So, I debated for a long time over whether to write anything like this in a public forum, but ultimately I decided that I should. I won’t go into my reasons for putting this online, but I have them.
Over the past month or so, I’ve had more contact with my dad than I’ve had in the last 15 years. It all started as a random Google search adventure, when I stumbled across his MySpace page. Out of what amounts to an excess of curiosity, I added him as a friend so that I could read all the blog posts he had written.
So, I read the posts and the stories and the comments, and i can’t seem to take them at face value. To read the online persona, he’s a family practice physician living in the south, dedicated to his family, a backwoods boy who’s living in town, and pretty much loved by all those around him.
The trouble is, I can’t take it at face value. When I was a kid growing up, there were two versions of my dad…the one that lived behind closed doors with my family, and the one that the rest of the world got to see.
The public face back then was very much the same as the online persona I see today…a thoughtful guy who’d do anything for his friends, who loves the outdoors, and who’s dedicated to teaching his kids about responsibility and morals.
The private face was different. It was a tense household. I won’t speak for anyone else in the house, but I was often afraid of him. If you broke the wrong rule at the wrong time, it would result in discipline that involved pants around my ankles and a belt across my butt. Alcohol often fueled mood swings where he often tried to paint himself as the family martyr, and I remember some especially unethical activity that I won’t describe here.
Shortly after connecting our accounts on MySpace, pictures from my online presence showed up on his website with captions that, to my eye, implied he and I had a relationship. And on one level, I don’t (or shouldn’t care)…I mean, who cares what’s on a freakin’ MySpace page? On the other hand, it’s symptomatic of the same public/private facade that I remember.
So, I asked him to remove the pictures.
Now I’ve triggered this bizzare back-and-forth where I’ve been deemed judgmental and unwilling to accept that people can change. So now I’m in a position where I’m the bad guy if I don’t let everything go, but on the other hand, I’ve seen nothing to indicate a true change.
On one hand, I have memories of a man who beat me, once pinned me up against a wall to say, “you’ll probably just end up a faggot,” and cut my family loose for fifteen years so that he could re-marry and develop a new family while essentially ignoring his first one.
On the other hand, I have an intense desire to let the baggage go and just be done with so much of that past that still defines me today. I often hold my behavior as a husband against my memories of him, and I often compare other people’s fathers with him as a barometer of what’s “right” within a family. Nevermind my Christian belief in forgiveness and mercy and second chances.
How do I reconcile this?
It’s one thing to forgive, and I like to think I’ve done that. But forgiveness doesn’t imply that those you have forgive have changed their ways. Nor does it imply an obligation to open oneself to the possiblity of getting hurt again.
Perhaps it was dumb to let me curiosity start us down this path. I used to pride myself on having let all of it go. On the other hand, I’m still tormented by that past and the fear that aspects of his personality will resonate in my own relationships. Perhaps I should let this non-relationship slip away again. I dunno, I’m very up in the air over this.
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July 15, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Paige
I strongly admire your thought process and opening up about this publicly. I was curious about this subject as I saw a comment from him on my FB feed. It must be so difficult to process. You’re doing it. Forge ahead. Don’t avoid it. Work through it however you need to. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t feel how you feel!
July 16, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Robb
I hope you’re not beating yourself up about this. For me it boils down to this: he says he has changed, but when given the opportunity to prove it his actions prove the exact opposite. In only one month or so it sounds like he has gone from zero to successfully manipulating you with the same passive/aggressive/martyr behavior you talked about from your childhood. This behavior is supposed to convince you to give him another chance?
You googled him and reached out to him, so I would encourage you not to drop him – it sounds like you have a need there to at least understand the guy and perhaps resolve some of this “baggage.” But keep it on your terms – ask him to take the pics down and stand your ground going forward. As you say, there is a huge difference between forgiveness and coming back for more abuse. I’d encourage you to try to proceed, but if he can’t allow you to do this on your terms and not his, you have no obligation to pursue it or to explain yourself to him or anyone else.
