August, 2010
There is no other feeling that equates having family members lend a helping hand, especially in times when life seems to be at its worst. Aunts, uncles and grandparents. Their presence has been crucial in helping me deal with the current life shifting. They stayed, cooked, cleaned, and have been making sure that the girls, mom and I are doing well. They are all leaving after a week of taking care of us.
Uncle Mike, his wife and their children are staying for another two days, probably mom’s idea. In her head she is probably thinking that because of my history with dad and the past nightmares, I need closer attention. I don’t blame her for caring.
Having Uncle Mike around is a reminder of the father figure he was to me when Dad was nothing but trouble. Now that dad is gone forever, mom feels even more of an urgency to put me back under the guidance of my uncle. She believes that since Uncle Mike helped me back then, he can help now.
Mom and Dad separated when I was six. After the separation, mom did not keep me from seeing dad during the weekends and special holidays or events for which dad wanted me around. Despite dad’s reckless and senseless behaviors, mom let me go with him mostly because she still loved him. Even though she hated his lifestyle, she wanted me to have a father.
As dad got worse over the years, Uncle Mike advised her not to send me to his brother, but despite the warning from Uncle Mike and dad’s crazy mishaps, she still wanted me to have a father.
After losing me in the middle of London, mom chose to forgive dad and still allow him to visit and take me out for father-son time. She restricted me from sleeping over at his place or going abroad. The more I hung out around dad and his friends, the more they smoked, and lived recklessly. It wasn’t hard for me to start enjoying their lifestyle and become rebellious towards mom. I partied more, started drinking at ten years old without mom knowing. I smoked and sniffed a few things here and there, started to lose my mind and enjoy more and more of my dad’s bad lifestyle.
“My father greatly regretted letting me into his world and expecting me to turn out just like him. Because he later realized that our ‘like father, like son’ relationship opened me to a world a child should never be exposed to.” I comment.
“Through our own experience, he has taught me that being a father is a great responsibility that should never be shared with a troublesome lifestyle. He taught me to be a good man first, before thinking of being a father. And then when I am a father to be a good father.” I add.
“Well you are a good father” Dieudonné tells me. I look at Miradel as she places the puzzle pieces. I smile and place a puzzle piece at the right spot.
Things started changing the day dad, our friends and I got jumped by someone dad owed money to. I was a little intoxicated that day. I talked too much and cursed at the robber without thinking. Well that night, whatever I had taken made me very talkative to the point that one of the robbers got fed up and hit me on the back of the head with his gun. One blow to the head and he shut me up. I fell and lost consciousness on the spot. The next thing I remembered was lying on my dad’s bed with the biggest headache in the world.
From then on my nights were invaded by nightmares. I would fall asleep and have nightmares of the reckless times with dad and even of times I wasn’t there to witness my dad’s craziness. Nightmares like getting lost in London and being kidnapped and eaten alive by cannibals. I would dream of dad being so high and disheveled that he would walk in zigzags and fall chest first into a long broken glass and die on the spot. Other nightmares would be about drinking myself to death. Most of my nightmares ended with the tragic death of either Dad, a friend of ours, a friend of mine or my own death. Everything I would see in my nightmares would be perfect replicas of reality and premonitions of crazy things I didn’t remember being there for and things I would maybe experience later on. The way they always ended were exactly what I dreaded reality to become.
For about a month, I couldn’t close my eyes without having nightmares that scared me to death. Then it became a year of sleepless nights.
So I decided to see dad a little less than usual, something that surprised mom. She tried to get me to explain why I was distancing myself but I couldn’t tell her of my crazy behaviors and put dad in trouble. I didn’t want to break her heart, so I told her that I wanted to focus on soccer, even though I was doing it to see if things would change. Weeks, months passed. No change occurred. Insanity and complete unresponsiveness to the world around me kicked in as I became distant from the people I loved. Mom started realizing that I was losing my mind. She interpreted my distancing as a result for not spending enough time with both her and dad.
