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ISBN-13: | 9781452563992 |
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Publisher: | Balboa Press |
Publication date: | 12/26/2012 |
Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 146 |
File size: | 264 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The Darkness Cannot Keep Us
Choosing a Better TomorrowBy Kathleen Ellis
Balboa Press
Copyright © 2012 Kathleen EllisAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-6398-5
Chapter One
Into The Darkness
"When darkness is at its darkest, a star shines the brightest." Louise Phillipe
On an autumn day in October of 1948, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, I was conceived, the youngest of eight children to Carroll and Bernice.
My oldest two siblings had died at birth, and the next three older siblings had already been taken by social services and placed into foster care.
My next older sister had been born five months before, and my older brother was a year and 10 months old.
Because Bernice had been bearing children so close together for so long, she had developed severe post-partum depression, a condition that had not yet been recognized by the medical community at that time.
Someone should have sensed that something was terribly wrong in May, five months earlier, when she left my sister in the hospital for two months and didn't even come to see her.
The nuns from the Catholic hospital where my sister was born finally came to pay our family a visit in the rundown shack we lived in to ask why she hadn't come to see her child.
Bernice told them she was afraid if she did, she would want to bring her home. What the family lived in right now was no home. They were even then being evicted from this hovel.
The nuns gave our family an apartment rent-free for two months owned by the convent, until my parents could get on their feet financially. Bernice brought my sister home.
By the time I was conceived in October, we were back in another shack because Carroll and Bernice couldn't pay the rent for the apartment.
Bernice was also beginning to show significant signs of severe mental illness.
As I reclined in her womb in the early stages of growth, developing physically, mentally, emotionally, my little spirit could feel the constant waves of desperation, anguish and hopelessness.
Every morning as Bernice arose, a new wave of depression hit as she struggled to find something to feed her children. These waves began to permeate every little cell of the child that grew within her.
As the cold frigid air of winter came, Bernice grappled with morning sickness once again.
Because I was a part of her, I could sense every heave of her body wrenching over a kitchen kettle; her makeshift toilet.
The bitter South Dakota winter of 1948 was one of the fiercest on record.
As my parents struggled through one of the coldest spells in the state's history, they were grappling to make ends meet, just like so many other families after the war.
Jobs were scarce, and times had been tough since the end of World War II.
Carroll had been shifting the family between South Dakota and Minnesota multiple times as he tried to avoid debts and the authorities. He had spent some time in jail before the war for writing bad checks and stealing.
After Carroll's three-year stint in the Navy ended in 1945, he just couldn't settle down to support the family he had started before he was drafted. By 1946, my grandfather had filed abandonment charges on Carroll in Minnesota because he left his baby son, only two months old at the time, sleeping in the car at night in the middle of winter while he went into the local bar to drink. Given a two year reprieve by the courts on the provision Carroll would find work and support his family, he was able to avoid jail.
There is just no other way to put it! The guy was adolescent and irresponsible! He stole from his employers, wrote bad checks and spent all his money and time carousing with other women in the local bars while Bernice tried to scrape enough money together to feed her children.
More often than not, Bernice came up against failure, unless she was able to get some help from her family. But even that was becoming more difficult because of the hard times.
Because she was pregnant most of the time, it was impossible for Bernice to find any meaningful or steady work. Even if she could find work, she had no one to care for the children.
Now, she found herself pregnant with her eighth child.
Carroll was gone most of the time and Bernice could not give her children even the most basic necessities.
By this time my brother had just turned two, and my sister was nine months old. There was little to no food in the house to feed these two beautiful babies.
Carroll was taking just enough hit-and-miss employment to provide him with spending money for his booze, women and pitch very little coin to his wife who struggled to find food for her family.
Most of the dwellings they existed in since they left my mother's family in Minnesota had become a poor excuse for living quarters. Their current corporeal conditions were drafty, cold and without heat or running water. They had no money to pay the utilities.
As the bitter February winds cut through the body's defenses, a knock came through the drafty door.
Bernice attempted to open it against the wind and the frigid, blowing snow as two uniformed officers burst into the small, cramped quarters where they lived to seize her husband.
"What has he done wrong?" she cried.
They handcuffed Carroll as his two smallest, frightened children began to cry.
"What has he done? What has he done?" Bernice shouted again.
"He's going to jail for deserting his family in Minnesota," the officer flatly stated as he gazed through her with cold unfeeling eyes.
"But he hasn't done anything! He was off finding work. He didn't desert us. See, he's right here taking care of us! Please don't take him!" she wailed.
The officers were not listening.
Carroll offered no resistance.
"Say something! Don't just stand there! Tell them!" Bernice admonished as Carroll silently ambled out, lowering his head to avoid her pleading eyes.
Times were tough. There was little to no work out there. Carroll knew full well that he hadn't been the husband and father he should have been.
"Maybe this is better for everyone concerned," he thought, "This might be the best way out for me." So he stayed silent and quietly walked out the door.
