll give you warm hands, young lady!”

With that she clasped my wrists together and pressed my hands against the hot iron.

I screamed.

She became immediately apologetic and swept me up in her arms. In those days the accepted first-aid for burns was the application of butter, which she applied liberally to both of my hands.

“Okay,” she said. “You want to go outside and play with your sister? Well … go on … go outside and play!”

The memory of the cold Fall wind against my burned, buttered hands is still vivid.

Looking back, I think my mother was as scared as I was of her actions, but for much different reasons. I was terrified because I was painfully aware that my mother had the ability to severely hurt … or possibly kill me. SHE was terrified because there was physical evidence that she had hurt me. When my father came home, she said I had gotten too close to the iron and burned my hands, but she had taken care of it and “poor Sara … she was so brave!”

The physical abuse continued, and it became more covert, so there would be no outward signs. It took the form of my mother’s idea of “cleansing baths.” At first she would draw my bath, which was almost too hot for me to bear. “There’s no more room for cold water” she’d say as I turned to dip my foot into the tub. “You’ll be fine. Hurry up!”

Later, if she was in a “bad mood,” she would have ME draw my bath. I knew it would have to be as hot as the ones she drew, or she’d make it even hotter. Kneeling next to the tub, running the hot water for myself, I felt totally helpless and terrified. I had become my own torturer.

Emotional abuse came in many forms. One recurring theme: if I should disagree with her (for instance) or, God forbid, raise my voice to her, she would say “you are no daughter of mine,” turn her back, walk away, and refuse to speak to me or to acknowledge my presence for days. When I had apologized, cleaned up anything in the house I thought needed to be cleaned, hovered, and quaked enough, she would begin talking to me as if nothing had ever happened. I was “her daughter” again.

As you will hear later, it took me well into my 30s to remember my abuse. As those memories returned, I wrote music. Like this song:

Weep for the Child.

Weep for the child that was never meant to be.

Weep for the child who grew up, and then turned three.

Weep for the child whose feelings turned to stone.

Weep for the child who grew up to be alone.

And weep for the baby, ‘’cuz she can’t herself, you see.

She’s grown into a woman

trying so hard to be free.

Pity the young one who learned at one or two

that just being born was somehow wrong to do.

Pity the young one as she tries so hard to grow.

Pity the young one who has nowhere else to go.

And weep for the baby ‘cuz she can’t herself you see,

she’s grown into a woman

trying so hard to be free.

Weep for the child and hold her if you would.

She won’t seem to notice; she’d show you if she could.

Hold on to the child she’ll try to pull away

and run back where it feels safe and die more every day.

And weep for the baby, ’cuz she can’t herself, you see

I know about that child … you see that child is me.

Weep for the child who was never meant to be.

Weep for the child who grew up and then turned three.

Weep for the child whose feelings turned to stone.

Weep for the child who grew up to be alone.

And weep for the baby, ’cuz she can’t herself you see,

she’s grown into this woman

this woman who is me.

When I was in the second grade, we moved from our two-story drafty house to a “ranch style” home in the country. My father’s commercial art studio, on the outskirts of Frankenmuth, Michigan, was growing successfully and we had enough money to live comfortably.

My mother had started to drink. She drank a lot when she and my dad threw a party. But it seemed like almost everyone else at the party was drunk too, so I didn’t think my mother was that different from anyone else. I thought drinking to the point of getting drunk and passing out was normal.

I rode the school bus every day, and in the afternoon, I would be dropped off at the end of our long driveway. I would pick up the mail from the mailbox and carry it to the house.

As I came in I would set the mail on a stool to the left of the front door and yell, “Hello … I’m home.”

I gave my greeting for two reasons. The first, to simply let my mother know I was home. But more importantly to me, was listening carefully for her response. The quickness of it (or lack thereof), the tone of her voice, and how slurred her speech was or wasn’t gave me a clue as to how the rest of my night would go.

My mother would pick up the mail from the stool, take out any letters, and leave the bills. Each day the stack of bills would grow larger, until the end of the month when she would gather them all together and sit down with a drink at the kitchen table at night to pay them. As the evening wore on, she would become more and more inebriated. I would be lying in my bed, listening to her start to bang around the kitchen as she became less steady on her feet.

Finally, she would stagger back to my room and crawl into my bed.

“Let’s spoon,” she would say. The smell of her breath … stale cigarettes mixed with alcohol … was disgusting. As she curled herself around my back, she would begin to stroke my breasts saying, “You’re just like me. You are so sweet. We are so much alike. You know just how I feel. You are my precious little girl. We understand each other.” I pretended to be asleep. Finally she would leave my bed, draw herself a “cleansing bath,” and join my father in their bed and I would hear them having sex. I later wrote a song about her.

My Mom Was An Alcoholic

My mom was an alcoholic. My daddy didn’t drink.

My sister, she was pretty. About me … I don’ like to think.

We grew up in a place called Home. To me it seemed more like hell.

And, looking back on it,

I guess we weren’t too well.

There was my mom who would read to me

and pat my troubled head,

then come into my room at night

and crawl into my bed.

And there was dad who knew it all

but didn’t seem to care.

See, when she was busy in my room

she wasn’t in HIS hair.

My mom would listen to me

as I’d tell her of my day.

I’d tell her how I’d feel as we’d do dishes … talk away.

But somewhere way down deep inside, I was always on my toes.