The Longest Road: Finding Peace With the Past - By Maureen Lyttle

Chapter 1: The Primal Wound

My father died when I was 6 years old. My mother, 8 months pregnant with my father's 10th child, buried him & never spoke of him again.

What I didn't realize that day, nor would I fully comprehend for the next 34 years, was that she also buried all 9 of her surviving children. We were just too close to her pain. We would all survive, of course, but the damage would be, for the most part, irreparable.

I remember the day as if it were yesterday.

It was a hot, sunny day in June. We had driven to the hospital, a neighbor & my mother in the front seat & my younger sister Kathy, then 4 years old, in the back with me. My mother & the neighbor got out in a hurry, leaving my sister & me alone.

As time went by, I felt anxious & overly warm in the back seat of the old car. I didn't understand, nor could I possibly comprehend, the tragic event that had just taken place within the confines of the hospital.

My little sister squirmed beside me, wanting to get out. We were both restless & I began to feel very uncomfortable & distressed, waiting for mother to return. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, they reappeared.

Slumped over & weeping uncontrollably, my mother stumbled towards the car, supported on either side by a stranger. I was terrified seeing my mother like this & desperately needed an explanation as to what had happened. Not a word was forthcoming.

She stooped to enter the car & smashed her head against the door frame. I sat there, dazed, thinking how much that must have hurt & why didn't she cry out in pain.

My younger sister whimpered beside me & I held on to her tightly. Something very important had just happened & I had to try hard to remember this. It would affect me the rest of my life. Try as I might, I can't remember the car ride home.

We were gathered in the living room & everyone was deathly quiet. My brothers & sisters had been taken out of school & we all stood awkwardly about, confused & not knowing what to do. There was a neighbor in the room with us, which was heavy with gloom & semi-dark.

No one thought to turn on a light. There were none of the usual sounds of supper being prepared coming from the kitchen. A strange & eery silence permeated the old house as darkness enveloped us. We huddled with the 2 youngest children, who cried in vain for their mother.

She was weeping in the next room, but we were restrained from seeing her. I wandered from room to room, talking to myself, numb with shock. Still no one comforted me.

A few days later we were dressed in our Sunday best, bonnets & all & taken to the funeral home where my father was laid out. He was pasty looking & when I was held up to kiss him a final good-bye, he was cold & stiff to the touch. I didn't cry. Nor did I understand why some of the relatives were weeping & making such a fuss.

I was traumatized over these proceedings & remained silent. Perhaps they thought I was too young to understand. In any event, I had been forgotten & no one bothered to tell me he had died.

The others knew. I stood quietly in the church next to my older sister Patricia, who was 8 at the time. She was crying broken heartedly.
"Why aren't you crying?" she demanded of me, painfully jabbing me in the side with her elbow. "You're supposed to be crying!"

I stood there, confused & numb with shock, unable to utter a word.

I don't remember any gravesite service, nor do I remember the days that followed. In fact, I don't remember much of anything else except being very much alone that summer.

I didn't miss him. He was rarely home anyway & occasionally I witnessed him coming home late in a state of drunkenness & it terrified me. I didn't know at the time he was intoxicated or what that actually was or why he fell on the floor, unable to get up.

I was quickly ushered back to bed with a lollipop for comfort. My mother & older brothers helped him into bed & nothing was ever said about it. I couldn't understand why I got a special treat for witnessing him drunk.

Mostly, my father spent time with his boys working on the old Studebaker in the backyard. He never spent time with me, except on one occasion that I can remember. He was working on an old engraving machine in the basement, making broaches with Royal Air Force inscriptions engraved into them.

I watched in wonderment as the swirl of brightly-coloured paint was carefully placed into the carving. I felt special standing next to him, intently watching him work. I didn't realize at the time that he was an artist, and later on in my life, I would become one as well. I did not have to have dinner with the rest of my siblings upstairs when mother called down to me.

"She's with me, mother!" he answered. Indeed, those few precious moments would never leave my memory, for he never spent time with me again. A massive heart attack claimed his life shortly thereafter.

Summer came & went. I played alone or with my younger sister Kathy. Mother had given birth just 1 month earlier & was extremely busy with the 10th baby. All of her time was spent with Josephine. Although I felt very much alone, I never complained.

