I don’t consider this post as the next in the New Chapter series. The month of August 2024 has been hell for me. Something that I should have been able to take in stride and easily get through. I am typically very good at thinking on my feet and making split second decisions. Adapting and continuing to moving forward. Instead, I had a mental breakdown. My brain shut off. Ihnzo had a complete shoulder reversal on the second. Just a routine surgery for us. He’s had so many over the years. Within 48 hours after, I began to feel an unbearable weight of darkness and impending doom covering me. Normally, I would joke that “when it rains, it pours”. There’s typically one big thing that happens (in this case, Ihnzo, we would later learn, had sutures and other debris from a previous shoulder surgery still inside that became severely infected), followed by several smaller hiccups. Blue (one of our cats) broke his leg. Granted we were not prepared financially for all the doctor’s visits, paid parking, and extra fuel consumption due to the infection, much less Blue’s emergency. That does not, in my head, justify having a complete and total breakdown. As the days passed, the weight on my spirit became heavier and darker. All I knew was that something was coming. It was going to get worse before dawn would break.
Then on August 23rd, I was informed that Eddie had passed. My informant had found out via Facebook and called to tell me. At that moment, I felt so many things. Pain, grief, relief, anger, and most of all… fear. That unknown weight from the last 3 weeks had become completely crushing in the blink of an eye. I spent Saturday processing what I could. Going through each emotion and working through them. The pain will be there for a long time, along with the grief. Both of which I can now allow myself to feel. The fear has been dealt with, rationalized, and it’s still there, but refocused into constructive vigilance. The anger has been turned into the fuel of my purpose. I really have nothing to fear. I think it was just the sudden shock of the news and the unknown of the future.
So, now on to the main reason of this post. Back to breathing and traveling this amazing Journey. I’m ready for the next trail. My biological father, Edward M. Marsh (see my disclaimer as to why I’ve chosen to give his name) passed away either August 22 or 23, 2024. I’m not sure, as I have different information. I have given brief details through these posts about my father and how his role in my story. Now to fit pieces together. There are conflicting versions of when I was born. There is the version I grew up with from Nina and Eddie’s. They do not match. My Biological Parents were married in May of 1974. They were divorced, from my estimate sometime in 1976 to 1977. The story surrounding the divorce also differs between them. One is a story of trying, wanting it work. The other is a kidnapped victim held prisoner till they agreed to sign. Until I was 17, the latter was the only version I knew. I was told that when I was around 2, Eddie abandoned us, disappeared. His story was different. It made more sense. He knew he was “messed up” and knew that Dad could give me the love and life I deserved, so Eddie chose to slip out of the picture. He said he spent some time in prison, moving around, and addiction. There were multiple marriages. He didn’t want me to be a part of his chaos. He didn’t want this for my half-brother either.
I grew up hearing almost nothing good about Eddie. He was a liar, cheater, alcoholic and wild troublemaker. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. I would be told all the time that I laughed like him, looked like him, told bad jokes like him, liked the same clothes as him. I was just like Eddie. As I grew up, the details changed, but the story was the same. I was a liar and cheater but at least I was drug and alcohol free. I was just as selfish as he was. I was just like my father, but it wasn’t my fault. If I had to guess though, I am like Eddie. I’m caring, compassionate, passionate, very curious, talented in many ways, and I wear my heart on my sleeve. And Dad showed me how to embrace and nurture those qualities. When Eddie was thrust back into my life when I was 17, he was just Eddie. And would stay that way. He was still an unstable, unreliable person. We all have our demons though. When we did talk, he said I was free to ask anything, and he would be honest. And his versions of events weren’t even close to what I was told for 15 years. I never told him what Nina had told me, and I never told her what he told me. Conflict avoidance. Now I struggle with the feeling of my life being built on lies. Another reason to lose trust in people.
Now, I want to fill in some of the story around Dad (Don). They married in December of 1978(?). Nina always told me that Dad “proposed” by telling her I needed a dad, and he wanted to be my dad. He didn’t marry her because he loved her, blah, blah, blah. I never asked Dad about this. She seemed jealous of me. Then it turned into sounding like resentment. Their relationship was volatile. It seems like most of the close relationships Nina had were volatile. Pattern? She screamed, threw things, was physically violent, and mentally and emotionally abusive… all the time. Here is where I throw myself and Dad in front of the speeding locomotive. We became physical toward her, too. I describe it as being a caged animal. You can only poke the docile bear so many times before it fights back. I’m not defending him completely. I am saying please consider the whole picture and the powder keg it was painted on. Here you have a gentle, kind, loving soul that I think anyone that knew him would say he was. Except Nina. He MADE her get mad; he provoked her anger. It was his fault she would get so mad that she would throw things, rip his shirt off, slap and hit, insult. I just deserved to be slapped and punished. I can’t speak for Dad, only myself. If what I felt is anything close to what he felt, I cannot blame him for lashing out. How much is one person supposed to take? Especially when you deeply feel like you can’t leave.
