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Friday, January 21, 2011

The Black Widow, One Killed but Three are Dead!

During my mom's trial some folks had started to refer to her as the black widow.  My mother, the meek woman she was, had now, within 3 months, been tied to the death of 3 men.  The man I mentioned in another blog, Hank, was my mom's boyfriend when she was a teen.  She ran away with him at 14. 

When he and my dad met, and became fast friends, my father did not know this.  He was insanely jealous so they hid ever knowing one another.  After my dad died, my mom and hank began to sneak around having an affair. He is the one I caught my mother in bed with, and because his live in girlfriend was also my mom's best friend he decided to make sure I stayed quiet, so he ran out after me, threw me in the car, drove me down a dirt road and threatened to hurt me if I ever told.

Anyway, people, like my grandmother started to suspect something was going on between them, and then they found out that my mom and him had known each other and hid it.  So people started to say  my mom killed my dad so she could be with Hank.  Now, I know this is not true, I was in that house, I saw how crazy he had become, and I can tell you beyond a doubt, it had gotten to the point of him or us.  But with my mom's trial coming up she needed to throw people off and she did not want to lose Pam (his girlfriend) as a friend.  So she started seeing  his brother.  This also allowed her to keep a close connection with Hank and hang out as "couples" often.

Well, a few weeks  before the trial, they were at Lake Michie, my dads favorite fishing hole.  They were fishing off the bridge.  There was no swimming allowed there because the water was very deep and
Tumultuous which was odd for a lake.  I guess Hank let jealousy get the best of him, and he could not stand seeing his brother touching my mother any longer.  His brother, had also grown jealous, seeing how my mom and hank looked at one another, and I think he began to suspect he was a cover.

They started to fight and argue, Hank was a lot bigger than his brother Ed, and he picked Ed up and dangled him over the bridge.  I assume his intent was to only scare him because he knew his brother could not swim.  Somehow, Hank lost his grip on Ed and Ed fell down into the water.  He started screaming for Hank to save him.  Hank was an excellent swimmer, so he jumped in to save his brother.  By then Ed was struggling hard, going under mostly and no longer screaming. 

My mom was yelling for Hank to save Ed, and I will never forget until the day I die, when Hank looked up and said "I can't even save my damn self".... He knew he was dying too.  Within a minute, they both were under the water. no one could see them.  There were only a couple of others there, it was winter, very cold, and no one was willing to dive in.  We had already seen two of them vanish.

My mom went crazy, screaming, crying, fighting the air it seemed....  The dive team came out and they found Ed that day, but not Hank.  I know this sounds horrible but I was glad he was gone.  I felt he was responsible for the change in my mother and he had hurt me and my brothers in what little time my dad had been gone.  But every night I would have nightmares that he was not really gone, that he made it out of the lake and that is why they could not find his body and he came back to get us.  (There was actually a similiar story line on General Hospital, one of my moms soaps, When Luke went over the side of the ship on him and Laura's honeymoon so I guess that is where I got the idea from)

About a week later, his body washed up on shore, I felt a sense of relief, but again, my mother went nuts.  At the funeral, even at ten years old I was so ashamed of how she behaved.  I swear I thought she was going to get in the coffin with this man.  And to make it worse, his girlfriend was there witnessing this.

I understand why my mom killed my dad, I do, but I can't help but feel she was also partially responsible for the death of brothers, Hank and Ed.

9 comments:

  1. Wow. I can see why you would want and need to share your life. There is so much that has happened to you (and much more I am sure) and even just trying to decide on an order to write everything must be challenging.
    Be strong, I am thinking of you.

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  2. There was a time when I thought words and actions were gifts that came with no strings attached. I believed that I could say or do anything, so long is it wasn't hurtful to the other people involved in the immediate moment. I have come to see that this is not true. Your mother was quite young and probably still in that part of her life where life seemed like a smorgasbord (once the horrible marriage was over)despite her dire situation. She probably thought she had earned some pleasure. But words and actions are not independent of consequence, and any significant thing you say or do has set you and others on a shift in course. On the one hand, one cannot just do nothing in life, but on the other hand, some caution is necessary, because thoughtless and inconsiderate behavior hurts others in a very real way, and most of the time a very big bill can come due. Your mother was horribly careless with the hearts and lives of those whom she should have been loving. Everyone around both your parents seemed to have paid very high costs. I am waiting eagerly for your next installments, because it is not clear to me yet whether she, too, paid dearly.

    I would like your thoughts sometime on whether you and your brothers would have been better in foster care or something like that. A friend of mine insists that any parent, no matter how awful, is better than being "put in the system". I would value your opinion on this.

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  3. David,

    I think my mom did pay dearly, up until she killed my dad her whole life was controlled, she lived in fear of setting him off.
    I can remember one night he wanted a glass of ice water, she put the water in teh glass BEFORE the ice... she brought it to him and when she walked away he though the glass and hit her in the head with it, breaking the glass.

    I can remember him beating her because he was sure she was flirting with her brother!

    After the killing, we ended up with my grandma, and my grandma I feel really did her dirty keeping us away, I found her years later, which I will blog about, but I think that separation killed her. We are close now but it took many years to get to where we are.

    I think she wakes every morning with that guilt, especially when she found out what happened to me while we were with my grandparents, which is another blog as well.

    I swear,when I go back and read these posts, it is like a lifetime movie or something

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  4. I am really confused, I've just started to read your last post and I don't know if all this is real or just a story, I guess I'd had to read more but you never know, you come from a land of possibilites. Congrats for your efforts.

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  5. Thanks for your response and for trying to find out what I wrote, I've tried to make the translation as accurate as I can :) and of course I will write and read more if I get the time. By now I'm basing on facts but I have also an artistic purpose so I'd like to create stories when I'll have time and inspiration. Best wishes

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  6. I'd still like to hear if you think you'd have been better off in the foster care system. Of course, you can't know how that would have gone - I am interested on your thoughts on whether you believe the odds would have been more or less in your favor.

    People always seem to say that someone who behaves badly 'has to live with that the rest of his or her life'. I think this is just a fatuous assumption that it is all that difficult; people seem endlessly able to forgive themselves. I'd like to be clear that I think your mother did 100% the right thing in offing the bastard - had she merely left he'd have found some other woman to mistreat, and probably had more kids to maul also. I only feel that she was remiss afterward in leaving her duty to her children for a ten year old to take care of.

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  7. How you doin? You're leaving as much space between posts as I am! This was great as usual - I put up an email link on my front page if you want to use it.

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  8. Wow I had no idea that 2 other people had died and what a horrible way to pass. My best friend drowned last June at the Beach and I thought he could swim too but one day he was here and the next he wasn't.

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  9. Oh jeez... this is horrible! I can understand the black widow status. I think your mother lost touch of reality a little...

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