Wails of an ADDHA Child

The sounds of a child in pain are unmistakable and the visions of one in pain stick in our minds all our lives, like scars from a cut of a sharp knife. I know many who have survived these pains and scars, but of them all, I think the one that counts the most to me, is my own daughter, her cries still echo today and will for her lifetime I am sure, at least in her mind. Can a father ever truly understand a daughter, who seemed such a problem child and still seems so as an adult these days?  Hard to believe, but her screams and emotions and feelings are on the surface of her being and in her mind and they may well be there for her whole lifetime.

She had her own way, as a baby, we gave her the best, her own room, furniture and clothing, toys heaped upon her and presents too, well-loved from the day of her birth, but you wouldn’t know it today if you saw her. She looks so depressed and worn out, like a woman at 30 who went through hell, but she never really did, she portrays it well though. Eileen cries out like a siren in the old days. A siren that wails and wails on and on, but makes that noise at a high-pitched level that it goes through you at times and chills you to the bone. I know she suffers from Attention Deficient Disorder and Hyperactivity, we took her in for treatment and she was put on Ritalin at the young age of 6.      .

I remember when she was born in January of 1982 I sat down and wrote a poem about her that I called A Child of The Stars. It went like this, she is a child of the stars, and she can be whatever she wishes. A doctor, a lawyer a chemist or a thing of beauty like her momma is, yes a Child of the Stars she can be whatever she wishes. That was my intentions for Eileen and what I wanted for her as her father

Her siren call and wail started in the 1980’s and still continues today while she lives with her daughter and lesbian lover in Pittsburgh’s South side. I see her now and then when I get to Pittsburgh, Pa. and when I do I still feel the sting of her siren wail, when she calls me by my first name instead of dad. It pulls at my heart-strings.

Her siren call would come across state lines to catch me unawares after I left her mother and we went through divorce. Little did I know what was coming but, if I had known, I am not sure what I could have done differently, her siren wail of a person for attention, almost cost me 20 years in jail.

July 1989, Portsmouth Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, Va, I was a Second Class Petty Officer with the job of  helping to run the Bachelor’s Enlisted Quarters on the Hospital base. I had been there a year after a severe injury onboard a ship, where I ended up with 6 herniated discs in my spine, and I was under treatment. I had fought for the prior 7 years with The Navy and the Orthopedic Doctors over my spinal injuries and the possibility of surgery. The wanted to fuse my discs in my neck and lower spine, I refused because I wanted to be able to walk. After 16 years of service to my country, and 6 herniated discs I finally lost the battle to stay in, on July 24^th, 1989. I was discharged under Medical Conditions, Honorably.

I was collecting unemployment and thought I should find a job easily. Nope that was not to be, so by October of 1989, we couldn’t pay our mortgage on our home in Virginia Beach, Virginia and were force to let it foreclose and move.

My wife suggested we go live with her mother until we could get on our feet, I agreed, big mistake. Thinking back, I should have known better than to agree to this one but, again a man does what he thinks is right.

Back at the end of July, I had come home from a job hunting trip one day to find my wife on the phone in the kitchen crying as our daughters played in their rooms. When I asked what happened or was wrong at first she refused to tell me, then she blurted out in tears her parents were getting a divorce. When I asked why, I got shocked, her father, as his kids were growing up, sexually abused all four of his kids.  . Right then and there I should have looked for mental health help for her, but she refused to get any and from that point things went downhill. Eileen was 7 years old in 1989, and she watched everything as it happened

April 1990, Pittsburgh, Pa., we had now lived in my mother in laws home since October of the prior year. I struggled in Pittsburgh to find a job finally getting one in March of 1990 as a plumber’s helper; it paid a lousy 12 bucks an hour. On pay days I handed my wife my paycheck and never asked for a penny, we had the girls I didn’t care, I was providing.

Until April 13^th, 1990 all was well. Then I came home to eat and take a shower and watch some television, before bed, and got hit with a jolt. My wife looked at me and said she wanted a divorce!

