You didn’t realize you were doing it. The truth is, nor did I until a little over a month ago.
You were gentle with a firm religious disposition. I don’t have a single memory of your voice ever rising. I don’t recall a moment you ever yelled. It's funny, especially when my childhood is filled with endless memories of you and Mom arguing more often than not. You hated yelling, and for a reason, I bet $100 Dear Reader will never guess. You see, you reminded us that the Holy Spirit was in our midst, wherever we were. The same Holy Spirit had chosen the representation of a dove, and any time we raised our voices, the Holy Spirit, a sensitive entity, took flight and would wait in the nearest tree and would only re-enter in a safe atmosphere.
You loved your girls. We were your pride and joy. Per my previous blog, ‘ The Bathroom,’ you laid your hand on me once when I was six, and you never did again. As devoted as you were to the cult’s ‘ way of life,’ aka rules, you struggled and rebelled against the physically abusive discipline laid out in the parenting instruction manual. It became a point of contention as my biological stranger and I grew up, and you chose to talk to us rather than hit and run.
The battle within came from your past. You were taken out of the hands of your parents at the age of three, alongside your five siblings. Living and going from orphanage to orphanage, losing a sibling here and a sibling there as they were adopted along the way individually rather than as a packaged family deal. After years in the broken system, alongside one of your sisters, you were adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Brown. An interesting fact about me is that from his biological side, my heritage is Polish and German, and my last name would be different had he not taken on the name of Brown.
Mrs. Brown abused her children. From meter sticks and knives to clothing hangers, she used what she could find as her tool of evil. You would tell us the unfathomable stories at the dinner table. “Mom, after the Sunday dinner, prayer would begin to shake. A demonic possession is what you believed it was. After the shaking, she would grab the nearest kitchen knife, and if your elbows went near the edge or, god forbid, on the table, she would slash them with the knife. While learning to play piano, she would stand next to you, and if you played the wrong note, she would slap your fingers with a meter stick. The horrific atrocities did not cease, and so, at fourteen, you began to work on a dairy farm and at twenty, you ran away from home in Ontario to Alberta.
Mrs. Brown passed away from Alzheimer's. Of the couple of times that I met her, she did not know or have any understanding of who I was, and she did not recognize you. As she took us on a beautiful trip down memory lane, she lost the presence of the present day.
You went to her funeral. You always remained firm in your love for your Mom and did not blame her for the unthinkable and vile actions she discharged upon you. There is one person you blame, and that one is Mr. Brown, your Dad.
The thought of striking us girls placed you back into your torture chamber. The cult does not recognize mental health. Psychology is of the devil, a byproduct of Eve’s fall in the garden. (Sex with a serpent and all that jizz.) - A blog for another time. Due to this, you did not recognize and receive the help you desperately needed, which remains the same today. Sadly, you leaned into the imaginary healing powers of Christ and lost all that you once had.
However, the abuse you endured, in turn, created, regarding children, an incredibly gentle parent and voice for children and their safety. You won’t accept this progressive terminology; you will hate it, but the truth is. You were an activist for ‘ Gentle Parenting’ in the cult and executed it in our home. Just as it caused contention between you and Mom, it caused the cult to label you a creep. You became distressed as you walked past the washrooms, hearing screams of young children being spanked. If children were crying, you would get down to their level and talk to them, assuring them that they would be okay. It is of no surprise that your gentleness sparked a loud outrage among parents; you validated feelings in a place where feelings are beaten into reticent obedience.
Yesterday was your 69th birthday. You condemn me to hell and weaponize judgment day as a threat. Your grandchildren don’t know you, and you have no interest in getting to know them. I will not bear the responsibility of keeping your memory alive, and I don’t; you’re not rotting in the soil, and your ashes are not in an Urn. You claim that God speaks directly to you, believing the voices in your head, convinced from the past that seeking psychological help is devil worship.
So this is my birthday gift to you. The revelation that your gentle hand in parenting and the validation of feelings was incredibly progressive, bestowing upon me one of the most significant ‘hand-ups’ in my life.
Wherever you are,
Happy Birthday, Dad.