...So last week I sat in a class where they talked about what a child feels or sees going through the social services system and it took me back to my own feelings of being a child in an unstable family situation. I love my parents. They did the very best by us kids with what they knew. Though I will touch on a few of my own experiences I don't want to get too deep into their history right now...at least not at this time. But what I will say is they probably stayed together longer than they should have. I know they loved each other at different times in their marriage and their love for us kids was evident to me. But towards the end ...they were together probably just for us kids.
Before my mom got sick they would fight all the time. Its a sad but perhaps common story...that was probably duplicated many times, in different homes on our block, in our neighborhood, and throughout our community.
I remember staying up late at night just waiting to hear my dads car pull up in front of our apartment. Just to make sure he came back...and seeing my mom cook and clean and take care of us kids all day ...then stay up late playing solitaire all night in the kitchen while listening to Elvis or Conway Twitty and smoking her Benson and Hedges. In retrospect I wonder if my mom was waiting for him too. I have written much about my mom in my blogs...she was strong and loving and sacrificed so much for her family...but I know she loved my dad so much and did everything she could to try and salvage their relationship.
At one point I remember they had been fighting/arguing and my mom decided to stay at my uncles house a couple of blocks from our apartment. So she would be at home with all of us until my dad got home at night, then she would leave and he would watch us. I remember one night in particular. My mom had asked all of us kids if we wanted to go with her to spend the night at my uncles. Nobody wanted to go... I didn't really want to either but I didn't want her to feel that we didn't want to be with her...or that we were choosing my dad over her. I must have been 7 or 8 at the time.
So when my dad came home I waited until he was in the kitchen to walk out of the apartment. I didn't want him to see me, because I didn't want him to think badly of me or that I was choosing sides. So I waited in the car for my mom. When she finally came down she opened up the glove compartment where she pulled out some diapers for my baby brother and told me to go back upstairs to give them to my dad. I panicked...I didn't want to go back up there and see my dad...but you do not talk back to your parents in a Polynesian household. So I went back up to the apartment and knocked on the door ..my dad answered the door, but it looked like he thought I was staying and he began walking away...I stopped him and told him I just came to bring the diapers up and that I was going with my mom...now looking back he might not have even been bothered that I decided to go with my mom....but in the version in my head and what I remember..my dad didn't say anything but I will never forget the hurt expression he had on his face before walking away to go back in the kitchen. My dads expression is still seared in my memories.
That hurts my heart to think of that now...I remember deciding that night as I was lying down in my uncles house that in order for both of my parents to know that I love them and that I am not choosing sides I am going to love my mom one week, then love my dad the next week. I would just go back and forth, ...that way I'm not choosing sides and I show them that I love them equally. As I look back now I wonder how I came up with my plan? ...Or why did my 8 year old brain feel that would work?
Probably not the best idea I have come up with...but as a child you do what you can with what limited knowledge you do have. Children are resilient and they are smarter and are more observant than people give them credit for. If there is fighting, arguing, or even a change in the love you have for each other as a couple...kids know...then they try to make sense of it...and see if there is anyway they can fix things.
Why am I writing this???...probably to purge some of these old memories...but also to put it out there in hopes that it does some kind of good for someone else.
Thinking of my childhood makes me want to do so much for my future family, for my nieces and nephews and for any child I will be blessed to cross paths with. As hard as some of the things were that I went through as a child...if it at all assists me in helping a child now...it would have all been worth it.
I know some who read this might feel some sort of pity for me...Please do not for one minute feel sorry for me...I have said it before and I still feel just as strongly about this right now...my life...is bunch of miracles strung together by a few difficult times and opportunities to grow. I truly am so very blessed. I am who I am because of the experiences I have gone through. These have been my greatest teachers.
To close this monster long novel of a blog I just want to end with a quote by one of my favorite Presidents of the church...
Howard W. Hunter gave this counsel to husbands that also applies to wives: "One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