October 18, 2008 at 5:30 am
ol' doc wes
This is so surreal…the inuendos on the profiles you post…as I was posting the following story I ran across you “HooeyFlooy site and read the above comments. I’m guilty! However I believe it notable to relate in accuracy. It’s apparently easy to imply perfection when looking at one’s self especially when the whole story isn’t shown and particularly from a time so long ago. I can see you also have those which love you and apparently ‘care’. I do take issue with some of your statements while truly believing I have my faults and definitely had lots in the past. Let’s tell the whole story: Your Mother, Martha…the one and only love of my life…never did I ever date anyone else. She was my teacher in high school from the ninth grade. I fell in love with her. There is lots of stories about our past…I was 14. I believe if I stated everything it would only fuel folk’s imagination and make it sound dirty…it wasn’t. It was a true love affair that persisted. She was always kind and warm and a true lady. The conversations were endless. She an only child and in looking back in life knowing the puritan fundamental household..’Conservative Mennonite’ in which I was raised, we were meant for each other. There was always strict discipline as I grew up. I had the belt across my butt many times for discipline by my father…Vaughn Wesley Marner…it was always a leather belt…ask Ramona, ask Ranita, ask your Momma how life was in my home growing up…even she knows…that was the example I learned for discipline from little up and was the ‘model’ for which I believed children should be raised. Ask your mother to really tell you how I was. Our early life and household was much different then the picture of the one you have painted our life as being before our family broke up. We loved and respected each other and you know it. Her parents loved me and took me in as ‘their son’…I cared for them both even to the end. They both died in my arms of cancer. Your granny George (Shortey) even died in my arms while your mother was gone because she couldn’t ‘take’ it as she was dying…I left my position at Residency training to go home to care for her and her dying words were, “Wes, I love you.” “Please always remind Josh about me because he won’t remember me.” “Bo and Ashley will.”….I promised her.
With regard to how I am…you are right I am a ‘backwoods’ country boy…there ain’t nothing ‘redneck’ about me however. I do NOT live in town. You imply ” I cut my first family loose and ignored them”. This is absolutely an untruth. Pull out the letters, the pictures, the cards I sent repeatedly…or did you ever ‘get’ them…they went on for years. Let’s go back and talk to the pastor at the Baptist church you and our family attended in Staunton…I even tried to elicit his help in establishing communications because you and the rest shut off all communication. You then changed churches. The move you guys made even forced me into a position that wouldn’t allow me the rightful visitation to which I was entitled. I am a family practitioner. Staff privileges require call…every other night and every other weekend and I’ve done it for years with out help…in a small town. This effectively kept me from traveling 700 miles to ‘get to see’ my children for a weekend. I even took pilots training thinking I could fly it easier in order to get to visit my children..
Its obviously easy to imply you were forgotten. You weren’t. You, me, and all of us were angry. Why was I so angry?…despite the differences that came between your Momma and me..the greatest was that my children were tucked away in the mountains of Virginia….900 miles from Mississippi and 700 miles from where I now have lived for the last 15 years as you said. You definitely weren’t forgotten. I have never missed a month sending a child support check for you, your siblings and have still done so to this very month. $1800 a month, every month until you turned 18 when I mistakenly deducted $600 as you and Ashley reached “of age” as I thought the court documents stated. Turns out it had to occur by adjudication by the court…so I made up the lump sum almost 4 years ago to your mother…$12000 and in addition $350 dollars a month for the last three years to sum total of $25000. This does not include the $1075 that I have continued to pay monthly in child support payment for Joshua your younger brother to this day. ..and the court and attorney fees. I’ve never missed a payment only visitation to which I was entitled and so effectively stopped by sheer distance. I still work three jobs to furnish the finances.
Start a new family. I have people in my life and am remarried. You have met my wife and know she’s a jewel and loves me. Treats me well. You know Hunter. You bet. I disciplined him too and laid a strap across his butt more then once. Ask him, I just know he will tell you. Difference is he appreciates being the ‘man’ he has become. He loves me too and reinforces it frequently. There is communication always. With you there has been none since the time you stood in my doorway ‘telling me’ what I was going to do with Josh. You were trying to act like his ‘daddy’ and tell me what to do. I calmly told you…any discussion about Joshua would be between your Mother and me. Not you. I may be wrong but I don’t think you have communicated with me since.
