In my next few posts I will try to explain the extent to which I was bullied as a child, in particular in my middle school years. I stuttered horribly as a child (I still stutter today but it is much more controlled.) I was greeted to school every day by kids slapping me on the back of my head (we called it cuffing in Minnesota), knocking the books out of my hands and making fun of my stutter.  “D-d-d-d-d-d-dave. D-d-d-d-did you d-d-d-d-d-drop y-y-y-y-your b-b-b-b-b-b-ooks?” then walk off laughing.

That’s the thing about bullies, they get their thrills by making someone else feel bad and then they go on with their day without a second thought about their target. I would imagine that most bullies are actually good people. They get good grades, they excel at sports and other activities, they go to church, are scouts, respect their grandparents. What they don’t know is that while they go merrily on with their life, their victims carry the stinging words and physical slaps and punches around all day long. They go from class to class, looking around corners, afraid to be in the hall for fear that one of their tormentors will be waiting for them. They carry the mental abuse home with them, crying as they get in to bed at night because they know that tomorrow will bring more of the same. There is no respite for the bullied. There is no succor.

Over the next few posts I will describe specific instances of bullying that stay with me to this day. It is my goal as a teacher to make my classroom a safe environment for every student.

The pain I felt from that night I wrote about in my first post haunted me for many years. Indeed, it still haunts me today. Why would anyone’s mom wish they had never been born? The answer seemed obvious; I was a bad person. I had to be. A good person certainly wouldn’t deserve to be treated that way.

To this day, when I look in a mirror, I see an ugly reflection. I don’t believe that I deserve my wonderful wife or my 3 children. I engage in behaviors which are destroying my body and soul. I gamble, I smoked for 27 years, I was addicted to opioids, I am diabetic and yet I don’t control my diet. Modesty prevents me from continuing.

I believe that I decided I was not a good person 47 years ago and I have spent the rest of my life trying to prove that to myself. I’m trying to get rid of that notion through therapy. This blog is an attempt to come to terms with my demons, perhaps allowing me to exorcise them and give me peace. Even if no one reads it, writing it brings to the surface long hidden emotions, truths, and hopefully answers.

I have spent many hours reading and re-reading the Bible, in particular the Psalms and the books of David. Saul hounded David for years, plotting ways to kill him. David wrote many Psalms about those who would torment his body and vex his soul. David forgave Saul and the rest of his accusers, using text and music to express his forgiveness as well as imploring God to intercede on his behalf.

The music of the church, the old hymns which speak of salvation and forgiveness, these things taught me forgiveness.

I forgave my mom many years ago. That doesn’t mean that her actions are less severe. I don’t know if she ever came to terms with her own demons. If she did she didn’t relate it to me, but her demons were for her to wrestle with.

As I held her hand as she lay dying and whispered, “I love you, mom” my hope is that she whispered, the kind of whisper that only the dead can hear, “I love you, too, Dave.” And her demons finally gave her peace.

As my best friend, who is an English and Poetry professor, would say, “Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer”.

I have good thoughts going through my mind but somewhere in the journey to my fingers, a 10 year old boy, nervously trying to tell a story to a stranger takes over.

I will try to get better as I continue writing. Please don’t judge the content based on the utterings of a 10 year old boy. He’s doing the best he can!

Music has always been an important part of my life. I have a recording of my dad singing from 1957 (6 years before I was born). He was stationed in Germany and aside from his military duties he sang in a men’s quartet which entertained troops and sang at various military and civic occasions. He made a recording of his quartet singing, mainly gospel songs (apparently religion and the military weren’t such strange bedfellows) as well as him singing several solos. He had a beautiful, baritone voice. He recorded it as a Christmas gift for my grandparents. It remains one of my most prized memories of my dad.

As a child, and even to this day, I had insomnia. I would go to my bedroom at 8:00 and then spend hours and hours looking at the blackness all around me, invariably creating monsters out of the darkness which made the sleepless nights agony.

Occasionally, I would get out of bed to escape the monsters and wander around the house. Little did I know that monsters are real outside of a dark bedroom. One particular night I heard my parents in a heated argument. Well, my mom was having a heated monologue. Dad rarely threw barbs but rather became the object at which my mom hurled her venom. It sounds rather melodramatic but if anything it understates the level of visceral, hateful language my mother employed.

I crept to the room adjoining the kitchen where my parents were at. Mom was getting angrier by the minute (I was only 6 or 7 at the time so I have no idea what made her so angry). After a few minutes of listening to my mom verbally abuse my dad, I heard a non-verbal ruckus so I peered into the room to see my mom rushing towards my dad with a knife. My dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and had been trained in hand-to-hand combat so he was able to disarm her. He held her tightly against him for several minutes while continued to scream at him. You can imagine what was going through my child’s mind at seeing and hearing this.

When it seemed mom had sufficiently calmed down, my dad loosened his grasp of her and I hid behind a wall. About 30 seconds later my mom walked through the door into the room where I was trying to hide. She spotted me immediately, stopped, and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. Then, with a look that I can’t get out of my mind, she took a step in my direction, bent at the waist until her face was only inches from mine, and literally hissed, “I wish you were never born!” She stood back up and walked to her room.

What does a 6 or 7 year old child do with that? As I sat there in stone silence, my young brain tried to process what had happened. The monster of my bedroom had come to life in the form of my mother, the knife, the screaming, and finally, the one person who is supposed to love me unconditionally had just looked at me with pure hatred and told me she wished I was never born. My mind and spirit began to dissolve.

Then, from the kitchen, a deep, rich, baritone voice began singing, “Oh Lord, my God. When I in awesome wonder. Consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed.” He sang quietly, barely more than a whisper. But in that melody, in those words,  the voice of God spoke to me. It was God, using the sweetest, strongest man who ever lived, that sent music to cradle my mind and spirit in it’s melodious arms, as it’s deep, baritone voice, barely above a whisper said, “I love you, Dave.”

Music has been part of my soul ever since. It has literally saved my life countless times. I hope you will join me as I explore the magic and mystery of music.

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton