I forgive my stepfather and here’s why.
The bigger picture shocked me.
Trigger warning some aggressive and violet scenes.
Life if only it was like the old movies: the hero on a white horse, clear baddies, the hero always won. I’ve seen movies, but the movie I was the star of had a totally inconsistent baddie, unprepared for his role as hero, and the frustration showed.
To be fair, in an ideal world, the best background he could have had to marry my mum with two young children would have been a stable loving family background.
His life had offered a terrible childhood. He lived in severe poverty, he had a brutal dad, holes in his shoes, and holes in the arse of his school pants. No mention of his mum. His sister, who I assume he was close to, had died leaving some children.
All childhood stories were of violence, pain, and rejection. Not a little violence but huge bouts of violence.
A story he told us was about his brother standing up to his dad now older, his brother was in the Parachute Regiment. He no doubt had a lifetime of pain coupled with army training. It felt like the time to stand his ground.
The old man won, breaking both his arms, he gave up and moved away.
My stepdad left for the army too. Did well for himself and became a Sergeant Major in the Royal Marines, a formidable man.
People did what he said until he married my mum.
He bought a house, an end terrace, a tin bath, outside toilet. Hosing down in the backyard was easier than filling the tin bath. He struggled with my daydreaming style, he was used to telling people to jump, and their response was how high.
I think he saw it as defiance.
I had a number of things going against me, I looked like my Dad, who was jealous of him, and although my mum had not seen him for years, my grandparents did the handover.
At five I refused to change my name and allow him to adopt me, I probably destroyed his dream of his perfect family.
Here’s the thing, I believe he really tried and wanted to get things right. They had two more children, now four in a two-bedroom house.
His work record was very patchy, he got upset and beat up the supervisor. At the time you could leave a job in the morning and have another at teatime. That changed, and pressure grew.
His moods swung, you didn’t know if he was going to stroke your head or crack it.
He favored his kids and took everything out on me. He called me stupid and thick, not once or twice, but shouting upstairs for twenty minutes I cried myself to sleep, I guess in those days there was nothing on tele. The humor is my mum’s gift to me, diminish and dismiss.
He walked me a mile and a half every week to buy me a toy, he told me he was proud of me, and he could be the nicest man you have ever met or the scariest man you could imagine.
I don’t remember everything, but I do remember these things
I started to wind him up when I was about eight, I would press my tongue into the side of my face, after he had a go at me, while I was sulking. He used to cry out to Mum when I was doing it again, he almost cried. Today, I realized that could have been a rude gesture to an adult, but today was the first time I even thought about it.
My sister was a princess, she had everything. Well, that in our house was double the amount of crayons. I remember my younger brother and I swapping a few colors with her, she screamed we got the leather belt. My brother always said mine was the worst because I got the buckle end, I don’t know, I only know it hurt.
He used to play films on the projector for us.
The beatings changed me, the kids that bullied me were no longer a match for me, I had faced bigger and stronger,
The constant mood swings left us on eggshells, then one night he worked himself up so much he fell to the floor choking, he reached up gesturing for water. What seemed to be the longest time went by and nobody moved to help him. My mum, who had taken to drinking by now, didn’t move or say anything. Were we going to let him die?
I sent my youngest brother for a glass of water and told him to walk slowly. My dad quickly recovered and thanked me for being the only one who cared. If only it was that simple.
He came to a school play I starred in and told my mum how proud he was.
He pushed my mum through a glass door.
I can go on and on. Time passed and I had moved to my grandparents. It was like heaven. But young love drew me back home, I was fifteen and streetwise and had my first real romance.
I babysat at home once every blue moon, I dreaded it, they went out, got drunk, and kicked off. My dad had just had a hernia operation and was in recovery. They went out and I prayed. They had bought me a model kit of a boat, I made it and painted it. I didn’t wait for the different colors to dry, and they ran and made a different effect shall we say.
Who would have guessed a miss-painted model would be the trigger for the worst violence I had seen from my dad? They came in drunk, my mum went straight to the boat to praise me for how clever I had been with the colors. My dad called her stupid and pointed out I had messed it up. Mum was having none of it, I sat back not fighting. Mum scratched his chest, and he went mental, and I mean mental.
