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Brighouse United Church United Church of Canada Richmond BC |
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A Rocky Start to Life
"There was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aspect to my father that I'd only learn about much later in life. I'm not talking about the drunken outbursts. Although rare, they were impossible to miss. Rather, I'm referring to his clandestine side, to the fact that my dad talked occasionally with my older siblings about being a runner for Chicago's most infamous gangster, Al Capone, as a boy. "If Dad had some connection to the kingpin of the Chicago crime syndicate, that could explain why my siblings and I don't know the first thing about our extended family. We had a Mom and Dad, of course, but that was the extent of our bonsai-sized family tree. As a kid, I never could figure out why we didn't have any aunts and uncles, or cousins, or grandparents like all of my friends. I still don't know. "Everything about my parents' past was shrouded in absolute secrecy. We didn't know anything about their backgrounds until years later, when, after their deaths, we discovered both Dad and Mom had three or four social security numbers. There's even a question about whether our real last name was "Daly". "Such a bizarre collection of details led us to believe my folks might have been in a government witness protection program. At least that would explain why they moved around so much during an era when most families stayed put in the same home for decades. "After my parents divorced, my mother was left with the Herculean task of raising five children as a single parent. My mom worked two or three jobs just to put food on the table and still, there were days when we had nothing to eat. When we didn't have milk, we'd mix Kool-Aid packs with water to pour over our cereal. Dad was pretty much out of the picture, except when he'd stop by the house to pick up a few groceries. Mind you, he didn't bring bags of food to feed his family; he came to take a few things for himself when he was down on his luck. "Once, when I stumbled on him taking food out the door, my appearance seemed to catch him off-guard. He masked his surprise with a broad smile and then told me how much he loved and missed me. My reaction was somewhat guarded. Dare I believe him? His track record as the loving, caring father wasn't so hot - at least not of late. Sensing the distance between us, he told me he'd stop by later that day to bring me a baseball mitt for my seventh birthday. "A real, honest-to-goodness, genuine leather glove. "For me. From my dad. "This was the best news of the year. I smiled so hard, my face hurt. He tousled the hair on my head with a strong hand, turned and then left me standing by the door, my heart hammering against my ribcage. When my best friend, Ricky came over to hang out and play, I couldn't stop bragging. My dad was going to bring me a glove. A new leather baseball glove. Probably a Wilson special edition with a deep pocket for all of the balls I'd catch. It would be my first mitt. "Every fifteen minutes I'd run to the curb with Ricky to see if my dad was coming. We'd look down the street and study the landscape. Squinting, we saw no sign of him in the distance. Not yet. We'd go back in the house and play. Then, I'd announce, "I'm sure he's got to be coming now." Off we went, darting out the front screen door. Nope. No sign of him. This went on all afternoon. As the sun began to trade places with the moon, Ricky, who lived just a block away, headed home. "Call me when he comes," Ricky offered with a friendly slug to my shoulder. I was only seven years old, but I wasn't entirely clueless. My dad had lied to me. He never came. I'd like to think that he had a perfectly good reason for failing to keep such a big promise to his seven-year-old son, but he didn't. My trust in him took a hard knock that day. I was no longer confident that he'd be there when I needed him. "I entered the military when I was eight years old. "I had no say in the matter. In fact, I was enrolled against my will. Completely unprepared for this sudden turn of events, my whole universe changed overnight. One day I was a happy kid in the third grade at Bixby Elementary School and suddenly I had to endure a regiment of pushups and other strictly enforced maneuvers designed to break my will and transform me into a good little soldier. "Appealing the decision to enlist was not an option. "My drill sergeant was a big guy, probably 6'3" and 205 pounds of muscle. He looked a lot like Telly Savalas who played Kojak on TV, only my sergeant's ears were bigger. His head was completely shaven. He wore no glasses, chains, or rings. Unlike other military types, he didn't have any tattoos, either. He didn't need them. He had the solid build of a Ukrainian or a Viking. "I entered "boot camp" in 1969. That's the year my mom, Jan Daly, married Hank Sheldon. When Mom married Hank, it rocked my world in a big way. Hank, you see, was ex-Navy who apparently forgot the "ex" part of the deal. The day that our new stepfather moved in with us was the day that my stint in the military started. He viewed our house as his personal barracks and my siblings and I as his little platoon. "From day