The following morning I got up at 6 am and had coffee and made my lunch, as I finished, my wife woke up, I looked at her and asked her one more time, are you sure you want a divorce, yes was all she said, I said ok I would take care of it and got my paycheck from my boss, told him I was getting a divorce and I couldn’t work. I drove from work to a bank and cashed the check, then to where my wife worked. I asked her again if she was sure, she said yes, so I left. I left Pittsburgh, Pa. on April 14^th, 1990, and came home to Connecticut, I never got to say goodbye to Eileen, she, was in school.

When I arrived in Connecticut I went to my parents’ home, and they took me in. They gave me a room to sleep in and a place to stay till I could get on my feet again. Unknown to me, was the fact my step-father was dying of pancreatic cancer. My step-father died in October of 1990 as I was going through my divorce, his advice to me was save your money you’re going to need it, he was right. At the same time he was dying, my siblings and I were called to Waterbury Hospital that July 1990, as we rushed in thinking it was dad dying now, we were ushered into a conference room in the hospital. Sitting at the end of the conference table was mom and her doctor, the doctor told us, mom, was dying of cancer also and had about 18 months to live. We lost both parents within one year and two days of each other.

December 1991, the 15^th, I came home to my parents’ house where I was still living with my youngest brother, it was the evening. I had just gotten done watching a program on television, when a knock on the door got my attention. I opened the door to find two police officers standing there. I asked if I could help them, they asked my name, the next thing I know I was cuffed and under arrest. The charges I never knew until I was in a cell in the police department, they shocked me to hell. My daughter had told her mother I sexually abused her and beat her. The charges were Assault and Sexual Battery , my nightmare began with that arrest.

I had to go to trial in Virginia Beach, Va. It would be 4 months later before I was released and cleared, after a prosecutor caught both, my ex-wife and Eileen in lies. But I almost got killed in jail by a mass murderer who was in the same cell as me. He found out the charges I had and set all in jail after me, I had to beg to be moved to a private cell, until I went back to court. Her wails had gone off again and this time I almost paid with twenty years in prison. The Prosecuting attorney saved my ass, by catching on to it all.

She will be thirty come January 2^nd, was 7 in 1989, when I left Pittsburgh, Pa. and lived in that apartment with her mom, sister and grandmother and Uncle. Listening to the tales of what my ex-wife’s father did to her and her siblings and what the grandmother said too, she then made up a story of me doing the same to her. Sadly enough, it almost, got me.

August 2006, I got a call from my youngest daughter, , she was getting married, and called and asked if I would   pay for her wedding gown, yep, if I get an invite. I hadn’t seen either of my daughters in 14 years at the time, away we went my second wife and   I, to see my youngest get married in Pittsburgh, Pa in a Park. We spent 3 days there, in a hotel and saw my eldest  and her mate. And we met my eldest granddaughter, that year too, as she stood staring out the front window of her home, waiting for us to arrive She is a doll of a child and smart as all get out, she is a great kid.

My eldest daughter,  and I,  get along ok, but you can feel the tension rise if we are together in the same place too long. She has never said she is sorry for her wail and call for attention that almost cost me 20 years of my life, and likes to talk like her mates father was her father, since I was never around and calls me by my first name. My second wife looked at her and told her, this is your father, wake up. She will never be the little girl I knew as a baby and young child, but she should at least not let her siren go off anymore or let us hear her wail.

I love both my daughters equally, and always will, but, all I can hope for is a day when Eileen will say, I am sorry dad. Maybe someday it will happen, I know not when. I shall survive as I always have and so will both my daughters I am sure, today, I have now 2 grandchildren in Connecticut, twins, one grandchild by Eileen and Leslie has produced 3 grandchildren plus a step one too, total grandchildren number 7 now. My life goes on, but, I know, someday soon her siren may go off again, and I am fully aware now of the possibility of her wails being false!

False accusations can destroy people, be careful of that little child’s siren and listen for when she wails. And hope someday by others tales, your child doesn’t wail and make you spend time in jail, for something you never did. Because of  her siren and the way she did wail, I live in fear of lies that can put anyone, in jail. I passed the ADD HA  on to my daughters it runs in families, but, my wails never put my parents in jail!