I was 16 the first time I went into a black-out-rage. I don’t remember why she was screaming at me, angry. I feared getting hit, yet again. I was backing up, till my back hit the fridge. I warned her to stop. She screamed and hit me. After that, my next memory is waking up on the couch. Dad filled in the rest for me the next day. This is what he told me. After she hit me, I grabbed her and flung her like a ragdoll. Dad didn’t know what to do, I wasn’t responding to him or my grandparents trying to stop me. In a moment of panic, he punched and knocked me out. He cried for days, asking over and over for forgiveness. I was sorry I scared everyone. I didn’t know, nor could I explain at the time what had happened to me. In hindsight, I now understand this is sometimes what happens in fight, flight, freeze or fawn. My normal reaction was usually freeze or fawn… that day I chose fight. I was trapped and scared. None of this, in my mind, should ever justify anyone’s actions. I carry the guilt and remorse for what I did that day with me still. That is the difference between her and me. She feels nothing but righteousness. I carry all the remorse. That day triggered the first time in my life I would contemplate and plan to end my life. I didn’t like what I was becoming. That was the day the voice in my head started. The homicidal/suicidal voice. That voice is gone now. I am getting the correct treatment for my CPTSD. Do I blame Dad for any of the times he struck her? No. He was just as much of a caged animal as I was.
Fast forward to 2008. Dad passed away after a long battle with Acute Lymphatic Leukemia. A battle that didn’t need to last as long as it did. That’s another story… She was the grieving, distraught, devastated widow. Funny though, how when no one was around or she wasn’t on the phone with someone checking on her or giving their condolences, it was business as usual. The day of the funeral, she played her part well. After everyone was gone, she left. I stayed. I needed to see that Dad was taken care of for my own peace of mind. The funeral director came up to me and said the widow had left the sign-in book and everything else. He asked if I wanted it. Of course I did. As they loaded him into the hearse to take him to the cemetery, they asked if I wanted to go with them. Nina hadn’t paid for a graveside, but if it would help me get closure, I was welcome to meet them there and say my last good-bye in peace. I declined. The thought of seeing Dad covered in his beloved earth was too much. Once home, everyone was with her, I was virtually alone, except for Ihnzo and my soul-sister. She only played the grieving wife when she needed it. I watched her turn the waterworks on at will. Wail when needed. She could put a professional mourner to shame. Then, just like that… business as usual. It was always her; she was his wife; she was the one who had lost the most. I lost my protector, my shield, my dad, the only dad I ever knew. The one person that helped me maintain the boundary between her and I. Without Dad, she would never let me go.
In 2018, now that her and Eddie were together again, forever married in the eyes of God. She turned on Dad, telling everyone that she was a survivor of DV from her first husband. That he beat her all the time. She sat there and spewed this crap to me in front of my kids. I refused to listen, told her to stop, gathered the kids and left. Amazing how the story changes to fit what she needs when she needs it. She will say she never hit him and if she did it was in defense. Just like she did to me as a child??
I’m curious to see how long it takes her story to change back to the original one of Eddie abandoning us? Making him the villain in her story, again. Why hasn’t anyone ever stopped and thought for two seconds why she is always the victim in every narrative? Every boss, back-stabbing friend, parent, spouse, her own daughter. All but maybe three people. Another time though to honor those people.
I’m not here to drag her through hell. I’m here to tell my side, what I saw and experienced. To try to give a voice to those that can no longer speak. Maybe even to help someone fill in the gaps and missing pieces. Eddie is gone, blinded by his own love and devotion to someone, I’m sure, he thought truly loved him. He defended her. In his eyes, you could see something. I just don’t know what it was. Doubt? Don’t let her taint another person with her story. In a way, I loved Eddie. I was a part of him and he was part of me. So much like him. My laugh, my bad jokes, my struggles with addiction, my love of paisley and Hawaiian shirts, my musical and writing talents. So many things. Things I can say are genetic, because for 15 years I didn’t know who he was. Eddie gave me my sense of curiosity, but Dad cultivated it. I will now miss them both, equally dearly. Dad will always be Dad and Eddie will always be Eddie. And I will be the fallen daughter of a preacher. Damn, those wild preacher’s daughters.
Goodbye, Eddie. May you finally find peace. Love you and I will miss you.
Leave It in the Dressing Room (Shake It Up) by Blue October
We’ve been here for centuries
Now it’s time we shake it up
What we came we came to do
Yeah we came to shake it up
When we came we came for real
Yeah we came to shake it up
I wanna shake it up
Songwriters: William Matthew Noveskey / Justin Furstenfeld / Timothy Palmer / Steve Schiltz
First published August 25, 2024