Suddenly, on that cold, blustery February day, he was gone.
As the door closed behind Carroll and the officers, Bernice stood alone with her two small crying children, her feelings of helplessness and despair began quickly rising to the surface.
Sequestered in the darkness of her womb, I could sense every trace of anguish and fear raging through Bernice's body.
As she quietly lowered herself into the only chair they had, cradling her children around her belly, Bernice began to sob irrepressibly.
As I lie vulnerable in her belly, my whole world shook with each agonizing lament and each helpless grasp at reality started to slip away from her.
"What will I do?" she grieved. "What will I do?"
Deep in her heart, Bernice knew full well their chance of survival was minimal at best. She had already faced the rejection of householders who thought she shouldn't work while she was pregnant. Even more, she had already lost custody of her three older children to foster care. But she knew she must try as best she could to continue.
Carroll was taken away to Minnesota State Prison, where he was remanded to custody for three years for desertion of his family.
Though Carroll didn't even give it a second thought at the time, he would never see his family again.
"How on earth will we live?" Bernice asked herself. Silently she prayed.
She contacted her mother in Ortonville, Minnesota. Maybe her mother could help out a little bit. From time to time our grandmother had helped her take care of the little ones. But money was scarce and the situation was changing rapidly. Bernice had already alienated her parents as she continued to defend her self-indulgent and irresponsible husband.
If only someone could stay with the children while she worked, it would help so much.
No one knew right now that she was pregnant, so maybe she could find someone to help her with the two little ones and find enough work to at least feed them in these wretched confines.
As my little body grew and mother's belly swelled, each passing day she struggled even more.
Each day became a new lesson in survival. She accepted help from friends more and more to provide food and essentials for her hungry brood.
As the days turned into months, and Bernice's time to give birth drew nearer, her despair and depression intensified.
I flourished in her womb but all I knew was the wretched anguish that surrounded me. I wasn't threatened by it. It became part of my identity.
My mother knew that she wouldn't receive any help from her husband. He had been sent to prison. It was all up to her. But she didn't have any money and the thought of bringing another child into the world was overwhelming her. She was also painfully aware she was on the verge of losing the two youngest children as well.
As spring began to emerge from the cold confines of winter, the sunshine was unable to lift Bernice's spirits.
She tried as best she could to support her children, yet constantly cried herself to sleep each night. Her desolation and despondency grew by the day. Her anger and frustration became unbearable and at times she too often took out her frustration on her two little ones.
As horrendous as all of this was to her, it was my world. I knew nothing else. It was as though I was just along for the ride.
"When will this ever end?" Bernice consistently lamented.
In the heat of July, Bernice gave birth to me, a "beautiful" baby girl.
However, Bernice had slid deeply into dejection. The struggle had become too much for her to bear. Her depression had finally won over, and she never left the hospital. Her misery was so unyielding she didn't even know I was there.
The doctor advised the family that Bernice's depressed condition was much too severe to take care of her children. There was concern she might harm them or herself if something was not done to help her immediately. Her situation had become much too grave to permit her to go home.
The decision was made to admit Bernice to the State Mental Hospital. She had succumbed to a complete mental and emotional breakdown.
The State of South Dakota wouldn't let Bernice's extended family take custody of us children because the family lived in Minnesota.
Bernice's mother, Ruth continuously tried to get the State of South Dakota to reconsider letting the children come to live with family in Minnesota, but to no avail.
When all of six of us, the three older already in foster care, and we three younger children were all put out for adoption by the State of South Dakota, our grandmother feared that she would never see her grandbabies again.
With heaviness on her heart, Bernice's mother, Ruth slowly sank into a chair and sobbed as her heart broke for her daughter, husband and grandchildren this broken family.
Ruth never talked about her grief and pain with anyone. She harbored it all until the day she died at ninety-eight years old.
By the fall of 1949, we three youngest children were transferred to a foster home in Watertown, South Dakota.
While the family was warm and welcoming, the large imposing home was a stark, colorless environment filled with other wide-eyed, frightened children who shared an uncertain future as well. These children were all thrown together and forgotten by society, their place in family legacies lost to them, seemingly forever.
The foster family was poor and subsisted on what little the State could pay them at that time. With many little mouths to feed, they struggled.
Our world consisted of little canvas cots, in a dormitory style row, except my crib which was at the end of the row.
Heat vents in the floors creaked in the night, throwing out the only warmth we knew.
Tall, unadorned windows loomed along one wall, providing the only light to the outside world.
There were no closets full of clothes. Each child was dressed in simple white undershirts and underpants, a few hand-me-down clothes and second hand shoes, emphasizing our anonymity. Our only individuality was the color of our sad little eyes, and our tangled locks of hair.
There were no large toy boxes full of teddy bears, dolls, or toy soldiers to dream with, no bicycles, trucks or wagons in the yard, just a large empty sandbox to play in.
