Shadows from my past: She is a beautiful young woman with a beautiful little girl. When she called me, she asked if I would store her things because she was going to jail. When I got to her place, she had them all packed and ready for me to put in my truck. It was a pitifully small amount of possessions. She had lost so much so many times because of the booze and drugs, because of so many unworthy men in her life.
So many like this young woman were led into drinking by alcoholism in the family, among the men she dated and lived with. Booze and drugs are “a monster of frightful mien.” But the monster, when embraced, shows its true character by destroying people.
She was drunk when I arrived at the decrepit mobile where she lived, a structure that looked like it should be condemned; the typical residence reeking of the poverty of the hopeless. She had to have done the packing a good deal earlier since she was thoroughly incapable of doing so now. I've had a lot of experience with drunks. I lived with an alcoholic whom I loved deeply. I got my real education in alcoholism from her.
I watched this girl who was facing jail as she literally rolled in the bare, dry dirt of the yard in 98 degree heat playing with three, large dogs. She didn't even notice or care that her beautiful, long hair was flaying about in the dirt. She was wearing shorts and I could see her lovely legs were bruised and scratched from running into objects and by the claws of the dogs.
It literally broke my heart to watch her. Here was a beautiful, young woman who was a beautiful person when sober; loving, sensitive and intelligent. But when drunk, I had witnessed a Jekyll and Hyde personality. The Hyde personality was ugly, loud, vulgar and combative, the result of a hideously abusive childhood and an equally abusive adulthood. When drunk, the bitterness, anger and pain, the awareness of her own self destructive behavior, her self-loathing and loss of hope would come pouring out.
Raucous music was blaring from a cassette player. She was going to jail and said she wanted to enjoy her last bit of freedom. The booze and the loud noise, rolling in the bare dirt with dogs were her idea of enjoying her freedom. She knows I'm a writer. She has read my Birds book. She once told me she wept over nearly every page. I've had several women, tragically, tell me the same thing.
I know better, by my knowledge and experience of the diabolical, than to remain any longer than necessary to place her things in my truck. I know I'm at risk even being there while she's so drunk. But I'm thinking of her little girl. At least her little girl won't lose everything this time by my taking care of her things.
Until you see a beautiful, young woman rolling drunkenly in the dirt with a bunch of dogs licking and pawing, biting and scratching her, seen her turn mean, vulgar and ugly, you haven't seen Pope's Monster vice of frightful mien. Until you have seen children suffering from the Monster, the Beast, suffering watching a mother or father in such a condition as this beautiful, young woman, suffering from the loss of love, suffering too often the abuse, molestation’s, even their torture and murder, you haven't seen the Monster, you know nothing of the diabolical.
This took place on a Sunday afternoon. It was Monday morning when I got the call from the Sheriff's detention facility. It was the young woman. She asked if I could please come and get her since charges were not going to be brought against her and she was going to be released. I asked where her little girl was? She said with friends. I shuddered at that. It could mean anything.
When I picked her up, she was still wearing the same dirty shorts and blouse she had been wearing while rolling in the dirt Sunday. She was a real mess. But she was sober now. The first priority was the little girl. Since I knew the Chaplain at the facility I had him intervene to get a message to the young woman about my concern for her little girl and good man that he is, he hastened the release of her mother.
She asked if I could please give another young woman who had just been released a ride into town. Many people released from the detention center have no one to help them, not even to give them a ride into town. Since it was on our way, I agreed. As we drove, the other young woman said she had heard of my proposed amendment. She said if that had been the law when she was a child, perhaps she wouldn't have been molested as a little girl and maybe her life would have been different. She said she would tell others about the amendment and I could count on her support, to let her know if there was anything she could do to help.
I know, of course, that while she means well she will probably go right back into the kind of life that caused her to be jailed. That repeating cycle of hopelessness that has its roots so many times in molestation and other forms of child abuse. What chance do such children have as adults?
