The back of the house on the ridge was almost totally glass and when you looked out, it was a kaleidoscope of blue sky and green foliage. It was beautiful in all seasons, especially in autumn. I miss that view, but I do not miss the house whose walls bled from the emotional wounds. Every once in a while, a bird would hit the glass with a thud. Most times it would be dazed and after a bit would fly off once again. My last year in that house I spent in a daze, and like that bird, I wished I could just fly away.
In the spring of 1997, I would be visited by a song sparrow, which I believed to be an omen, looking back, a sign of worse things to come but I didn't know it at the time. It had been a particularly rough few months, years actually. Adding to my stressors of divorce was the recent loss of my father and the loss of my daughter to a foster care system.
I worked an evening shift job at a local hospital after x-ray school in 1989, working as an x-ray tech at the local VA. He worked nights, so he was there with them alone in the evenings. We were building a house which would not be done completely for a couple more years, it was not a turn-key job. We lived in that house without walls or floors for what seemed like forever. My son after school would have to help his stepfather for hours on end, and he would get cursed at and verbally abused more often than not. Most of the drywalling in that house was done by them.
My now ex at the time would call me sometimes at work furious, acting out on the phone, I worried about the kids. My daughter spent a lot of time at his mom's next door. I tried to get all of us into counseling so we could better merge as a family unit, but he wouldn't hear of it. I didn't realize what he was putting my kids through at home while I worked. I eventually quit that job, not because I didn't love it, but I suffered a back injury in 1991.
My relationship with my son the last two years of his high school became strained to almost silence, and when he graduated high school in 1992 he went directly into the Marine Corps. He just wanted to get as far away as he could, but would come back somewhat broken two years later, and once again to fall prey to my husband's manipulative control.
By fall 1996, my daughter began to take her hurt and anger out on me, and at times we physically would get into it. I hated that. Looking back, I hate that I let him destroy not only my spirit and that of my children, but more importantly, break the hearts of my children in the process by staying with him for far too long. Raising teens was hard enough without any type of dysfunction. Why couldn't he be the parent he should have been? Why couldn't I have been a better mother?
Not only was she taking out her hurt physically on me, but she began staying away from home as much as she could, cutting school, nothing outrageously bad; in actuality most of it was typical teenage behaviors but it could lead to drugs, unprotected sex, and who knows what else. I worried myself sick over it. My attempts to diffuse any situation failed. Her stepfather was the type who could never see past the end of his nose. Nobody else mattered. We lived a world according to "Bob." Yes, that was his name, to this day even typing it makes me want to vomit. His assault on her and me for that matter was unrelenting to the point she wanted to be taken out of the home. God knows I wanted her to have some peace. I wanted her to be in a loving environment, not one of cold stares and harsh words, so I as her parent reluctantly involved the courts at
his urging, and let them place her in a foster home. Why didn't I just leave too?
He got what he wanted, her gone, me broken. Looking back I see his control over all of us. It's hard to see that when you are in the midst of it. Sleep became my only comfort. He had that dirty little secret and for a nearly two years he was working on destroying her, destroying any sense of family. I saw her go from a beautiful freshman girl to an unhappy depressed teen who stayed in her room, and gained 30 pounds. She broke silence one day blurting it out in desperation when him and her were into a confrontation; I remember him going up the stairs after her towards her room. Oh God, I didn't want to believe it. Since my youngest's birth in 1992 and my father coming to live with us in 1993, I had a 24/7 job, so I stayed home instead of working. I grew to loathe this man I had married.
How was I to know that this saga would not end with my divorcing him, but merely begin in another haunting form with my youngest, sweetest, innocent baby. This is the vulnerable heart behind The Sparrow's Song. It is true that we see only what we want to see, even to the point of trying to bury the truth from ourselves.