So at one of my very important soccer games, the semifinal game for the state championship, mom invited dad and trusted him to bring me home after the game. Mom left half way into the game because she had to meet with her models for fitting before the fashion show of her new collection. Dad came sober before she left and drank for the rest of my game after mom left. At the end of the game, we won and dad wanted to take me out and celebrate. He was drunk but insisted to drive to go celebrate my great victory. None of the parents who saw him drunk cared enough to step in and stop him from taking me in his car. About ten miles from the soccer field, he burns a red light and a truck runs straight into us from the passenger side where I was sitting. The next thing I remember of that day was lying on a hospital bed, unable to hear from my right ear. Also an injured leg, which made me unfit to play when the championship game came around. But my team managed to win without their best player, at least winning the state championship brought me some joy despite the crazy things I had gone through.
After the accident, mom became the angriest woman I have ever met. She did not trust anyone, mostly men. She took care of me on her own. Spending every waking and sleeping moment with me was her way of coping with the idea of almost losing the only person she loved in the world. Uncle Mike made sure that his brother paid for hurting me and stepped in even though my mom did really not want any men around.
Mom was right in letting Uncle Mike into my life at such a crucial time. And she really had no choice but to let him. He had been right from the beginning about not letting dad near me. Uncle Mike stepped in and visited every two days, which was a huge sacrifice since he lives in northern Virginia and we live in central North Carolina. Each of his visits was to make sure of my wellbeing as I was in physical therapy and I was trying to work out some kind of surgery for my ear. One day, on a Sunday, he came to visit at mom’s request, and he took one look at me and smiled.
They had talked about helping me recover not only physically but psychologically as well and had decided not to send me to a psychiatrist. They both determined that letting me talk to Uncle Mike about my nightmares would help me heal psychologically. Even though I was desperate to talk to someone about my nightmares, I wasn’t sure what segue to use in talking to Uncle Mike about the crazy things I did with his younger brother. I didn’t want to talk to mom either, because it would cause her more pain and put dad in more trouble.
After a long lunch and dinner talk about it, he convinced me to confide in him. Talking to Uncle Mike was the best and only option I accepted. He promised not to care for me as one of his patients but as family. And I made him promise that everything I would tell him, he wouldn’t use to cause more trouble for dad.
I saw him four times a month and during the summer I would spend half of it at his house in Virginia and the other half with the whole family in Georgia, where Dad and Mom’s parents live. The grandparents introduced me to the church they attended, something Dad never made time for us to be part of. And I started making new friends in Virginia and Georgia. Life started changing for the better. Zaine and I became close friends. I was doing better in school, I was spending time with good people and I kept myself busy with productive activities like soccer.
As I was getting my life back together, Dad had his share of changes happen as well. He became a Christian
when doing his community service to cover his DUI charges. And he went to rehab at his parents’ house. His change was so radical that it softened mom’s hardened heart. They fell back in love and decided never to fall out of it.
In my case, I was a little unhappy that Dad was back after Uncle Mike took care of me as his own son, something Dad never cared to do because he was too busy introducing me to his crazy world of substance abuse and meaningless activities. Forgiving him and welcoming him back with open arms was impossible since all I wanted was to be as far from him as possible. Even though my nightmares had diminished, every time I had them, I blamed him for scarring me for life.
Staying mad at Dad for the rest of my life was not an option since he had really changed. Uncle Mike made me understand that at some point I would have to forgive him and give him the chance to shape my life in a positive way. And he helped us both get back to being father and son.
He was there then and is now here for me. Today he is visiting, he texted me during the week saying he wanted to talk. Mom must have contacted him because she thinks I’m having nightmares again.
