Separation

Me, my older sister, a step brother and my older brother via 1980

I don’t remember a significant pain associated with losing my brother, sister, and father to a bitter divorce, perhaps I was too young to recognize it. As I grew older and began to understand what had occurred however, I think I experienced a sense of something not there, not being whole. While the memories of my father tended toward fearful and scary experiences my older brother and sister always held a place of companionship in our different but same experience of losing a parent. Almost as if I understood even from a young age that they were the same as me, innocent bystanders of one of life’s uglier experiences.

My father being determined to “rescue me” from a cult also participated in the tearing apart of my childhood. My mother’s fear of him permeated my younger years and was contagious. I was a fearful and timid child. On several occasions, lawfully and unlawfully I was taken from my mother, and my very foundations were shaken. Court dates, visits to child psychologists, pressure from my father to say that something was wrong with my life, or with my mother, all compounded my insecurities. I have also realized that so much moving around from one parent to the next and from home to home was very degrading to a child’s sense of well being and security. One specific occasion will always be ingrained in my memory.

We lived in an army tent in the back of a lake on the Love Family’s 300 acres. My father with a multitude of police came to take me to the “safety” of his custody. With him he brought gifts no young child could resist. And when it was time to go, my mother clung to me crying while my father took me, physically pulled me from her arms. I can remember clinging to my mother both of us in tears as he pulled me away. At this point I knew he was my father but he was basically a stranger to me. I must have been about 5 years old at the time. To compound my fear and confusion all the men from The Family stood in the path of the police officers and my father to block them from leaving. Two extremes of authority in my childhood, opposing each other.  I have learned since then, extreme measures were taken to prevent my father from leaving with me, a load of logs was even dumped in the road to prevent  my abduction. Thankfully the Family men moved aside and the logs were moved away, when pressured by law enforcement.  Looking back now I know if that was to happen today in these reactionary times, a violent and ugly outcome could have occurred.

Despite my early associations of fear of my father, and my always frightening separations from my mother, when I was finally settled with her I began to build a “knight in shining armor” image in place of my  “only human” father. This is the person I missed terribly in my pre and early teens. Where was the man who was supposed to teach me to drive? Buy me a prom dress? Ruffle my hair?  Did I look like him? Did he love me? So in the end his absence and that of my brother and sister deeply impacted my life.

Years later, after being reunited with my siblings, a joyous and fulfilling experience, I also learned there was no Knight in Shining armor.  My father was another flawed and broken human who struggled with the demons in his own life. It was a blessing to have been left in my mother’s custody.  However, the relationship my siblings and I have forged since is worth every moment of pain I may have had. Two wonderful souls having survived a very different yet similar journey to mine.  A journey that gives us a bond that holds us fast, gives us pride in our oddly shaped family and our ability to not only survive but to persevere, despite adversity.