Tag: family

Remembering a Traumatic Event – Over My Shoulder

Over My Shoulder is a deeply personal memoir of what life was like growing up in the 1950s. It is my intent to end this memoir with the completion of my college years. Memories of my youth come back to me sometimes in bits and pieces – the funny incident of soaking my younger sister in muddy water stirred by a bicycle with its training wheels perched over a mud puddle. Some memories are of longer periods – the contours of my lengthy illness or the challenges of high school. Some are snapshots; others are full-length movies.

If traumatic events trigger you, skip this piece and read some of the more light-hearted pieces presented in this memoir.

I spent almost forty years trying to forget one life-changing memory. It was so traumatic that I stuffed it away and never talked about or acknowledged it until my forties when I finally sought therapy to deal with my seemingly endless depression. The memory flooded back on me as I was driving along a lovely tree-lined road in Ohio. The memory was so vivid that it felt like the incident was happening right then in real time. I cried and cried for weeks afterward, until one day I was again driving and realized that the sun was shining and the clouds were lovely. The day seemed to have the bright clarity that comes after a summer rainstorm. I realized that I was whole and not a wrecked person with a shameful past.

Today, I recognize that mores were different in the 1950s. We were rapidly becoming a more mobile population. Children often walked to school. Many families only had one car, so families often relied on friends to give their children transportation to places and events beyond walking distance. It was common to take rides with trusted adults. Parents were less protective of their children, and we had not yet realized that sometimes adults that seemed and should have been trustworthy were in fact predators. The scandals that wracked the catholic church in the 1990s are just one of many examples.

Our culture was different. Parents were more likely to trust an adult friend’s version of an event rather than their own child’s, so children seldom spoke up about being preyed upon. The reasons are myriad for the children’s silence – deep shame, fear of not being believed, being accused of lying, being ostracized from groups like scouts or teams when a scoutmaster or coach was the predator. Whatever the reason, the victim was neither acknowledged nor heard, and the predators were free to prey on yet another child.

When I was in third grade, and my health was too unstable for me to ride the school bus, my mother (mostly) or father (seldom) would drive me to school. It forced the other three school-age children in my family to get off to school on their own. Their school was a two-block walk from our home. This situation created friction and a need for careful time management to get everyone fed breakfast and off to school on time.

A friend of my parents taught music lessons one day a week at a school near mine and offered to pick me up and drop me off at school on his way. He came from a distance, and from the outset it seemed a bit peculiar to me. My parents jumped at the idea, for the arrangement would relieve my mother of one school drop off per week.

At first, I enjoyed getting a ride with the teacher. I was very aware of how stressful it was for my mother to have to get all four children ready for school and then leave to drive just one of them (me) to school. All went well until one day he asked if I wanted to learn to drive. This seemed like a magic suggestion to me. The car had a bench style front seat. My legs were too short to reach the pedals, but I could reach over and touch the steering wheel if I slid over closer to the driver. It was thrilling. My first driving lesson was brief, and I was promised another lesson on the next ride to school. I was cautioned not to tell my siblings since they would be jealous or my parents who might not approve. Today, we would recognize that I was being groomed.

My next driving lesson was a forever nightmare. The teacher urged me to sit on his lap so I could get a good grip on the wheel, a safer grip, I was told. Then, there was a hand moving under my school uniform and into my panties. I was horrified and squirmed away. Because of my lengthy illness, I was frequently touched by adults examining me or treating me. My loving relatives often held and cuddled me and my siblings. This adult touching me felt different. I knew instinctively that what had happened was not the same. It was repulsive. I felt in danger and violated, swept with shame and a desire to hide the experience.

I blacked it out for about 40 years. I never told my parents or my siblings what had happened. I was even fearful that somehow others might know magically what had happened. I did not want to ride in a car alone with any adult except my parents. I do not remember if I ever got another ride to school with the predator. I simply wouldn’t remember. What I do remember is that he and his family stayed among my parents’ circle of friends for the rest of their lives.

Keystone Events: Days One Never Forgets – Over My Shoulder

Everyone has a keystone event in their life. These events are the single most consequential event that one will never forget where they were or what they were doing when they either heard or witnessed them. Keystone events color one’s perception for years.

For me my keystone memory occurred on Friday, November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was a freshman in college.  Since then I have experienced several memorable events that I realize were the keystone event for those around me. In 1986 I was making a sales call at a school when the Challenger explosion occurred. The students were watching on a big tv in the cafeteria. I am sure that for many of these high school students, this was their keystone event. For me it was memorable, but not my keystone event.

Similarly, for another slightly different generation, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was a traumatic keystone event. I remember well where I was that bright September morning. I was in my office in Boston. I had just turned on my computer when the first plane hit. The rest of the day melted away. For most of my colleagues who were 10-20 years my junior, this was perhaps the most significant memorable event in their lives — a keystone.

As I noted above, I was a freshman in college when John F. Kennedy was shot. I can still recall with absolute clarity how that day unfolded. My freshman English composition class met in the basement of the college chapel right after lunch on Fridays. It was a sunny, warm day for November, and my classroom was uncomfortably warm. The professor was not in attendance. A substitute came by at the start of the class and put the assignment on the blackboard. We were to write an in-class essay: an analysis of John Donne’s Meditation XVII.

This profound essay reflects on mortality and the interconnectedness of humanity. The image of the funeral bell tolling and Donne’s words to ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee were very moving for me. Throughout high school the bells for chapel, the beginning and end of the school day and the evening angelus had been comforting routine sounds. The essay invoking the funeral bells spoke to me in many ways. The essay’s reminder of the interconnectedness of humanity and that we should all recognize our mortality was a powerful message.

As I was finishing writing my essay, I could hear a radio voice coming from down the hall in the janitor’s closet. As I dropped off my essay and walked down the hall, I heard the news of the assassination of JFK in Dallas. I was very shaken and felt I needed a moment to gather myself before I went to my next class. It was a short walk across campus, but I chose to walk a slightly longer route across campus. It took me by an athletic field that overlooked the Raritan River where I stood for a few moments reflecting upon Donne’s words and the events in Dallas.

I arrived at my next class just as one of the other students was telling the professor what had just happened. At first the professor thought that the student was mistaken or making up a story. She left to go check on what was going on. Still stunned, I simply took my usual seat and expected the lesson to commence upon her return. Instead, she came back into the classroom with tears streaming down her face and scrawled on the blackboard – class cancelled. I was quite relieved since my own thoughts were quite scrambled. I knew that I needed time to process the events of the day. I left the campus and drove home. I had been looking forward to the weekend since I did not have to go to convent to work. It was one weekend when there was no retreat scheduled. I spent the weekend like many Americans glued to the television filled with sadness and horror. This was for me the most memorable event of my young adult life, my keystone event.