Missing Pieces

Last week I was driving in the car with my father when I accidentally turned the volume on the radio to its highest point. The ear-splitting sound rattled the vehicle, and him. To be shocked would be a normal reaction to this occurrence, as I was, but his reaction was different. Fear overtook his eyes and his demeanor as he abruptly jerked his foot off the accelerator and onto the brake. 

“Geez, Sam! Turn it down!” he shouted. 

The car remained silent. I didn’t dare touch the radio, or any sort of noise-making source for that matter. I sat in my seat and stared at the road ahead, as did he, with sweat streaming from his face. I looked over at him and observed the distress that he was in. I questioned where this type of reaction was derived from, but I already knew the answer. I should’ve been more sensitive, I thought.

My father, Wayne Ryerson Coffey, cannot stand loud noises. A loud honking horn, fire alarms, or the blasting of music, all trigger him. He was the youngest son of two parents who were alcoholics, amongst other things. He can’t bear loud noises because of the sounds he used to hear in the middle of the night—a  terrifying thud of flying lamps and haunting screams––and because of flashbacks to the times that his father would beat up his mother — the shrieking of her voice, the sound of sirens, the grunts of his father as he tied her up and pinned her to the floor. He forced her to enter a mental institution. Most people dislike loud noises because they are unpleasant, and that’s the end of it; but each time the radio exceeds its sound limit, I note the fear and emotion that overtakes him, knowing that his reaction stems from something much deeper than a simple shock-- a lifetime of pain, abuse, addiction, and indeed many loud noises. 

Last week I lit a fire in our living room. I left the room briefly to shower, completely forgetting about the flames that burned on the floor below me. As I exited the shower, I heard my mother’s voice exclaim my full name: “Samantha Grace Coffey! Get the hell down here right now!” There was a major emphasis on “right now.” I got changed and hurried downstairs, curious to find out about what I had done wrong now. Her tone was different. It wasn’t a type of scolding where she was annoyed with me; rather, she was genuinely in shock at my thoughtless actions. 

As I proceeded downstairs, she met me with a look of disappointment and fear. 

“Samantha Grace. You left the fire going while no one was down here!” she scolded. She was breathing heavily as if she had just walked up a flight of stairs. She had a scared look in her eye but relief in her demeanor— relief, perhaps, that she had reached the fire in time before anything tragic could happen. I still didn’t recognize the severity of the issue, but I did understand her reaction. I should’ve been more sensitive, I thought.

My mother, Madeleine Denise Willi, who goes by Denise, becomes anxious at the sight of open flames. She was the only child to two of the most eccentric and complicated people I have ever known: a white Anglo-Saxon alcoholic for a father, and a controlling, manipulative, and unconventional Chilean woman as a mother. She bounced back and forth as a child between South America and the United States, but finally settled in Redding, Connecticut at the age of thirteen, just in time to start high school. Then her house burnt down. Everything was lost; nothing was saved. I should really be more sensitive, I thought.

Open flames and loud noises are not my parents’ only fears, memories, and baggage from their childhoods—or lack thereof. Childhood is too generous a word. They raised themselves. They did not have parents; they had guardians. The difference is monumental. 

It wasn’t until I reached my teenage years that I realized that my parents are also human beings. Part of me thought that they were these robots with no emotion and no past life, simply there to cater to my every emotional and developmental need. Until I noticed patterns in their behaviors that I could link directly back to their complex childhoods, I overlooked their tendencies— like overreacting to open flames and shaking at the sound of a loud noise. 

The greatest mystery of my young life is questioning how my parents are the way they are. Although I do not know half of what they endured growing up, what I do know is often unbearable to hear. It sounds like something you’d read in a novel, or watch in an episode of Law and Order. I question how they created lives for themselves, how they succeeded. I question how they managed to wake up every single morning and live another day. I question how they survived—how they managed to escape the firm grasp that their parents and their consequential actions had on them. I question how they managed to love each other with every single shattered bone in their bodies.

A few weeks ago I was in the midst of a silent dinner with my parents when I decided to go upstairs and finish some homework. Something was going on with them. Their body language was slouched and tired; the only noises they made were the sounds of their silverware clinking carelessly against their plates. The moments that passed us by felt heavy, somber, sad; so, I left abruptly. As I made my way up the stairs, I heard some soft noises coming from below me. I turned around and quietly sat on the top step of my staircase, poked my face through the pillars on the railing, and watched them. Quiet whispers turned into the sound of two people—both broken inside, both stressed, both carrying the weight of their past on their shoulders— crying in each other’s arms. I continued to watch them. I had no idea about the reason behind their tears, but I couldn’t help but feel a sense of comfort within the moment. I didn’t understand the gravity of what was happening, yet I felt reassured that they had each other to lean on, to turn to, to cry with. As they sat there, safe and supported in each other’s arms, I smiled, began to cry myself, then hurried on upstairs before they noticed that I was watching.