Do I have my faults? Resoundingly yes! Remember in the school at Carson City when I went and talked to you teacher because at 8 or 9 years old I didn’t believe you should be in an ‘adults computer course’. She convinced me you could do it and I signed you up and you were top of the class. Do I remember alcohol. Yes, trouble came and so did the alcohol. I escaped and unfortunately it did influence my behavior as it does yours or anyone’s. This however was only the last part of our lives together. If I could change history I would. You know as well as I that can’t be done.
You can’t tell if there is real change, forgiveness doesn’t mean the behavior has changed. You are right. You however wouldn’t know one iota as you have not allowed any communication. I even delivered a computer to your home so Josh and I could at least ‘stay’ in touch. I brought the computer guy to Virginia with me to set it up. I still have the pictures of that day. You, Wes II effectively shut it down so that Josh who didn’t have a clue at his young tender age could even use it to do so. Was I angry….you bet!….Let some one steal Kevo away from you and see how you feel. That’s family that won’t be recouped. It’s gone and will continue to be unless the two men we are today have lines of communication with each other. It takes two and I continue to stand ready. You can lead with inuendos if you please, I won’t because I don’t mince words. I am the same man at home that I am in public and my doors are still open.
Have I talked ugly…you bet. Those words, “Faggot” if you recall were muttered often under your breath often…I heard them and you know it. Ask about a father’s anger, I had one. No more, you are a man and on your own. If you and Kevin ever desire and want the opportunity to raise a child, I hope ya’ll do better then me. I certainly did not do a good job as a father. Life has given me experience and has taught a lot. I hope if nothing else, my experience and your memories serve to do you a better experience in your exercise. Yes, public as your commenter stated…good to ‘get it out’…and I hope your barometer improves rather you choose to keep lines of communication open or not….I still love ya!…even though the biggest memories I have were of stinky diapers I changed when you were a ‘premie’ and your mother didn’t know how. I did I was a nurse…I guess I just wasn’t a father. Passive/aggressive…I’m well read in psy. Books too. It’s not. The picture you paint would make me think so…I was just damnned angry…no more…that battle is past…..Dad (aka: ol’ doc wes)….myspace url: myspace.com/wesleydmarner
By the way…long ago on MySpace I publicly acknowledged there was no relationship between us. I still desire it and highly doubt you could be hurt by it….seems some ‘baggage’ needs to be set down.
October 17, 2008
Rumination…
Midnight is only a short while away and I’ve contemplated more time spent awake as the weekend has arrived. There is no absolute need for short order sleep. Saturday will come shortly and the privilege of sleeping until I wake is on the agenda. Five to six hours will occur according to the time clock in my head regardless of the time my eyes close. Wanda Marie is happy and gently asleep on the couch. The food channel still plays. I believe it must be her music. Jack and Dakota lay asleep at my feet and Jody is exercising his nocturnal behaviors. The cool night air speaks loudly of fall’s arrival. On call has been easy so far noting only two calls this evening since the clinic closed. This is unusual and shy of the the usual ten by this time of the night. I am blessed. I’ve again read the stories previously sent by my friend James Steely who recently passed. I read humor in his words of distant times. I recounted the steps of ol’ Blue, the mule. I noted the story of Uncle Ed ‘spittin on the wall’ and just know the wall isn’t on fire. The ‘spit’ didn’t fry. I can just feel the britches of the little boy turning ‘hot’ if he hadn’t gone to bed as he was told while James Earl was a little youngn’ growing up in Eufaula. That year was 1938, July the eight. I live in 2008. I hear the words of the pastor sayin, “Wes stole my thunder.” As the congregation in an unusual action during a funeral stood and gave a standing ovation at the pastor’s request, I knew it was James Earl’s material. That was the reason for stealing thunder as the pastor had experienced the same man I had. I only got to speak first. James Earl had given us both and probably many others the same material I had presented in eulogy of my friend. I miss him. I just know that wisdom has departed in his passing. I compare that to another friend I had that passed so many years ago. My father was that friend.
