Scribblings

Why Stay?

When I was a teenager, I used to pray that my parents would get a divorce. I didn’t think about the consequences of being in a broken family. I just wanted the fighting and drinking to stop. I used to wonder why my mother would stay in an unhappy marriage.

Eventually I learned that she felt trapped and had no where else to go.

For a time, she tried.

I’ll never forget this one night as I was getting ready to move from Baltimore to Laurel, MD. I was to start a new job on the campus of Gallaudet College (then the only liberal arts college for the deaf in the world). I was going to move in with my parents until I was settled enough to get my own place.

My mother came to the door of the apartment my friend Alice and I were sharing. She’d left my father. I don’t remember if he’d been hitting her or just arguing with her.

I was very upset but more because of my plans going right down the toilet … and I was starting my new job in just 2 days! I’ve learned to roll with the punches and think fast over the years … there was always some crisis that needed to be resolved. I called my friend and previous supervisor, Esther, and explained what happened. Esther thinks fast, too, and by the end of the evening, my mom and I had a place to stay across the street from the college.

I was feeling very relieved about finding an alternate living place so fast. It didn’t bother me that this house was in a crummy neighborhood. My mother just mostly seemed dazed.

My father found us within a day or so of us moving into the house. My brother had helped us move in. He’d clearly been upset about it. Maybe he told my father where the house was. All I know is, he showed up at my new office and said my mother was moving back to the apartment in Laurel and that my brother and friends were moving all our stuff out.

I was taken aback. I was also a bit annoyed. Here I’d gone to all this trouble for my mother and she turned around and went back to my dad! It didn’t make sense to me.

Now here is an interesting ‘coincidence’. My mother ‘fell’ on the stairs at this house in Washington. Was it while my father was there? Probably. In fact, I’m inclined to think she did not fall down any stairs.

My dad was at work when I got to the apartment in Laurel. My mother was on the couch, obviously in a great deal of pain. She wouldn’t let me call a doctor and refused when I offered to drive her to the emergency room. She was having trouble breathing. I picked up the phone and called an ambulance.

She had several broken ribs which caused her lung to collapse. She was in the ICU for several days before being moved to a regular room.

My father was as sweet as pie. My mom just looked resigned.

She did try leaving him a few other times after that. She had deaf friends that would urge her to get out, that she didn’t have to live that way and so on. By then, I’d moved out and was on my own. I just couldn’t handle the environments. Anyway, my mom would take refuge at a friend’s house and my father would track her down. She’d end up going back to him. My father then destroyed the friendship between my mother and whoever had given her refuge.

She lost several dear friends that way.

Once she told me it was useless to try and get away. She said my father would always find her no matter what so what was the use? I tried to convince her that she did not have to go back with him. She’d shrug and say, where else could I go? She couldn’t stay with the friends forever and she had no money, no car, yadda yadda. I said she could go to her sister’s on Long Island. My aunt would never get rid of her. That’s exactly why my mother would never do it. She was always afraid my father would ruin the loving relationship between her and her sister.

So there you have it.

Many times, I think to myself no matter what, I would not ever live my life like my mother. I would find a way to stay away. I would like to think I would walk away and stay away from a relationship like that. I don’t know … but maybe the fact that I would not get into a relationship like that in the first place shows I learned something from that dysfunctional relationship.

My parents are still together. They can’t live without each other. I’m amazed.