After dropping the other woman off, I stopped to get a couple of items. One was a Shelly Doll for the little girl. I knew this would help soften the reunion of mother and daughter. Another item was a compact game kit containing things like checkers and chess. Then we went immediately to pick up the little girl. But there was some confusion as to her whereabouts. It took almost two hours of scouring neighborhoods before the young woman recognized the correct area and we found the right house.
I knew I was committed to having the young woman and her little girl as houseguests. They had nowhere else to go except back to the same environment where a drunken couple the two were living with would only precipitate the same crisis.
Once back at my place, the young woman and her little girl were able to eat and bathe. We did laundry so they had clean clothes. The young woman doesn't have anything but gives me her jail slippers saying maybe I could use them since they were too big for her anyhow. When she was arrested, they took her away in her dirty clothes and no shoes. But she was too drunk at the time to notice or care. It was very late by now and I made up the sofa sleeper in my living room for the two of them and we all went to bed exhausted.
The following day was consumed by making the rounds of places like Social Services. The couple that had the young woman arrested had forged her signature in order to steal her food stamps. That meant a visit to the Sheriff's office as well. I'm all too familiar with this routine. Then, a trip to the clinic for physicals and a check for things like head lice. We stop at the grocery store for some much needed food items.
Children have different priorities than adults. It's summer. It's very hot. I had a strategy for doing some work after sunset this first, full day with the three of us together when it became cooler. But the little girl had another priority, the fishpond in the back yard. At the beginning of summer I usually clean the pond and reset my pump to circulate water creating a small waterfall. The birds and animals really enjoy this. But I had procrastinated and the job remained to be done.
Because of the urging of the little girl, the pond became the evening's priority. And, sure enough, with her helping, the pond was cleaned, filled with fresh water; the pump was in place and operating before nightfall. But I had to admit that her sense of the priorities was better than mine.
The three of us had two, full days together. I was calling a number of people and agencies to try to get help for more suitable living arrangements for them. But the toll on the young woman was dreadful. She was an alcoholic and not being able to drink was stressing her out considerably. Her mood swings were increasingly severe and typical of the alcoholic going through withdrawal.
But she wouldn't agree to AA or a rehab program so I wasn't surprised when she asked me to take her and her little girl back to the same place with the two drunks that had precipitated her arrest and stole her food stamps. There was no choice for me. You don't reason with an addict. They will sell their souls and their children's souls for a drink or fix. In the case of this young woman, I knew it was a dead end when she accused me of being more concerned for her little girl than I was for her. When a parent's priorities are that badly skewed, you know you've done all you can.
But I warned her that if any harm should come to her little girl, I'd make sure all three adults would go to prison and there would never be any more help from me. My major fear is the risk of molestation and other forms of abuse to which the little girl is at hazard from the alcoholism of her mother. Such lifestyles are a major factor in all forms of child abuse.
With a heavy heart I took them back to the hellhole where I knew a beautiful, young woman would be drunkenly rolling in the dirt with dogs once more. But I've informed neighbors and the proper agencies to keep watch for anything that threatened the little girl. Social Services and CPS have provided for periodic visits. I've done all I can do. And, as always in such cases, it isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough. But I'm a well-trained and experienced Behaviorist. I was able to do one thing of substantial value in the short time this young mother and her little girl were with me. I was able to get the young mother to heartily resent me. There is a therapeutic value, at times, in the kind of resentment I fostered in this young woman. But only someone with a great deal of experience with such people dares practice using such a mechanism.
She knew that I was fully aware of the kind of men she consorted with. She had told me so much of her own past, had poured out her heart to me and wept for her little girl and the kind of life her drinking had exposed the child to that she became vulnerable to suspicion of my using such intimate knowledge against her, of throwing it into her face as others had done.
People will react in different ways to genuine charity and love. They may well be properly grateful or they may resent, even hate the benefactor; but to the therapy of resentment. It began with my being the only one she could call who would pick her up from the detention center, then buying the doll and game kit for her little girl on our way to pick her up. It was furthered by the things I provided for her and her little girl, the many places I took them so the mother could start getting some necessary priorities attended to. But more than anything else, it was my interacting with her little girl that will be burned into the young woman's memory.