Dad was not an educated man, but knowledgeable. He was a loving soul. So many memories and stories exist of our past as a family. All was not perfect. I remember the good. Years have given me that. I sit and ruminate about two men in my life that were products of different era. They arrive from different environments. They arrive from different background. I muse that is as we all do. I remember the pastor saying this man was not perfect. I heard him say mistakes were made. He presented resoundingly that man changed for years before God took him home to the kind of man desirable. He appreciated publicly the product of a life that had developed honorable meaning. That meaning is the substance to which I ruminate tonight. I remember the same kind of service for my father and standing before the congregation to read a poem about the ‘Shoes He Wore’ behind the open casket from the podium at Jones Chapel in the Clarkdale community. I knew less then half of the several hundred that had attended Dad’s funeral. I remember Mom worrying about the fluids that leaked from his mouth as folks filed by his casket. I pulled a hanky from my pocket and wiped it away to put her worries to ease. I search and desire the same ‘ease’.
So many times the subject comes up. When feelings are raw and bereavement occurs so many things left unsaid are known. “Hind sight is always 2o/2o.” Daddy so often told me. My vision is clear as I sit tonight at the stroke of twelve. Peace is here from his pearls of wisdom. They are confirmed by stories of his past. Stories of family less then pretty exist. I recall the stories about my grandpa Vaughn Jacob Marner. Of all the stories, one I remember best about a man that died before my birth was of a drunken evening he came home and had his socks and gloves nailed to the floor with his feet and hands in them by my grandmother Lola who then beat him severely with a homemade broom. He apparently became a ‘changed’ man due to a stout prairie gal that made him. His life represented something much more before he died much later in life.
I don’t know a lot of James Earl’s early life or mistakes he made as a younger man. I don’t need too. I know the life he lived the last fifteen years that I’ve known him. It was good. He had children that live at a distance, as far away as Olathe, Kansas. They had memories of their Dad from years gone by. I watched as I spoke from the podium, James Earl’s children as they mourned the loss of a good man.
As I remember these episodes I also know that life’s circumstances are different for us all, including me. We judge who we are and what we become by our interest and desires as we walk through life. I can just hear Sarah scolding me as I spoke one time of not measuring up to my father as I used him as a measuring stick. I had noted I didn’t and could never measure up in my use of him as an example. The judgment and the measure of a man is in what he is and not what he is as compared to another. We are our own worst critic. I am reminded of that tonight as I write.
I am now the father and not the child. As a father I look at myself and see shortcomings. I see mistakes and failure. I see guilt of a past that is not good. I have no excuse except the fact that I lived it wrong. I find solace in knowing my heart even in the absence of children alienated. I find solace in a life that is now lived as it should. It ain’t perfect and I work at it daily. I see a ‘mirror’ of me as I look at pictures and read. I hear the ‘mirror’ in words from my first wife, Martha. I feel the disdain from unforgiving children. I feel the rebellion in my own children that I also dished out heavily to my own folks at my kids age without as much reason. I experience the ‘pain’ they knowingly offer me just as I did my own parents. I feel the disappointments they undoubtedly deservingly push my way. They should know how to do so very well. My children’s father was practiced in the art. I must have taught them well.
Just as my growing up years were scarred and tumultuous, so have been my own kids. I remember occurrences and relations tormented by mistakes. I remember Daddy leaving home and knowing his heart ache, I ran out of the house to stop him because I knew in my heart he wouldn’t be back if he left. I remember a man I viewed as ‘a whipped puppy’ by Momma for a long time for mistakes not near as grave as mine years later. I vowed as a lad that would never be me. Christian principles didn’t apply in my mind dealing with those times. That was only life in jeopardy. Dad turned out alright and I am glad he was my best friend on his deathbed. Mom was alright too and they continued to love each other and never lost their faith. I was fortunate. My children, at least three of them haven’t fared as well. That is unfortunate.
I have been told I am not worth the ‘spit in my daughter’s mouth’. I have not been told of a grandson’s birth or of his parents marriage. I am alienated. It’s my fault. The only person I ever loved before Wanda Marie was my daughter’s mother, Martha. The same person I had gotten so angry about I could easily have hurt her and didn’t need to stay. I left and did not return as my father did. The anger was my own. The leaving was my decision.