one Hank made it clear he was the Commander of the ship and we were to fall into compliance - or swab the deck. He immediately waged an aggressive war on dust, dirt, fingerprints and unfolded blankets. The guy was a neat freak on steroids. To Hank, good enough was never good enough. "Worse, he had a militaristic - no, make that a sadistic discipline technique. He would make me hang up my jacket 50 times because I'd left it on the floor in my bedroom, or fold my blanket 100 times because it was crumpled on the bed. Let me just say that this approach to enforcing the rules was a bit foreign to us. "Which is why I nicknamed him: "Hank the Tank." "To us, Hank was nothing but trouble. His love for Mom, though, was unmatched, I'll give him that much. You could see it in the way he looked at her, spoke about her, and acted around her. But Hank's love for us was missing in action. We were nothing more than excess baggage. He resented the fact that he had to share Mom with her five children - especially once she fell sick with an illness that would claim her life. "Mom's true condition had been kept from me. My mom had been diagnosed with colon cancer. I'd only learn about that years later. At the time, however, I was preoccupied with a puzzle: Why weren't we permitted to be with her? Was her illness contagious? Nothing made sense. She was my mom and we should be together, that's all there was to it. "The answers to my questions boiled down to one word: Hank. "Mom was in lock-down because Hank had ordered it. He was so obsessed with her that he wanted her all to himself and worked overtime to keep us from seeing her. Sometimes she would wander out of her bedroom to sit on the sofa and talk with us in the living room. The minute Hank came home, he'd lower the boom. Right in the middle of the conversation he'd interrupt and say, "Jan, come here, you need your rest." Like a prison guard, he'd take her arm and lead her back into solitary confinement. "That really bothered me. I hated to have her taken from me. My mother had cared for us through both good and hard times. Why wasn't I permitted to do the same for her when she was sick? Okay, maybe a nine-year-old wasn't capable of giving her medical care, but at least I could have talked with her, right? I'll never understand why Hank didn't let me give my mom a hug or a kiss before she was ushered away. With a click, the door would close behind them and I'd be left on the outside longing to be by her side. "Several weeks later, mom was transferred to the hospital. As far as I was concerned, she was still just really sick. Mike, Dave, Dee Dee and Kim knew better. Mom's health was failing fast. She had very little time left. Maybe days. Perhaps a week. Hank knew this, too, and went off on a bender. His drinking spree took him out of the picture for days. The man fell completely apart. Without any adult to turn to for direction, my siblings went into group mode. "After a family meeting, they were convinced that I should see Mom at least one more time. One problem. Back then, children under sixteen weren't allowed to see patients. They staged a covert operation to smuggle me into the hospital one Saturday morning. "We stood in a semi-circle around her bed. She sat in a semi-upright position with the bedrails in place. A translucent tube ran from the back of her left hand to an IV drip. But what struck me most about our brief visit wasn't the array of monitors with their constant beeps, or the hospital with its disinfectant smell. "My most striking memory is how my mom was so uplifting and positive. In spite of the pain she must have felt as the cancer worked overtime to shut down her vital organs, she joked with us. She laughed with us. She teased us. And her smile made each of us feel like everything would be "okay." Mom was giving us a gift - our last memory of her is one of laughter, of joy, and of love. "At nine years old I became an adult out of necessity. I didn't know if my biological father was dead or alive, or where he was living. He had been a no-show at Mom's funeral, just like Hank. Both of the men in my life were AWOL. We later found out that my dad didn't learn about Mom's death for several months after the funeral. And, for his part, Hank was back on the bottle, an old habit that resurfaced with all the pressure caving in. "We were on our own. Walking away from the casket, I started to feel stress about issues children shouldn't worry about. My mom's passing affected my survival. Where would we live? What would we eat? Who would pay the bills and take care of us? Hank? Was Hank capable of taking care of us? Would I even want him to? "After picking up our car at the chapel, Mike drove us home. The sun was beginning its nightly descent; its warm orange rays glinted across the windshield. I felt chilled. I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that something horrible was around the corner. Minutes later, Mike pulled into the driveway. Heading for the house, I was anxious to just spend time in my room, away from any commotion. "I stepped through the front door and gasped. I felt as though I'd been sucker-punched. I blurted out, "Guys, where's all of our stuff?" "While everything had looked normal on the outside of the house when we arrived, the living room was