Day 5: The Day that changed me forever…
I realize that sounds a little dramatic, but it’s true. I am starting to wonder if my childhood sounds too melodramatic. Yes, there were hidden traumatic events, but I know a lot of people had it much worse than I did. I am only trying to convey events that molded my life as I grew up and later, I’ll share how I overcame these events.
It was actually a night event that impacted me so deeply. That afternoon, Daddy had seen me wrestling in the neighbor’s yard with a boy from school. It really wasn’t a big deal, two punk 6th graders trying to be the tough guy.
When I got home Daddy asked me what I was doing. I said, “I had a fight with Blacky”…that was the kid’s nickname. Daddy didn’t say anything to me and I thought that was the end of it.
That night, after I had been asleep for a while, he woke me up. He had been drinking, of course, and he told me he wanted to show me how to fight. Half asleep and half scared I didn’t know what to do. He grabbed my hands, rolled on his back, put his foot in my stomach and proceeded to flip me over his head. If he had explained it, maybe the result would have been different, but he didn’t.
As I was flying through the air I panicked and kept my head up to see where I was going, the result being that I landed face first on the wooden floor. My two permanent front teeth shatter and blood went everywhere. One tooth broke off all the way to the gum line and the other one split diagonally leaving half a tooth.
Daddy grabbed my mouth and took me into the bathroom and put my head over the sink so the blood wouldn’t go everywhere. I was crying, of course, then he left, and Mama came in. Finally, the bleeding stopped, and I was alone in the bathroom. I looked up in the mirror opened my mouth and saw the nasty result. My first thought was, “What girl would want me now?” As a 12-year-old boy just reaching puberty, I guess it’s logical, but still a little strange. Maybe it just added to my already instilled feeling of rejection.
For some reason, it took several days to get to the Dentist, so I had to go to school like that which made it even worse. The tooth that broke off left an exposed nerve hanging so every time I tried to talk or eat or drink, extreme pain would shoot up into my head.
I finally got it fixed and the Dentist, Dr. Clark…no relation, put in a false tooth after he removed the nerve, and to add insult to injury, he put a silver cap over a broken tooth which I had to live with until I graduated from college. Consequently, I never smiled for any picture taken of me. My mother didn’t want to permanently fix my teeth until I finished playing football in college…which is kind of funny, but I understood her logic. Mama and my step-father at the time gave me a choice when I graduated from college. I could either get a college ring from East Carolina or get my teeth fixed and the silver cap replaced with a white porcelain cap, of course, I choose the latter.
Needless to say, I never liked Dentists or going to the Dentist because it always reminded me of that pain. Yes, Daddy was sorry. He didn’t mean to do it, but it still happened. He asked me to forgive him, and of course, I said yes, but by now I was jaded. In my mind and heart, I wanted nothing to do with him. I had no feelings, no connection and from that time on, I determined I was on my own.
Poor Mama was as sweet as she could be, but she couldn’t protect me from Daddy and I knew it, so from that point on I never wanted anyone over me. I could show respect, but I was determined to control my own life and didn’t really trust anyone.
That’s a lot for a 12-year-old to process, but sadly, it served me well over the years and I was rewarded for it professionally and socially, because very little if anything could get to me.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about what toll it took on my life and how I got out of it, but that’s enough for now.
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