Back to Reality

Camp was the essence of much of what I craved as a little girl. Still, it was really nothing more than an island; a short window during the summer in what was otherwise frighteningly turbulent years. My Mother made a choice to make me and my sisters orphans.  The long bumpy ride back to Maryville from Camp St. George was filled with feelings of anxiety and loss, I was about to be returned to reality, where fun and security were nowhere to be found. This is not to say that every moment of my life was without happiness; it was just that those moments that did hurt, did so in such a grand and crushing manner that they have shaped elements of the person I am today.

The first Christmas, after my Father died, was an unusual time for many reasons. The greatest was that my sisters and I would never again have a defender or advocate against our cruel and thoughtless Mother. My Father represented the only barrier of reason to the ludicrous and narcissistic whims of my Mother.  She was never a woman to be burdened by responsibility or obligation.  Often, in direct contrast to my Mother’s ill wishes, my Father held our fragile family together. With his passing, she became free to exact her selfish whims against her young children. There was no stopping her. With his death, our life was to change forever.  Under the veil of my recently deceased Father, the realization there was no Santa, was a sad and dramatic shock. It was that year my Mother bought me a dark red three wheel bicycle.  I was not aware of it at the time, but the money for the bicycle came from the significant windfall after my Father’s death.  Those who had been close to him, both personally and on the police force, had given our family a significant amount of money, likely enough to buy a small house.  Whatever were the misguided motivations of my Mother, there never was a house, but she did live large without us, and on that first Christmas, I received my bike.

It was a beautiful bicycle. It really didn't matter that I could already ride the tall two wheel bike that belonged to my older sisters; the pride was that something was actually mine.  My older sisters taught me to ride their bike a few months earlier, but being five or six, I had to stand up in order to reach the pedals. My early coordination (I first stood up at nine weeks) instilled a particular affection for my bike, as it was something that I felt I had total control of. But, the feeling was not to last.

When we were all shipped off to Maryville, the bike was sent along with my other few possessions.  For whatever reason Maryville conceived, I was not allowed to ride my bike.  Being in such shock upon my arrival, I never really argued against the rules. I mostly just tried to avoid being beaten by the nuns.  Even through all the fear and sadness, I still had my bike.  The nuns had parked my bicycle under the landing of the side set of stairs.  As I was often up and down those stairs, I would regularly look at the bike as I passed.  The bike warmed my heart as it was a symbol of a life on the outside.  It gave me hope and the feeling that going home was never too far away.  The bike sat under the landing for three months, and then, one day, it was gone.  I never knew what happened to the bike, and being a confused and scared seven year old, I never asked.  Although I never asked about the bike, I had a fact confirmed to me that day; no one was going to take care of me.

Regardless, life moved on.

With all five of us at Maryville there was always some event like a graduation, a confirmation or a first communion going on and because of those events, parents were allowed to visit and celebrate with their children. Most of those occurred on Sunday and so we were allowed to leave Maryville for a couple of hours, drive into town with our parents, and had to return by four or five that evening.  My Mother would often arrive at Maryville, when she actually did show up, with a new boyfriend in tow.  Those boyfriends were strange men to me and their presence robbed any feeling of personal mother-daughter time that I might have been able to otherwise squeeze from my Mother. I was extremely unsure of myself and resentful of the situation that these men created.  I was always excited to leave Maryville if even for a couple of hours.  But often the boyfriends told my Mother that they did not want to take all five us into town for the day; they would only take one or two of us with them. They wished to limit their inconvenience.  I never once heard my Mother protest. She just told us that her boyfriend did not want to take all of us, so she decided which two to take and the rest of us were just forgotten and left behind.  Somewhere between the fact that my Mother had more interest in her boyfriends and her dog…yes she kept her dog…than her children, I developed resentment for her and the whole situation at Maryville which has taken many years for me to fully grasp and deal with.

 Many years later after leaving Maryville, my son Nate became an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. I was very proud of my Nate because he had attained the Eagle ranking when he was only fourteen years old. Every year, all of the new Eagle Scouts were invited to an awards dinner. I so looked forward to this event, all the food, fun, and a well-known speaker would be brought in to give the new Eagles a motivational… pep talk.  That year the speaker was Father John Smith, who was the executive director of Maryville Academy. He was better known as a basketball player from Notre Dame University.  He began his speech by comparing the parents of the Eagle Scouts and the parents of kids at Maryville.  He said Maryville kids had parents who did not care about them; they didn't believe in giving their kids any attention and that’s why it was so hard for Maryville kids to succeed. He went on to say that the reason our kids made Eagle was because they had parents, who cared about them and took the time to encourage their children and helped them succeed.  Well… as he went on I started to cry; I was having a hard time controlling my emotions. He finally finished and as he started to leave the room, I decided to go up to him and introduce myself.  He was suggesting that kids like me didn't succeed but I felt I had succeeded.  I had a college degree, the first in my family to do so.  I was happily married and had two wonderful children, one of whom was one of the honorees for this evening’s event.  I approached Father Smith and introduced myself and told him I had been at Maryville.  He looked at me and just kept walking. I felt like he had just told a disaster story where everyone in the room thought there were no survivors, but I was a survivor and I thought he would be happy to meet me but he wasn't   Later Father Smith was dethroned when it was learned that Maryville kids were being abused under his watch; I understood better why he didn't engage me.  He was not a sincere man just a person full of show, always looking for the spotlight.    

Life at Maryville was filled with the outcomes of shortsighted, cruel and selfish people. Our parents’ choices to give us up, the utterly uncaring and cruel tendencies of the nuns and the vacant and careless management of the Catholic clergy caused irreparable damage.  The stresses were such that many children never really recovered. They just became hollow emotionless shells. But largely that was the exception and not the rule.  For many of us, Maryville became something for us to survive.  Experiences to endure, but not one that we would let define us for the rest of our lives.  My life since has been filled with triumphs and hardships, as any normal life has.  After Maryville, the relationship with my Mother was never the same, how could it be?  I still play ping pong regularly, now often with my sons. Maryville took everything it could from me, but somehow through it all, I thrived.