Chapter 2
Love and Fear
When I was eight years old, I finally met my father.
The End of My World as I Knew It
Shortly after my fourth birthday, my lovely childhood world collapsed. My grandma died. My grandpa got a new girlfriend who swiftly kicked me, my mom, and crazy Jonah out of the house. Next, my dad lost his ever-loving mind, dropped out of medical school, and ended up in the mental hospital. (Hannah Pavilion to be precise.) My mom took me, and my baby sister Star, born amongst the ruins of the marriage, to Alabama, where we all lived with my hippy-dippy poet uncle, my aunt, and my two boy cousins, eating pomegranates and sweet grass off of my uncle’s wholly organic farm. Next, my daddy came to Alabama to retrieve us, (me, my mom and my sister) brought us back to Cleveland and moved us into a roach-infested shack.
Besides the roaches, there were other problems like no food, and I mean absolutely no food in the house. Lights would get cut off, water too. My parents were always fighting about these things.
Sometimes, Jonah cried for no apparent reason. I remember him bursting into tears over nothing anyone could see. I was concerned about my father, but I didn’t know how to help him, or if he could even be helped. He was prescribed all kinds of different medications: Haldog, Stellazine, Vivactal, but none of these medications seemed to work and they made him do the funniest things. He paced, back and forth, across a room, aimlessly. He shook his legs, his hands, his lips, uncontrollably, sometimes. People talked. People said things in front of me thinking that I didn’t know or understand what was being said, but I did. What a shame. How sad. He’s so sick. He's crazy.
If his depressive episodes weren’t odd enough, the manic ones were really weird. It would often start with him becoming obsessed with strange, but harmless things like: the constellations in the sky, or the size of the moon. He'd stay up all night, talking to fictitious people and spending lots and lots of money on the oddest things. He'd get the craziest ideas about things to explore, discover and invent. It was clear to most sane observers that he was losing touch with reality. But, if anyone tried to point that out, he'd become terrifyingly violent. The person who was almost always on the receiving end of his violent rages, was my mother. Whenever my father flipped, my mom sought refuge at her parent’s house.
Everyday when I came home from school, I watched Leave it to Beaver. I wanted Beaver’s life, because Beaver’s world seemed wonderfully normal. I got this idea that my family, like Beaver’s family, could be perfect, if only my father would turn into Ward Cleaver.
Because of my Christian upbringing, I’d been told repeatedly that God answers prayers. Not only that, God could answer any prayer, because God was all powerful. I truly believed that God could turn my dad into Ward Cleaver. In my mind, it was such a small thing to ask. I prayed that God would turn my father into Ward Cleaver and diligently waited for Ward to arrive.
The Rock Star
At the top of what seemed to be a really enormous hill, my father held my bike sans the training wheels.
“Come on Lisa, just sit on the bike. I’m not going to let you fall.”
That’s what he said, but I knew him better than that. I didn’t have a problem with training wheels on my bike, but Jonah had decided it was time for me to ride without them.
“It’s all about balance. Once you master that, you’ve got it.”
He held the bike steadily as I mounted it. He held it as promised, while pushing me along. I kept surveying him carefully out of the corner of my eye. I was nervous because Jonah was the type to let me go when I wasn’t looking. To his credit, he held me up, back and forth, back and forth we went, while I mastered the concept of balancing. Finally, we both agreed it was time for him to let me go.