I have a son, now married to ‘Kevo’ or ‘Kevin’ and is apparently happy. His momma tells me they are ‘good for each other’. She writes and says they are happy. I am glad. Life needs happiness. I read on Facebook he recently confirmed his marriage in California and is now legal. I am truly happy for him. He has a doctorate and is an assistant scientist at Madison, WS at the University and apparently is doing research in bio-fuels. I never have any communication from him despite attempts and letters. He did apply for ‘friendship’ on MySpace since we share a ‘name in common’ and I approved it. I was then chided once for ‘borrowing’ a photo of his from Facebook because he didn’t want anyone believing we had any ‘association’ with each other. We don’t as he won’t allow it. That’s my penance.
I have another younger son soon to be twenty-one. He has been out on his own for two years. He apparently has lived a life of what is my opinion from what I read, turmoil. His MySpace stories present a dark side of life with drunkenness and drugs that he has apparently tried to correct. He has stories he tells of things he does and then warns children to not do as he does. I married his Mom when I was two years younger then he is and she was my school teacher. I loved her. I love him even though I don’t know him. He also is alienated and after the last trip to Virginia to get him for a summer visit he informed me he didn’t want to return. He hasn’t. He has grown up now and states he has been raised by ‘women’.
The one son I have raised from the age of eight has had his problems with me too. It was a constant battle in my household but we both hung in there. I am proud for him too. He has provided for his college degree and is now flying a T-6 doing acrobatics at Enid, OK. From all accounts I think he is enjoying the Navy and has high possibilities of being a fighter pilot if he continues as he is at present. He is the one that still comes to visit and loves on me when he does. I am happy for him and for me for the relationship we’ve shared. It is good.
So, as I sit and ruminate, I know this ain’t no ‘poor pitiful me’ story. I haven’t been the man I was taught to be. I am now. I hear and read the remarks from afar and unabashedly would invite communication. It hasn’t come despite occasional letters. Life is good for me and I suppose it is for my kids also. I hope it is. For those of you that visit my office, as you know the ‘personal’ stories I so often share in hopes of helping are part of the tools I use to inspire. There is always hope. Those are tools that life has taught me. Some have been taught from a negative occurrence due my poor judgment and resultant life experience. The later stories I share as therapeutics are positive from the blessings I’m provided daily. Life has started over and second chances have presented to a life opportunity for a man to live again. Inspiration has given joy. Life has given love. I read a ‘profile’ update today that read: “Don’t forget to love the one for which you care, if you don’t you made lose them.” I read this as insight that life’s experience has taught. Everett Bonner, my childhood neighbor, told me a story about nails in a fence that got pulled out one by one as a little boy did something good. They were put in when he did something bad. The boy noticed the nail holes left when they were pulled out. The comparison was to the scars that actions leave on one that doesn’t do as they should in life. It is the prettier life that has fewer ‘nail holes’ and I continue to work at life trying to leave fewer scars. The beautiful part is when the ‘nails’ are not there to be pulled. The other part of the story is why I always say I love you….its because…
…I love you!
…ol’ doc wes
October 20, 2008 at 12:22 pm
the Jen
Wes – a bunch of quotations below but the first one is my favorite told to me by a wise man:
“Love thyself and let it go”
- the Wes
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
- Catherine Ponder
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
- Lewis B Smedes
“Sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.”
- Sara Paddison
“Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don’t want the other person to forget that we forgave”
- Ivern Bell
Forgiveness
from
The Joyful Christian
by C.S. Lewis
Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. “That sort of talk makes them sick,” they say. And half of you already want to ask me, “I wonder how’d you feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?”
So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, 1 wonder very much what 1 should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you … what I could do–I can do precious little–I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sill against us.” There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?
It is going to be hard enough, anyway, but I think there are two things we can do to make it easier. When you start mathematics you do not begin with calculus; you begin with simple addition. In the same way, if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo. One might start with forgiving one’s husband or wife, or parents or children, or the nearest N.C.O., for something they have done or said in the last week. That will probably keep us busy for the moment. And secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbor as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself. Well, how exactly do I love myself!
Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently “Love your neighbor” does not mean “feel fond of him” or “find him attractive.” I ought to have seen that before, because of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do 1 think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can at look some of the things I have done with loathing and horror. So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.
For a long time I used to think this is a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life–namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact, the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.
October 21, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Wes
@ Jen: I like those quotations. They are a nice perspective on the events of the past few days. Which isn’t to say that I’m any less conflicted than I was at the beginning of all this, but they are a nice perspective. We will talk soon.