We are sitting in the Social Services office, waiting for someone to talk to the young woman. Her little girl has the game kit with her and asks if I would like to play a game of checkers? Sure. We set up the board and play a game of checkers with the diminutive pieces. Then I suggest teaching her to play chess. I show her how to set up the pieces and explain a few of the primary moves each piece can make. She is fascinated; she's an exceptionally intelligent little girl with the kind of hurtful maturity that comes from the loss of so much of a normal childhood and the kind of life she has been forced to live with drugs, alcoholism, welfare, and various men in and out of her mother's life and no father. Her mother is watching intently as her little girl and I enjoy the games. A scene burned into her memory.
Back at my house, I show the little girl how to use my computer. She writes a paragraph about a large bunny rabbit. But I'm not surprised that the rabbit is a monster with huge fangs and part of a child's nightmare. This little girl has had a lot of nightmares and no baby bunnies or ducks. One part really rips at my heart where she writes: “That's my mom, she's ok.” She has an excellent gift of language and imagination. She could easily become a writer. And her mother is watching the interchange, the bonding if you will, between her little girl and me. More memories. There is the fishpond episode. Her mother watches as her little girl and I clean the pond and get it set up. More memories.
We are all sitting at the kitchen table and her little girl proudly tells me about a loose baby tooth. She says she has lost almost all of them and has nearly all her adult teeth. Such things are real events in a child's life. I'm glad she thinks we are close enough for her to share such a momentous and personal event. I'd be happy to play tooth fairy once more. But she's too old to go for that, I think sadly.
Then, suddenly, the image of that drunken woman trying to hand me her bloody tooth pops into my mind and I wince, thinking of this little girl and her future surrounded by booze and drugs, of vile men in her mother's life; the perversity of memory; the natural fears of people who care about children.
She asks if we can try playing another game of chess? She is properly intrigued with the game and is anxious to learn it. I say, sure. I'm grateful to shake off the fearful, mental images. In no time, the little girl is learning the proper moves of each piece. She is a very quick learner. Her mother watches us together. More memories.
I show the little girl my karaoke machine. I put on a tape and sing her a song. No man she has ever known has sung to her. She smiles in a shyly delighted way through the whole song. Her mother watches and listens. More memories. In a very short time, the little girl is asking if there is anything she can do in the house or yard to help me. The desire of a child to please those who take an interest in them can be heart rending. I purposely come up with a couple of things so the little girl can feel she has returned my kindness to her. More memories.
I share a few of the stories I used to tell my own children of my pioneer life as a child in the wilderness. The little girl is fascinated, as all children are, with my life and adventures in the forest with the critters. More memories. By now I'm sure the reader must have gotten the point.
No matter what the future holds in the life of this young woman, the mental pictures of her little girl and me, the things we did together are etched permanently into her mind. And they will be nightmares to her until she quits drinking and gets her life in order. This little girl will be wondering, even asking, why she and her mother can't have the kind of life I presented to them? Proper attention to her as a child, the lack of alcohol and vulgar language in the home, the chance to learn and explore without loss of patience by adults, no being screamed at, no drunkenness, fighting or abuse. And her mother won't have an answer. Children are very perceptive; this little girl especially so.
With every drunken episode, the mother's resentment of me will grow; her pain for her little girl and what she is doing to her will get deeper. The memories; the mental pictures of that child and me together doing the normal things a parent should do with a child will become ever more vivid. She will resent me for my judging her without my saying a word of condemnation not realizing that it will be she herself doing the judging; and, her little girl.
The hoped for effect of such therapy of resentment is obvious. It may be the very thing, which will enable this young woman to get her act together, and her life on the right track. She will, I fervently pray, try to prove me wrong about her; that is, prove me wrong in the light of her perception of what she believes I think about her and she will try to “Show Me!”
But with addiction, I have learned there are never any guarantees. Only hope, hope that the torment and nightmares of the memories of her little girl and me together will become greater than the torment and nightmares of going without the booze and drugs.