When my father was eight years old, he participated in Little League baseball in Greenlawn, Long Island. His team was called the Centerports. His father rarely came to his sporting events. However, by chance on one May afternoon, he showed up to a game. My dad was on-deck against a good Bluejays team. The team’s pitcher was a beefy prepubescent boy named Bob Weighman. He had bullied my father before, pushing over his bike, stealing his lunch money. Bob was a mean kid; hence, my dad was scared to face him as he stood on the mound. To avoid any potential humiliation or injury, my father faked a stomachache. He told his coach he couldn’t hit because he was not feeling well. Luckily, Coach Mike was very kind and understood the circumstances. His father, on the other hand, did not. He marched down to the bench where my dad sat slouched and dragged his fragile body out of the dugout.

“I’ll be goddamned if any son of mine is gonna be a coward,” his father shouted. He proceeded to take away my father’s prized possessions: his favorite Rawling glove and his blue and white Centerports uniform. 

My father has never missed one of my soccer games. He’ll travel to Ireland, Spain, England and beyond to support me in the pursuit of my dreams. He stands silently on the sidelines in the midst of overly-involved parents — he even likes to gradually drift away from them as the game progresses to focus on why he is really there: to watch me do what I love most. His father traumatized him. He was a parent that ruled over him with terror. But my dad has never met me after a game with anything other than a hug, a kiss, and a “Great job, Sam. I’m so proud of you.” My dad has never tried to take away the joy that I get through doing what I love, and he has never called me a coward. He has never pulled me off the field, or taken away my soccer ball. All he has done in my eighteen years of life is support and love me with every fiber of his being.

When it was time for my mother to start looking at college, her parents failed to support her during the process. They never sat down with her and asked her where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do, or what she was passionate about. If she were male, she would’ve ended up like the rest of her cousins at Dartmouth— but she wasn’t. She didn’t go on tours or meet with a counselor. They never invested that kind of time in her. They randomly placed her at George Washington University— it was close enough for them to visit, and she could get in with minimal effort. They never gave her the resources or the time of day, for that matter, to achieve her full potential. They left her on her own. 

When she graduated after four years at GW, she wasn’t met with open arms or a hug and a kiss like the rest of her classmates. Her parents attended her graduation, but afterward her mother met her with three words that have haunted her to this day. Not “I love you,” or “Great job, Denise,” or even an “I am proud,” but: “You’re so average.”

My mother has never doubted that I can do anything that I set my mind to. She is, perhaps, the most selfless person that I have had the pleasure of knowing and my biggest fan. When it was her time to be a parent, she realized that she didn't need to cut her children down in order to heal her own insecurities and shortcomings. Doing that wouldn't make them go away. Whether it be attending some stupid Middle School Winter Concert, teaching me how to drive, kissing me goodnight— she has always shown that she has time for me, and that to her, I am far from average. She has never made me feel like I was second in her life, like she was to her parents. She didn’t have to do any of these things, but she chose to. She chose to believe in me and to always remind me that I am never alone. 

It seems as though bad parenting was a constant on both my mother’s side and my father’s. Both of their parents’ parents had rough upbringings, too. I’m not sure if their parental habits were similar or different, but I am sure of one thing: my parents broke the cycle. They made the conscious decision that they didn’t need to be like those who raised them. They realized that treating their children the way they were treated would not rid them of their past, but would just make it worse. They chose to give their children the lives that they didn't get. I may not understand their past, but I admire their resilience with every ounce of my being.

Perhaps the key to doing things right, well, and effectively is to do them in a way that is opposite to doing them wrong. That is what they did, at least. The greatest mystery of my life may never be solved, but maybe it does not need to be. My parents healed each other. They didn’t experience the same things—not even close––but the way I view their steadfast relationship is like a puzzle. They are both complex masterpieces, they were born as such, but they both have missing pieces, widening gaps that only the other could fill, replace, and replenish. Of course, they share similarities in their upbringings with constant addiction, short tempers, verbal and physical abuse, but it is in their differences that they heal each other. Yes, they may have deeply rooted, understandable fears of loud noises and open flames, but they have never let that stop them from being the two most important people in my life.