One of the rare treats we had was pop that came in really thick bottles. My dad picked one up and was about to hit my mum with it when he thought better of it and smashed it over his own head.
Mum didn’t take the hint and carried on arguing, he lifted a really heavy sliding door, all the fashion at the time, and threw it at my mum. Only the arms of the chairs saved her from serious injury. She told me to call the police, I disappeared and did. We never called the police before, I had a choice to make, fight him and protect my mum or not go back.
He had just had a hernia op one kick to the nuts job done, well that’s what the plan was. I marched back and put my shoes on.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Outside” shit now I’ve done it, we went outside. One chance, grab his arms, kick hard to the nuts.
It worked like a charm, I grabbed his arms and kicked him really hard.
Nothing, oh shit no plan b, I ran and believe me I was fast and he was straight behind me.
“I never give up,” he shouted, I didn’t stop to check, and two blocks later he did.
I went around to my mates but didn’t want to disturb them at that time. I stopped near a pub, then four blokes came out. Out of the frying pan into the fire, “What are you doing here?” one asked.
“My dad just kicked off”
“Did you call the police?” he asked, concerned.
“Yes but I have no idea what happened”
“I’ll call them for you, bloody useless” he did and ten minutes later a car with two coppers pulled up to take me home, they thanked the blokes who looked after me and took me home.
Well, that was the plan I thought, but they changed it.
“We will drop you at the top of the street and watch you walk down, you’ll be fine”
“Have you met my dad?”
“He’ll have calmed down now” they were afraid.
That walk felt like death row, I’d kicked the hornet’s nest now I have to deal with the hornets.
I got in and everything was calm, we spoke to each other and I went to bed, maybe I would get away with it.
The next morning everything was fine again. My friend came around and I thought that was it for now. I went upstairs to wash my hair in the sink.
I filled the sink and used a cup to rinse my hair, before I knew it my head was being pushed under the water, and I struggled to no avail. When I was finally allowed up for air, he told me “You ever do that again, I will kill you.” Then pressed my head underwater again. Point made.
He got older and I got stronger, but something strange happened. We started to get on, I had earned his respect, and we talked as equals.
He had enough problems with my younger brother and sister who he put both into care, tough love.
He became self-employed doing what he loved, gardening. It was going really well until he fused a bone in his back and a dream was stolen from him.
My sister was attracting attention from lads my age eighteen at the time, she was thirteen, my dad flipped, and he took a pickaxe to them, lucky he didn’t hit anyone, but the police were called.
The police told him he couldn’t do that, he needed to take the steel bit off and beat them with the shaft. It was a violent time with toxic views and I had been programmed for it.
Four years later my younger brother, seventeen at the time, took my dad on, and unsurprisingly he lost. He did, however, threaten my dad that I was going to come down and beat him up. I never said that or intended to. My dad never spoke to me again.
Mum visited me, I was learning fortune telling by playing cards at the time, and she asked me for a reading. I did the reading and she drew the king of diamonds and the ace of spades. I joked, that my stepdad would die and she would get the insurance.
My dad had a breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the last time I saw him he didn’t speak to me for the hour and a half I was there. He attempted suicide shortly after, my brother said it was straight after I left. He tried to hang himself and the rope broke, he had no luck.
He never recovered, and he was found dead on a train track three months later. An open verdict left more questions than answers.
But you know what?, I believe he loved us, and he was much better than his dad, life was tough and he had the wrong program. He gave me a choice of programs, but I had to get rid of the toxic self first, it took years.
I’m not sure I would have the confidence to be me without him, I feared no one, I didn’t expect to win every fight but they would know they had been in a fight. Having that to back me up, gave me the choice to walk away.
It feels strange but I feel positive about him. He deserved a better start, he tried his best, but life was just too much. Seeing his intent not being matched by the outcome, helped me be less harsh on myself with my own limitations.
During his illness, I started working at a mental health day center as a volunteer. I worked myself up to managing the center and training a generation of staff and wrote a volunteer package that is still used decades later. Light can always come out of the darkness.
Thanks for reading, if you want to support me, buy me a coffee, or subscribe to the Creator within. Thank you.
Thanks to Wes Spindler for his story that led to mine.
