Life Matters

Oh, how my heart ached

By LINDA PETERSEN
Posted 9/18/19

As has been our habit lately, Hubby and I went out for a lovely breakfast. Just the thought of breakfast brightens my day; rye toast with lots of butter, sunny side up eggs whose bright yellow yolks will soon be strewn across the home fries, and crispy

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Life Matters

Oh, how my heart ached

Posted

As has been our habit lately, Hubby and I went out for a lovely breakfast. Just the thought of breakfast brightens my day; rye toast with lots of butter, sunny side up eggs whose bright yellow yolks will soon be strewn across the home fries, and crispy bacon that is cooked so well that it doesn't droop down; yum!

We don't usually talk a lot at breakfast, mainly because the restaurant is near a highway and the sound of the cars can be deafening and the café is generally very crowded and noisy (not to mention that neither of us hears very well.) We just sit there in comfortable silence, relaxing in the rare moment where neither of us has any pressing work to do.

Last week I witnessed something so disturbing that it needs to be shared. I am the child of a father who had mental illness due to his tour of duty during World War II, and it did not take much to set him off. I was often the brunt of one of his angry outbursts, and it was generally because I had broken or spilled something. Against all odds, the clumsiest child in the universe had been born into his family, and it often seemed as though I could do nothing right. If he yelled at me, I would tear up and my mom would give me a hug and tell me, "It is just your father, he doesn't mean anything by it" as though his anger at me should just be brushed aside. I spent many years thinking his anger was my fault and it seemed to me that no matter how lightly I tread, my feet would get twisted and I would trip, or how slowly I tried to move at the kitchen table during dinner, something always got knocked over or spilled. Feeling like a clumsy freak of nature, my confidence during my childhood was at an all time low.

Several years later I began to understand the nature of his outbursts; the inner explosions of anger over what he had seen and done in Germany so many years before; things so terrible and repulsive that he could only bottle it up to keep his sanity. His outbursts were an expression of that inner rage and he really didn’t mean anything by it, at least as far as I was concerned.

I know many people who keep their anger bottled up inside along with other people who are so sensitive to perfection that anything less can cause them to explode. At breakfast last week we observed a young boy spill his milk. The full glass went everywhere; milk flying onto the floor like a monsoon, saturating everything in its way. Memories of my own childhood came flooding back, and the dad reacted much the same way my father had by getting angry at the boy. The boy hung his head down, slumped his shoulders and looked like he was about to cry. The dad’s face was beet red as he stomped out the door, leaving their untouched breakfast behind them. Oh, how my heart ached for that boy.

When my children and grandchildren spill something and start to get upset, I always tell them that accidents happen, “It’s no big deal”, even though I may be seething inside because the spilled milk on the carpet will be hard to clean up completely and will probably have the rug smelling sour in a few days. Or if a spill in a restaurant has rendered my pants completely soaked, I say to myself “it’s only a pair of pants” because that minor incident cannot compare to the fragile feelings of a child. Accidents happen. I do not believe that anyone spills anything on purpose. Oh, how my heart ached for that boy.

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