the daughter of a WWII veteran
Posted on April 30th, 2010 by leilalevinsonIn the ten years since I discovered photographs my father took during his time in the European Theatre of WWII, I have been on a mission to understand how his service shaped my childhood. The ice cold, deafening silence about traumas I suffered as a very young child had created deep depression, negativity, and melancholy that was beginning to infect my young children.
My trauma was that my mother was arrested while we were shopping; we were taken to a police station where I was taken from her; and I never saw her again. She was an alcoholic, and no doubt I witnessed many terrible altercations between her and my father before he moved out a few months before she was arrested. He never explained to me what happened to her, refused to even speak her name. Grief was banned from my home, and with that emotion, went all the others. But we were “strong,” we “kept the flag flying.” The one time he spoke of my mother was to tell me she had been “weak.”
Somehow I managed to look fine, to convince myself I came out of those years unscathed. I did well academically, and that became my anchor. Terror that I would lose my father created within me an amazing ability to suppress my pain. Until I went to law school- again, to please my father- and nightmares began, fear opened up like a bottomless pit. I became afraid to leave home and sought refuge in a relationship where I was more a a child than an equal partner.
I once went to my father’s medical office to beg him to tell me what had happened to my mother. He said maybe someday he would be able to, but he died before that someday arrived. The day he died my terror opened up, and though I managed to keep skirting around its edge, the effort was sucking me dry. And even therapy and antidepressants did not manage to break through my depression.
Then I found the photographs and learned my father had been among the liberators of a Nazi death camp, that after treating its survivors for two weeks, he had suffered a mental breakdown. I spent three years finding and speaking with other WWII vets who witnessed the camps. They ALL still are suffering from the trauma. The pieces of my family’s mystery began to fall into place. Now I knew what my father had not been able to face and what the cost was of his terror. His terror became mine, though I could not see, hear, smell or taste it. I had absorbed it into my blood and soul.
My heart has opened to my long denied grief, but the healing is slow and long. And I worry what I have transmitted to my children in the years before I became aware of what I was carrying. But we talk now, we speak our truths. I hope I have and continue to provide them the tools for creating health.
I pray my father’s soul came to know peace. I grieve that I never knew him when his soul was whole.
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Your story reverberated in me and brings to mind years of being so alone and depressed. Having to be “strong.”
In the seventh grade I recall going to a Friday night dance and having a pretty good time. Lynn and I were paired up for the dance contest. She was the smallest girl in school and I was the tallest so I thought we looked kind of funny together. We won the jitterbug contest and she just smiled and smiled. We were given a blue ribbon. I was happy and excited too. The music was always great and to hear some of the tunes even now takes me back to those days and dances. I would stay as long as I could at the dance because I was dreading having to go home. My sister, three years older than I, was out on a date and mother was to pick me up at nine thirty after the dance. I knew that she had been drinking heavily for several days and I was worried. My stomach hurt, as it always did when there was tension in the house and mother drinking. I had been standing outside on the street waiting for about thirty minutes when I decided to walk home. Home was about a mile away and I knew every foot of the streets I’d have to walk. So, I was not worried except about mother and her driving drunk. I began to walk and for some reason turned around and there came a car very slowly down the street. I knew it was my mother and she was drunk as a skunk. That car went every way but straight. I started to just keep walking, but I could not leave her like that. With my stomach aching and silently sobbing, I went to the car and got in. I pulled into my shell just like a turtle as we sat in the car, just staring straight-ahead trying to not be worried or afraid. We barely spoke as she turned the car around headed the wrong way. I tried to tell her, but that was like talking to a wall. We made it about three blocks when she turned a corner and plowed into a parked car, knocking it up on the curb and demolishing ours. Now mind you this was before the days of seatbelts and airbags. My body was impaled on the dashboard and mother sat there trying to restart the car. She had no idea of what she was doing or what had just happened. A kind couple came out of their house and asked if they could help. I said, “I guess you could call the police.” They did and a policeman arrived a few minutes later. He asked me what happened and I explained it to him. He called for a wagon to take mother to jail and upon its arrival I tried to go with her. She obviously needed help. The policeman said I could not ride in the paddy wagon with her, but he would take me to juvenile hall where I could spend the night. I said I had to go home and wait for my sister because she would not be able to get in the house without me there and I began running. He was yelling something at me, but I just kept running, crying and my stomach was killing me. It was such a frightening experience for me that I can still feel the close night air, the sidewalk beneath my feet as I ran and the echo each step made as they reverberated off the apartment walls and alley ways I ran past. I was eleven and had handled tough situations before, so I could handle this too. I made it home, twelve o’clock midnight arrived and I was still alone. I had no one to call, so I just waited and cried and cried for my daddy. Oh, God why does my tummy hurt so badly? Finally a car door shut on the street outside. It must be my sister. Together we could figure out what to do, I thought. Looking out the window, I saw my Aunt Jewell, her husband and my grandparents getting out of the car. I was panicked. Even though these were relatives they could not know the family secrets.
What would they say? What would they do? Somehow I was to blame and responsible. Mother always said that I was a very responsible young man, however my ability to control the situation and keep a secret was fast becoming an impossibility. I flew outside and said “hello” and “how is everyone,” and Jewell asked where mother was. I just stood there not knowing what to say, when she took me by the shoulders and faced me and asked again, I was sweating profusely and my stomach hurt. “Where is your Mother?” I looked down and said, “in jail.” The look on her face told a story in itself. She very lovingly asked me if I were all right and then asked me to tell her the whole story. I told her the best I could and she then grabbed me and hugged me pressing my head to her bosom. I cried and she cried. It was the most heart felt, warm and loving thing I can ever remember experiencing. Yes! Someone did care. I was not alone in the world any more, I thought. The adults took over the situation and sent me to bed where I laid most of the night wide-awake. The thoughts are ghosts I care not to conjure up. In the morning mother was bailed out of jail and brought home. She told me how the police officer had talked to her about her son who was very mature and only wanted to take care of his mother and sister that night.
I can relate to “being strong” especially when no one else is and having to grow up all too fast. You are a very brave woman and I applaud you for taking the high road and being honest with your children. They deserve to know just as you deserved to know the whys and wherefores of their lives. Healing takes time and patience, be kind to yourself.
Thank you so much for sharing your life and your father’s. There is much healing to be found in putting words to the pain. May your work bring healing to thousands of others who suffer the effects of war in their families.
I wish I had ruby red slippers to transport myself to Atlanta for the listening circles. They are unique; we do not have anything similar in Denver, where I live. Because reading the responses of Bob Cagle and IvyMtn to my post feels like an arm around my shoulder. I’d love to have a conversation with you, Bob, about our alcoholic mothers and how their alcoholism was self-medication for trauma and denied grief. Companionship and sharing are powerful medicine. Thanks.
Leila, this is SUCH and IMPORTANT conversation for you and Bob to share with others here on the blog.
Just click your heels.
The Listening circle awaits you…
Leila, We should talk or write and share. I find it grants me some peace in my life.
And it is true the listning circle does await you.