With Family Like That…

The subject of vulnerability has come up recently among my close friends. We talked about what we share with the world and what we don’t. I have been writing things, painful things, and sharing them for about 10 years now.

The following is another of my recollections of an incident from my childhood. This one is key. I am sharing this because maybe it will help me, and someone else. Some would say ‘why bring it up?’ ‘forget about it, it’s in the past’. I would say to you, ‘then please don’t read it’

Fifty years later I have an irrational fear for my safety, ringing ears, night terrors, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Plainly PTSD. So here it is;

With Family Like That…

I was seven and my brother Danny was six. We were taken by our mother, along with our two younger siblings, to my aunt’s house to get away from our father. He was a raging alcoholic who became drunk and raged at us and more so at my mother much of the time.

We knew from past experience the violence he was capable of, so when he came pounding at my aunt’s front door with his fists, all four kids headed for the closet. We hid in the closet while he shouted at my mother to open the door because he was going to hurt her as he had done in the past said, and we believed him.

The rest of the night was pretty much a blur but I believe the police were called and he was told to go away, or maybe he was taken in on police warrants, but he didn’t come back for the rest of the night.

The next day my mother went to the Legal Aid Society, to start a divorce, and the welfare department to get assistance while trying to get away from the abuser. My mother had no money, no resources, and no education. She had only recently been given a drivers license. So today she left us in the house with her sister who also had three kids, but they were at school at this time.

My aunt had, at some other date, been walking down her street and found what is called an m-80 firecracker on the sidewalk. An M-80 is a recreational explosive that is more like a small bomb. As I remember, it’s more than an inch in diameter and an inch long with a wick coming from one end. So I must have seen it but would have had no idea what it was. She didn’t want some child to find it so she put it in her purse and took it home with her where she then put it in the top drawer of her dining room buffet and probably forgot about it.

My aunt was a heavy smoker and you could always find a cigarette burning in her ashtray. My brother Danny who had nothing else to do that day went digging through the buffet drawer and found the M-80. I was standing right behind him when he lit it on my aunt’s cigarette and continued to hold it in his hand.

The explosion was louder than a shotgun and my mother happened to have just pulled into the driveway and was about to carry groceries into the house when she heard the explosion. She came running in which I think was a bit of great timing for my sake because otherwise I would have been left standing there with a child, one year my junior who was on fire, and had literally blown up his hand.

My mother put out the fire on his shirt, grabbed him and ran him to the nearby bathroom.  She turned on the water and ran his hand under it where I could see the bones coming through his flesh.

I could see my mother’s face and knew she was screaming but I couldn’t hear her. The explosion was so loud that I temporarily lost my hearing.  My memory of this incident took on an oddly surreal feeling at this point.

I don’t remember anything after that until they brought Danny back to my aunt’s which must have been hours later. I must have been coming out of shock. I saw the large white gauze bandage around his whole hand and halfway up his arm. I watched him. I watched as he writhed back and forth in pain.

The terror of the last 2 days, had culminated in this bizarre accident. I knew no place was safe. I also knew that some irreversible damage had been done to my brother, and me, and that fingers don’t grow back. I knew that. Our last hope was also lost that day. My mother gave up and gave in at that point.

Then our father quietly took us all back to our house.