Before South Africa, I had ten to fifteen nightmares a month and I would usually wake up, walk down stairs, shake it off and go back to bed. Mom would sometimes find me downstairs and ask me if I’m okay and I would reassure her that it’s nothing. And life would be back to normal. Since the crash, I haven’t had a nightmare. Not one, the memories only resurface, during the day, as short films, when I think about the old days. But I have been waking up during the night, going downstairs, thinking about the dreams I’ve been having for the past weeks. The week after Uncle Mike and his family left, I had three dreams and Mom found me downstairs those three times. I tried convincing her that I’m not having nightmares and that I’m just trying to make sense of these minimally enjoyable dreams I’m having but without success. Because I am sure she called Uncle Mike to talk to me about what she believes are my reoccurring nightmares.
Uncle Mike arrives home, looks at me and smiles the same way he smiled the day he came to talk to me about my nightmares.
“We’re going to be meeting from now on every Monday and Wednesday for two hour sessions every week,” he says without cracking a smile. He sits quietly waiting for an answer but I don’t say a word because all I can think of is how much I’m okay and I don’t need his help. I wouldn’t mind his help but I’m coping with the whole situation pretty well, it’s just that mom is over thinking what’s happening in my head.
“Your mom told me about your reccurring nightmares” he tells me.
“Uncle Mike, you know mom, she always worries. I’m not having nightmares. I haven’t had nightmares in the past weeks. Not one,” I say. His face shows how confused he is.
“So why are you showing the same signs?” he asks as a real psychologist who took notes of my every change.
“I’ve been dreaming, every day. Since I’ve come back, I’ve had dreams, not nightmares. The nightmares do resurface during the day, but they’re short and I forget them by the night,” I say.
“But why have you been having less and less sleep?” he asks.
“I’ve been sleeping more than ever before. But yes, I have been sleeping at little less during the night because this whole having dreams instead of nightmares is new to me. I’m getting used to it. It will probably get better as I get back to the normal kind of nights normal people have.” I say.
“Um, you have a point, I’ll talk to your mother, but if you do not see any changes or you want to talk about those dreams, I’m here for you,” he says.
“Thank you Uncle Mike, I know I can talk to you anytime. About anything. No lies, no half-truths. For both our goods. I can always count on you,” I say determined to convince him to drop the subject. I don’t want to tell him the dreams, what I see and how much all I see doesn’t make sense to me. I want for once in my life, to figure things out on my own and take measures to help myself. Family has always been there to support me but this time I want to find solutions without their direct help. I don’t mind having their indirect helping hands now and then. I’m not running from a helping hand, I want to be my own helping hand for now.
“My father had always influenced my life. Both in good and bad. He introduced me to a crazy world that made me crazy. His brother stepped in to help me get back to the real world, the loving world that cared about my wellbeing and future.”
“Having caring and loving people, wasn’t that a good thing?” he asks me.
“Kind of. But as I went back into the real world, they didn’t realize that I was coming with baggage that wouldn’t let me move forward. Baggage that only dad could help me with.”
“I can definitely relate. And I can even add that it’s even worse when you come with baggage that you know that no one from your past or present life can help you with.” Dieudonné tells me.
I look to the back door of the kitchen and see Ma’ Sabine come in with food in a big grocery bag. “Just a little something for lunch.” Sabine tells us.
She starts serving and gives us each a plate of fried plantains, beans, rice and chicken. Miradel leaves her room and joins us in the dining room.
“Thank you, ma’ Sabine.”Miradel smiles.
“Yes thank you very much” Dieudonné says.
“Indeed, thank you. It smells delicious.” I compliment her. We continue working on the puzzle as we all eat.
“As I was saying, when my father came back in my life, after seven years, we understood each other and created our own world. A world that helped us be better in the world around us. His death left me alone, wandering in those two worlds I couldn’t balance and on a journey I was still trying to grasp.”
I eat a plantain. “But even though I felt alone and everyone wanted to help, for the first time, his parting made me determined to figure things out on my own and be better in my two worlds. And maybe one day harmonize those two worlds into becoming one.” I state.