completely vacant. The television was gone. The lime-green sofa was gone. The pictures, the books, the vacuum - everything had vanished. Mike, Dave, Dee Dee, and Kim pushed past me and quickly fanned out to the other rooms. The reports were shouted like a series of blasts from a rapid-fire gun. "Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty in here, too. "The beds, the chairs, the dishes, the towels, the refrigerator, and every lick of furniture - the house was completely empty. Well, almost empty. Our clothes and a handful of personal possessions had been tossed from the dressers and dumped on the floor in jumbled heaps. "We gathered in the now barren living room to consider our options. That's when Hank appeared from his bedroom carrying two suitcases. Mike was livid. Kicking into battle mode, Mike said, "Just where do you think you're going? What happened to the furniture and our things?" Hank waved him off. There was no fight left in him. Brushing past Mike, he headed out the front door and to the curb. "His shoulders slumped as if pulled down by the weight of the earth's gravity. No spark remained in his eyes. He had mentally checked out months ago. Hank the Tank was a broken man. We meant nothing to him when Mom was alive - and apparently less now that she had died. When Hank finally spoke, the once confident, bull-dog shook his head and said, "I can't deal with this. I'm moving back to San Francisco." "He didn't say, "I'm sorry about your Mom," or, "I hate to leave you guys this way," or, "Here are the arrangements I made for you guys after I'm gone." Nothing. "Almost on cue, a taxi pulled to the curb. The driver helped Hank toss his bags in the trunk. They climbed in and headed for the airport. Like a phantom, Hank had appeared and then evaporated before our eyes. I never saw or talked to him again. "Back inside, we stood around the empty living room talking about how Hank just left. I can't say we were that surprised he chose to abandon us on the evening of Mom's funeral. And, at least one mystery had been solved. It dawned on us why Hank didn't attend the funeral: he was too busy packing up our house. He must have had a crew with a truck ready to haul everything away the moment we went to the service that morning. "He had sold everything. "I don't relate the details of my story to elicit sympathy. I know I'm not the only person who has lived and suffered under the same roof with alcoholic parents - nor will I be the last. Our mailbag at Focus on the Family yields letters every day from those whose stories are just as compelling as mine - if not more so. Stories where the sting of hurt and feelings of betrayal run deep, and where hope has run dry. "Every time I read one of those letters, I want to pick up the phone and say, "I understand a little of what you may be feeling." I want to remind those who are living in desperate circumstances that their file hasn't blown off God's desk. Their marriages may be on the rocks, their kids may be out of control, but He still knows where they live. He cares for them in spite of what they may think at the moment. "God has both the power to quiet our storms and the ability to give our lives new meaning and purpose. Again, those are not empty words. I've lived them and know that nothing is impossible for God. As the prophet Jeremiah wrote, "I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is there anything too hard for me?" (32:27). "Put another way, to paraphrase one of my favorite verses in the Bible: "Right now we see through the glass dimly. We see in part. We know in part. But we press on because one day all will become clear" (1 Corinthians 13:12). I don't know the big picture. I don't have all of the facts. God is at work - for good - even when I cannot make sense out of life's circumstances. If I fail to grasp this, it's easy for me to think of myself as a victim of what my parents did instead of a vessel loved by God. "My desire is to be God's vessel, to be used by Him as He sees fit. God allowed me to grow up in a home where my dad was betting the farm on the ponies and addicted to the bottle, as well as a household where my mother was a single-parent recovering alcoholic struggling to raise five kids. Why? I can't say for sure. Meanwhile, I've decided to resist the temptation to play the part of a victim and, instead, seek to be His vessel. "When I say vessel, I mean someone who chooses to allow God to use their pain for His glory, for His purposes, for what He knows is best. Will I ever be a "perfect vessel"? No, not even close. This side of heaven the warts and wrinkles of life are part of the experience. But, with His help I can become more like Him. "Yes, life is hard. There is adversity. While seasons of smooth sailing do occur, more often than not, life feels like it's coming apart at the seams. "And yet, you and I have a choice to make and a message to send. We can repeat the mistakes made by our parents or we can take the best of what we've learned from them, reject the baggage, and choose to set a new course for ourselves and for our families. Each day the decisions you and I make can communicate to those we love that there's nothing we'd rather do than to be there for them."
Jim Daly Excerpted from his recent on leadership: Finding Home |
