"The Demon Within"

                                        The Demon Within,

                   It is often said what goes around comes back around, the more things change the more things stay the same. These metaphors hold great meaning to me because I see them within my father.  My father, a man who stands 6ft'2 in stature, with a beautiful grade of hair often known as “good hair” in the black culture. A smile that once displayed pearly whites has now been replaced with tooth vacancies. My father, a man who has been known to be a ladies man, always had a “ram in the bush”, or a “spare” to spare if you know what I mean. His hands are huge, big enough to knock a man out yet gentle enough to hug his granddaughter when she visits. Except for one thing now, those once strong hands have now lost their strength.  He use to say “if the left hand doesn't get you then the right one will,” it has now become the left  hand acts alone while the right hand is paralyzed deteriorating slowly.



My father, a man of great courage, strength, personality and wisdom now sits before me as a disheveled man.  He is usually drunk, sober, or somewhere in between, a man who loves his children, and beckons for them to visit.  He speaks of his past life, the times when he was once a truck driver will not allow his mind to move forward. 



    He continues to tell the story of  how when I was a toddler I ciphered  gas from a hose from a car he was repairing and how he saved my life by stuffing Lard down my throat causing me to throw up expelling the gas from my stomach.  There was a time when this man was sharp! His jeans were starched, his boots were shined, and he had pockets full of money daddy always had money. We had weekend visits as children mostly my brother and me, (my sister had to work, she helped mom provide for us). Daddy would take us fishing and to the local hamburger drive-ins. He adored us as his children, he would proudly tell everyone we saw... “This my daughter”, “these are my children” he would speak those words as if he birthed us himself.  My father, a truck driver, and a mechanic, Daddy was one of the best mechanics in town, he could take a car apart and put it back together with his eyes closed that's just how good  of a mechanic he was.



      He once owned his very own garage mechanic shop located at his home, it thrived in business. Each time that daddy would raise a hood of a car that he was repairing I would be right  there under the hood with him looking , learning, asking questions, “what does this do daddy” ? “What does that do daddy”?  Without hesitation he would tell me. I locked that information into my brain and still today I check my own oil levels, check my fluid levels, I also clean my  car engine when I wash my car. In fact I have the ability to detail a car better than most men can. I check my  tire pressure every couple of miles, because these were lessons taught to me as I watched my father before he would say to me “Nina “get back before you get dirty”. “Nina was the name he called me every now and then it would change to “Lynn Lynn” (Lynn is my middle name).



        Then something went terribly wrong, he made a wrong turn in life somewhere and never found his way back.  You see, my dad is a lover of cars, he owned a 1956 Chevy Oldsmobile a true beauty, my grandfather, his father, had one just like it except my grandfathers was teal green and white. I will never forget the day. I was about nine maybe ten years old when the ambulances pulled up to the house. I was at my dad’s house all alone visiting for the weekend. Daddy had been in a car accident. A lady ran a stop sign and she hit daddy totally destroying 56 Chevy that he loved so much. He had just left the car wash detailing the car he was so proud of. Little did that lady know...that when she wrecked daddy's car she had also wrecked his soul as a man, his life as our father, provider, and his life as a husband to my step mother.  My father found solace in alcohol. You see, he was no longer a profit for the truck driving industry for the car accident had broken his foot in several places making it impossible to handle eighteen gears. 



      He had several surgeries to repair the bones in the foot, but the bones never would sit right. Alcohol became his way of dealing with the pain of no longer being able to provide for his family, of no longer having his pockets fat with bills to make it possible to take his children to anymore hamburger drive-ins. Our weekend visits became horrific as I watched my father become violently drunk taking the pain of his inability to be a real provider out on my step mother. He fought her, and mistreated her, this woman, who loved his children as her own. She sewed, cooked, helped us with homework, she is the reason why I love the kitchen to this day. As I look at my father this shell of a man, who was once so debonair, who has now become a man that is  lacking in his personal hygiene, lacking in spirit, who lives the life of a pauper. Alcohol has stolen my father from me; it has become the vice that has cheated me of having the opportunity of having my father walk me down the aisle because I never knew when he would be sober.



    Alcohol has cheated me of ever uttering the words every little girl should say... “I want to marry a man just like my daddy”. Alcohol has been the vice that has caused my visits to become short, but sweet, far and few between sometimes visiting months at a time.  But who am I to judge this man? This man that my mother chose to be my father. I know not of his demons. I know not of his pains that seem to haunt him day in and day out, the demons that cause him to remain confided to his home because he has wronged  too many to remember,  the culprit of revenge becomes unknown. The thoughts of my dear stepmother, who has now passed away, linger in his mind haunting him causing him to remember how he beat her and shot her yet she continued to love him with an agape love.



    I look beyond his faults, though the evidence of his wrong doing is still vivid in the mind of my loving mother and my siblings. I being the last of the litter was not really aware of the hurt and pain he caused before my existence.  I only remember the happy times up until the car accident.  I love my father but I hate the demon he becomes when alcohol consumes him. The words he speaks are not the words a girl child should hear her father speak, his behavior becomes inappropriate and his understanding becomes irrational. Through the years I have tried to detach myself from daddy however, the bible verse replays repetitively in my mind. (“Honor thy father and mother, and the days upon the earth shall be long”).  That bible verse causes me to ask myself questions... “What has my father done to me”? Not the demon but my father, what has he done to me? Has my father hurt me? The answer is no, has my father slandered my name? The answer is no, has my father ever denied his love for me? The answer once again is ...no.  So then the questions to myself becomes... “Has my fathers demons hurt me”?  The answer is yes, “has my fathers demons slandered my name”? .The answer is yes, has my fathers demons ever caused him to deny his love for me? The answer is.... NO. 



    You see, that makes all of the difference.  Though alcohol consumes my father and turns him into a man I wish I never knew, it has never caused him to not love any of us as his children, he never denied us. So I ask myself what right do I have to deny him? So in essence this man that is my father whom I have judged is a far better person than me. He has never denied us as his children, his love for me never faltered not even in his demonic state of mind, yet I have tried time and time again to deny him as my father as our father, which in reality will never change. Chilling to compare but isn't this how we treat Jesus? For the longest time I felt so torn, I felt compelled to side with my mother because my father had hurt her so badly. I wanted to hate him because he hurt my mother, I wanted to disown my father because he left us when I was at the tender age of two but then I thought about my offspring.



    My father is my daughter’s grandfather and if I began to see my father in a negative way then her views of her grandfather would be distorted based on my actions against him. So then the ripple effect would again begin again. I will never know the depth of my mother’s pain and resentment towards my father; I do not have any clue as to what it feels like to be left with three small children under the age of thirteen years old. I have no clue as to what it feels like to come home to find another woman there violating your space. I am sure these series of events were very painful for my mother to endure; her heart was truly broken to pieces no doubt.



The evidence of the pain that my father caused my mother is still as fresh today some forty three years later, as though he hurt her on yesterday. It is not my place to judge either of my parents, that burden is too heavy to bear for any child. As children we are conditionally created to love our parents unconditionally , though my fathers demons has caused him to behave in ways that are not pleasing to me, or God or anyone else who has seen  him in his demonic state of mind full force.  I continue to force myself to learn that my father is in there somewhere. The man who once took me fishing, the man who once had pearly white teeth, who once was able to move about with a steady gait.... “He's in there”, the man who repaired cars so well “He's In There”. This is my wish for my siblings and my mother, to be able to know that  when daddy's demons come out we can remove our selves from him until “daddy” reappears because the “daddy”  who loves us so much “He's in there”.