Instead, Kathy & I were free to roam & occupied ourselves running across 17th Avenue, the busy roadway that ran from the city core to the poorer outskirts on the southeastern edge of the city. The road ran right in front of our dilapidated, old house with the run-down, weather-beaten fence.

I held Kathy's hand & we ran across the road, laughing. When traffic cleared, we similarly darted back to the other side, breathless & laughing harder. Many times we did this, each time finding it more exhilarating than the last. We had discovered a new game - playing on the road, in the traffic.

A police car approached.

"Where do you live?" one of the officers demanded of me in a very stern voice.

Afraid to speak, I pointed across the road. Unfortunately, we were caught on the wrong side of the street.

"Get on home & don't run across the road again!" was the strict admonishment.

The blood crept into my face & for the first time in my very young life, I felt shame. My sister & I scampered back across the road & as I nervously glanced back over my shoulder, I saw the police car drive away slowly, checking our progress.

Time for a new game, Kathy. No, we can't run back across the street. Why not? Just because.

When I was older & recalled this memory I would laugh, but there would come a time when I cried like a baby, wondering why on earth a 6 year old child was taking care of a 4 year old. Who the hell was taking care of me?

I was, in effect, at the tender young age of 6, my own little parent.
Because I hadn't yet received my First Holy Communion, I would sometimes be allowed to stay home from Sunday mass. I delighted in making the beds & tidying the house, as best a 6 year old can do.

In my young mind, I thought it would make my mother happy. But it never worked.

Those 2 months after my father's death were the loneliest of my young life.

I looked forward with anticipation to my first day of school & getting away from the sadness that permeated the place called home.

Finally, the first day of school arrived. I was able to find my class & approached my grade one teacher, Mother Gemma, with trepidation. I had never seen a nun before & her black habit scared me. She asked me several questions & finally asked me about my father.

Remembering my mother's careful instructions of the previous night, I answered her nervously:

"He passed away."

I wasn't even sure what the words meant. I only knew he was gone. After that day, I became the teacher's pet. At least once a week, Mother Gemma would collect all the sweet desserts from the teachers during lunch hour, put them in a white box tied with string & keep me after class.

She would give me the treats & tell me to take them home to share with my brothers & sisters. Dutifully, I wouldn't eat any of them but would bring them all home to my mother. I would gleefully present them to her, so very proud of my accomplishment, thinking: This will surely make her happy! But it never worked. She stayed sad.

Does Your Childhood Hold You Back? - By Jo Ball

Have you come to a point in your life and got stuck and unable to move on?

I’ve been shocked recently to discover how many women and men have suffered one trauma or another during childhood, in particular the amount that have been through abuse.

The experience of abuse, at an age when it would be impossible to know how to handle it, is horrific, be it beatings, humiliation or sexual abuse. These experiences stay with many children, through their teens right into adulthood, bringing up insecurity, anxiety jealousy and even threatening or violent behaviour patterns throughout life.

And maybe it’s here that your life gets stuck. In day-to-day situations where you feel insecure, anxious, jealous or violent you’ll probably revert to a behaviour pattern that you learned in your childhood. When you use that to deal with a current issue this is what you do…

You react – withdrawing or lashing out – even though you know the current situation has nothing to do with what is happening now, and before you know it you have lost an opportunity.

In the aftermath regret and depression set in. You might ask why this happens to you and why life is such a mess and why, every time things seem to get better something comes along and stops you from progressing. Within it all you might even be searching for the meaning and point of life.

If you search for the meaning and point to life and are stopped just knowing and believing the three points below is a very good foundation for your future.

1. I want to tell you that whatever life has dealt you up to this point, that your future can be brighter.

2. I want to tell you that you do possess a unique gift. I also want to tell you that you have a distinctive way of expressing that gift.

3. What might well have happened is that that gift has been buried underneath all the other confusion and chaos.

The last few years of my life have been dedicated to helping people from all walks of life, with all kinds of childhood and adult issues. The moments when they overcome what previously stopped them is very powerful. Their stories are amazing.

Whatever it is that stops you in life right now I hope this article has helped.

Love & best Wishes

Jo Ball (LCA, Dip)
Coach & Founder, Unstoppable Life