Hope and Vengeance

 Hope and Vengeance 

    My experiences in early life have revealed to me the definition of true resilience; weather the storm, let your mind bob with the waves, and keep hope you will make it to tell the story. In 2010 my father passed away and what was cold mourning was also a sweet release from a clasped prison. The years leading up to his death were claimed by anguish, a struggling relationship between us that had been contorted by a manipulator and liar. Patiently I waited, as a hawk soars above its target, waiting for the swift wind to fill their wings with a current of passion. With each day of physical challenges I could feel resolve building in my throat. Resilience shaped my clay mind to hope for the future and wait for absolution. 

    Mysteries began sprouting in our home when I was 5 years old, I remember quite clearly the first of these events. Walking through the front door of my home as I returned from kindergarten, I was surprised to find my shoe slick with sticky residue. Upon inspection, syrup had been shaken haphazardly in the entrance of our home. My eyes followed the trail of dark goop, seeping into the cracks of tile and settling its sugar finely into the floor. The path trickled ever so gently into the kitchen, teasing my eyes to peak around the corner. As I turned the corner, I witnessed a massacred mess of syrup all over the room, Mrs. Butterworth's empty plastic body laying in all of her liquid ambrosia. Once the rest of my family were home from their days, an investigation begged the question of where this could have come from, who would do such a thing? To my family, the most simple solution was often the correct one; it must have been me, the one who got home from school and was alone with enough time to do it. After a swift punishment from my father, we all slept in blissful ignorance of what was to come. This was the first of weekly, sometimes daily, misbehavings that needed a person for the blame. These were always actions that were not my own doing and the result was years of miscommunication and abuse. 

    In an attempt to correct my perceived mischievousness, my meals were switched to pinto beans and white rice. Weight dropped off of me, the skin clinging to my bones in gaunt desperation. When I was not at school I worked hard labor at our church, the privileges I now take for granted were stripped from me without hesitation. In my isolation and terror I would often question the sky, it was someone else's doing for my suffering, surely? Clouded by his own insecurity and depression, my father became a shadow of what his young self had built for his future. Manipulation was common among his friends and his insecurity often let this bled into his parenting. It was only I who knew the closest of his friends, his pastor, was the source of my torment. Not only was he committing the mystery acts so callously blamed on a child, he orchestrated my punishments as a result through my father. Through every battle I emerged the other side alive, but every scar reminded me of the frigid vengeance lingering in my heart. 

    I weathered the storm of hard labor, malnutrition, abuse and manipulation for 6 years. Taking after my father's zealousness, 4 long years I prayed to a God with no ears. When they continued to be unanswered I filled my mind with agnostic philosophy and meditated peace. My blisters from work formed to calluses and bruises from beatings to scales, my armor was wrought tested against emotional and physical trials. I had become so used to what was my life that no more could I be hurt against that which I was accustomed to. Realizing my immutable position, I found solace in music, writing, poetry, art and meditation. In the winter months, once locked away in my room for the night, I slipped my secret boombox from the closet. We tiptoed together, quietly settling by the baseboard heater, a soft ‘click’ from the outlet sparked my friend to life. Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel, The Cars, any CD I could find became part of my collection. This was my fuel and when the days turned long, or my clothes had been soaked from destitution, Paul Simon’s words echoed in my head, “I have my books and my poetry to protect me, I am shielded in my armor.” With my newfound strength in philosophy and the arts, I realized hope was a strong emotion. 

    My father passed when I was 11 and ended the enduring hardship which I thought would be going on for much longer admittedly. He developed Lymphoma (a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes). Not only is it a quickly spreading cancer, a misdiagnosis made sure it was not caught until much later. Perhaps this was universal justice for my domestic prison sentence, or a sign from the Christian God himself, or Gaia opened her heart to my cries. Whatever it was, everything changed when he died. A blur of motion, and Emotion, surrounds all the memory during that time now. My last sister, the only one left, had suffered her own tragedies and personal hell in this time (she is the 2nd oldest of my 4 older sisters and the only one which remained in the house with my father and I by the time he was dying). While I battered the storm in my own world, she was raped and manipulated by the same pastor which tormented all three of us. My father passed and it was soon after she saw an opportunity to escape, escape that man and the twisted life that had become normal to us. Suddenly we were free, a new world opened before my eyes, waiting to be experienced. 

    I approached the brave new world with untrustworthy hesitance, after all it had wronged me so horribly right at the beginning. But I discovered this was a world that offered so much, one I didn’t have to break my back for. I tasted pizza, ice cream, Mountain Dew, french toast. Video games splashed my vision and tickled my mind with fantasy. The theater became a place of sensualities and expression that I could relish openly. I could have friends and ride a bicycle again. My whole world had just begun at 12 years old. In my new youthful ignorance I enjoyed the pleasures of life that were oh so deserved, but the icy stare of the void still clung to my conscience to remind me of the very real adult emotions I held from a time before. This was a time of blissful naivety which led me to believe it was time to uphold my honor. While I realized my resilience in life and mentality, it was not enough to return 6 years to me… and so my retaliation would be swift. 

    When I was presented with an impossible situation that had no plausible solution (or at least when it seemed that way), all I could do is preside in hopeful contempt. My resilience was not found during my trials, in fact, it wasn't until maturing into manhood that I found peace. With shame I admit adolescent planning of masterful reprise. I vowed upon the mud I stood that he would taste my cold steel, no matter the cost, because it was my duty to uphold the honor stripped from my family. But with time, love and a little bit of psychedelics… I uncovered my own folly to reveal the peace underneath. The words of Alexandre Dumas settled my anxiously mournful mind after my father’s departure; “...all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—'Wait and hope” (The Count of Monte Cristo, pg 1065). I am a proud man, for resilience is not cheap. It comes at a cost which you would never willingly pay. But once you have emerged from the other side, tasting the sweet sweat of success, it is much like a phoenix from its homely ashes. Dumas wrote my favorite book long before my time, yet I found so many relations between the situation of Edmond Dantes and myself. Never had it occurred to me that perhaps I needed the same perspective of conclusion that Edmond came to. Vengeance is foolish to seek, all you can do is hope the world will correct itself in due time.