The Emotional Cripple

This would be my dad. I know this is why he worked the way he did because at work he could shine. At home he was just one of the rest of us. He was abused like we were. He even escaped once and came back! Ann and I probably had something to do with that. He didn't stay gone long enough for us to adjust and we were stuck with mother. We didn't know then that we had any other choices than to be her children.

Daddy's childhood was emotionally crippling if not physically crippling. I'm sure of the first. The second is not so easy to discern. Every thing they owned was sold out from underneath them. PaPa left with other women. He moved off with at least one. Laverne left and moved half way across the country as soon as she could. Martha Jean, well, she's the one we strongly suspect sexual abuse with, but too much time as passed and too many ties have been broken.

Daddy's first wife favored his sisters we've been told. She drank. She ran around on Daddy. She gave him a son and verbally abused them both.

Mother and Daddy met at Western Union in Baton Rouge. Married, had me, led and idyllic life. Right. Daddy had a great need to be dependent on someone, to have his life organized for him, to be told what to do and when to do it. Mother had a great need to make people dependent on her. It was the perfect union.

After Daddy left and came back, Mother had everything, absolutely everything put in her name -- bank accounts, business, CDs, house, retirements. She had that right. He'd left. He'd not been honorable. He knew he was tied to her in unimaginable ways. One of Mother's new favorite stories was that she could just utter the words, "Travis, we need to talk," and Daddy would blanch. She loved the control.

The moment Daddy went back to mother, I realized how dependent he was on her. They were tied together with a gossamer thread, but not the pretty kind like you think of fairies using. This one is harsh and cold and unrelenting. This thread is the kind that nightmares is made of.