I was a wary child. I didn't trust anyone. While the other little children played, I sat over against the wall next to the heat vent in the floor to stay warm.
I didn't like strangers. If someone came to visit, I withdrew behind my foster mother, the only mother I had ever known since my birth.
Something particularly odd happened when I was about nine months old.
I was still sleeping in a crib at the time.
Suddenly and without warning I would stand up in the crib and start violently shaking the side of the crib. After several minutes, I stopped.
This went on for about six weeks. It stopped suddenly with no further occurrence.
My foster mother contacted the social worker, incredibly frightened because I had shaken the side of the crib so violently I broke it. By the time the social worker obtained permission for my foster mother to take me to a doctor, the shaking had stopped.
Not knowing if it would continue again, my foster mother took me to the doctor. They found nothing wrong.
Chapter Two
Come To The Edge
"Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew." Guillaume Apollinaire
My youngest brother, sister and I were all adopted by one couple. I was two and a half, my sister was three and a half, and my brother was five.
Back in the early 50's there were so many orphan children after World War II in the Midwest that families weren't screened as they are today. This couple had severe alcohol abuse problems.
Our brother took the brunt of much of the beatings from the day we were brought into our new home, but over time all of us became fodder for their beatings, including our adoptive mother. It seemed like the more alcohol our adoptive dad consumed, the meaner he got.
We had to stop playing once we reached school age, and were required to do chores. Playing was no longer allowed. We were turned into little indentured slaves.
Through the years the beatings became worse and our adoptive mom ended up in the hospital multiple times. She never seemed to realize that if she would just stop arguing with him, he wouldn't become so angry.
Little or nothing was ever done in those years by authorities to stop such actions. Domestic marital conflicts at that time weren't handled by the police. The police would just take our dad out for a drive around the block, and then bring him back when he said he had cooled his temper.
My brother was forced into the Navy by our adoptive father before he graduated high school and my sister eloped with the first guy she met to escape the abuse.
I was so glad my brother and sister had escaped, but at the same time, I felt abandoned all over again. They had been all I had. When they were gone, I was cut off from all contact with them.
We had all lived in this prison called "home" for many years. I was now the only one remaining to face the madness.
I survived by drowning myself in my school work. I felt that if I stayed out of sight, he would leave me alone.
I graduated with honors from high school, but because we had moved around so much, my average was 3.86 GPA. My dad said he wouldn't come to my graduation because I didn't get a 4.0 GPA. I now understand that it's because his alcohol was more important to him than I was.
After I graduated from high school, I went into a severe depression. I don't remember much about that time between May and December.
One night about a week before Christmas, Dad came home from work and brought in a scraggly, pathetic looking Christmas tree that I'm sure he cut down from alongside the road on the way home. But then all the trees we ever had, when we had one at all, fit that description. The few Christmas decorations we had were old and meager at best, a perfect match for the trees they adorned.
On this particular night, I could tell he had already been drinking a lot before he got home.
Even when he was totally inebriated he never swaggered. It was difficult to tell if one didn't know the subtle signs. The sweet sickening smell reeking through his pores, the sneers, and the crazed look in his eyes were enough for me to tell after years of living with him.
I'm quite sure he drank on the job as well, considering the number of jobs he had lost through the years. On this particular night he was far too drunk to have gotten that way after work.
I went outside and got the Christmas decoration box and a coffee can with rocks in it, from the shed behind the house, brought them in, and sat down on the floor in the living room to sort out the few tangled decorations.
I was always quiet and withdrawn, never talking much to anyone. It was as if I hid to avoid blows, even when I was present in the room, especially when my dad was in the shape he was in.
All of a sudden, he jumped out of his easy chair in the corner and went into a rage.
Jumping up from his chair, he came over to where I was sitting and pulled me up off the floor by my hair. Whirling me around to face my mother, he began hurling expletives through the air.
"Tell her! Tell her, damn it!"
I knew he was referring to something he had done the year before when I was seventeen.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Darkness Cannot Keep Us by Kathleen Ellis Copyright © 2012 by Kathleen Ellis. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements....................ixDedication....................xi
To My Readers....................xiii
Preface....................xv
Introduction....................xxi
Chapter 1 - Into The Darkness....................1
Chapter 2 - Come To The Edge....................10
Chapter 3 - The Darkness Cannot Keep Me....................20
Chapter 4 - A New Beginning....................28
Chapter 5 - Choosing A New Life....................33
Chapter 6 - From The Frying Pan To The Fire....................39
Chapter 7 - A Life Of Quiet Desperation....................46
Chapter 8 - Emptying The Flask....................56
Chapter 9 - Perception Is Everything....................65
Chapter 10 - Know Where You're Going Know Where You've Been....................74
Chapter 11 - Self-Fulfilling Prophecies....................85
Chapter 12 - Defining Who We Are....................90
Chapter 13 - Choosing A Better Tomorrow....................99
Chapter 14 - Lessons I Have Learned....................109
Afterword....................113
About The Author....................119