MrGimpy DNO FUSINGLE's blog: "My Continuing Nightmare"

   I was born with Spina Bifida in 1975. With that comes a lot of health issues, surgeries and close calls with death and life. Life for me has never been easy. Growing up an "only child" since, my father left my mother and I alone, taking with him, my three older sisters was very hard on both my mother and myself, although, I was too young to understand or really remember all that happened, since I was only two years old at the time.

   Fast forward to 1986, my mother had remarried so, I gained a "step-father" out of the whole deal. He was pretty cool at first, we would play catch, football, or baseball, depending on the time of year and what was playing on tv. We went camping, fishing, he even taught me how to shoot a gun for the first time in my life. Over a period of a few years into the marriage, things began to quickly change for us, my mother and I, mostly me.

   We found out, my step father was a heavy drinker. Me being "The Problem Child" didn't help matters, I always had bad grades in elementary scool, through my first half of high school. Whenever I got in trouble at school, he would find out about it and then come home late from work smelling of alcohol.  Then, at the dinner table, we would have our "   Meetings", or what my mother called "Family discussion", which meant, I was facing a punishment for whatever I did that day at school, or at home.

    My Step father would get into these raging fits and start yelling at me, then would race to my end of the table and hold me down against the chair, while bare handing me on my face, repeatedly. My mother would eventually get up from the kitchen table and leave the room. Then about 10 minutes later, while he would still be whaling on me, she would come back into the room and tell him, "Stop, he's had enough." He would continue going on and she would have to physically pull him off me to get him to stop.

     His drinking over the years, became worse, to the point, one time, while his Nephew was staying with us, he was in a drunkin rage and he was fighting with my mother, he proceeded to run upstairs as fast as he could stumble up the stairs to their bedroom, to get his guns. That night, he was going to kill us, my mother pulled us out of their and we went to a friends house until he left. She eventually won that over, after he left the house, she had the locks changed and basically kicked him out of the house.

    I thought, maybe my mom had enough of the abuse, she went through the verbal and mental abuse, I went through the verbal, physical and mental abuse. Things changed after that, for a while, then she let him back into the house again. All seemed well. Until I started getting into trouble again at school. He started drinking again and coming home after work smelling of alcohol.

     Things went crazy again, with my mother being verbally and mentally abused and myself, being verbally, physically and mentally abused again. One night at the dinner table, my mother had decorated the table with waxed leaves from the back yard. They were having a heated discussion about something, probably something about me, again that night. He took the leaves from the table and smashed them into his dinner plate, then he jumped me and started slapping my face over and over, eventually I could feel my self starting to just let go, when I seen some red splatter against the white dining room wall. To this day, I don't know if that was my blood, or his.

     As I got older and got into high school, I was still getting into trouble but not as much, I was starting to make a change for myself finally. I still would avoid any confrontations with my step father and his drinking. I couldn't take it anymore, my junior and senior years in high school were great, I was finally getting good grades and the dark cloud at home was slowly fading. I eventually graduated from high school with a 3.0 gpa.College was another experience, after graduating from high school, I didn't have much of a break in summer between high school and graduation and going into college, I may have had a two week break.

     I have done a lot since high school and attenting Community College. I got into wheelchair racing, won a few plaques and trophies from those experiences of racing. Then I moved onto professional wheelchair basketball, that was fun but unfortunately, didn't last long due to the fact, i could never find dependable transportation to and from practice. Then my final sporting experience was snow skiing, that was the most exciting times I ever had being active in sports. Jump into the mid to late 1990's I was in my early 20's and things were finally panning out in my life. My relationship with my step father had improved, we had gotten closer and same with my mom.

    In the year 1998, that was when my step father decided, to quit smoking cigarettes and quit drinking. "Cold Turkey". That was a bit rough but we dealth with it pretty good. That summer, june, was his 54th birthday and my mom was leaving for ten days to go to New York to visit her family. So, it was just my step father and myself fending for ourselves for ten days. Things were pretty good, I made his lunches for work and he made dinner when he came home after work. Well, something within that ten day period while my mom was gone, didn't seem right.

    My step father came to me and apologized for what he did to me and explained to me "His Reasons" for doing what he did. I genuinely accepted his apology and life between the two of us went on as normal. The day before my mother was due back from her trip to New York, my step father was so excited and couldn't wait to go pick her up at the airport. That was a busy day for me, I had to go look for a job so, I was doing interviews and filling out job applications. I left him a note, that I would be out doing that and I would be home late since, I was going to my favorite hangout afterwards.

    I went to my hangout at a local cafe/tavern/diner. Hada few beers and hung out with friends. I had asked my friends if they could give me a ride home, which they did. When we got to the house, they dropped me off and left so fast I couldn't even wave them goodbye. That evening, it was a hot day, when I got to the front of the house, the television was on upstairs and the light was on in the kitchen, other than that, the house was dark and I felt something wasn't right. As I approached the front dor, which was open because the house was hot, I peered in and I could see a Silhouette of somebody sitting on the chair next to the phone table.

    I turned on the light to see who, or what it was and it was the dead body of my step father. I couldn't think, I immediately went into shock and started shaking, I started yelling out his name for any kind of a response but, he stared dead at me with his mouth open and limped over the chair. I immediately called 9-1-1. Then I had to make the dreaded call and call my oldest sister to tell her what happened.. Her husband at the time, answered the phone and they thought I was making a joke. I told them, "NO! He's Fucking Dead!"........They told me they were going to call 9-1-1 but, I had told them not to worry about it, that I had already called and they were already there along with the sheriff.

   He had been dead for at least two hours at the most, I was not home. He died of a massive heart attack. His nitroglycerine was on the floor between his feet. My mom was due home the next day while all hell was breaking lose at home. My second sister came to the house around midnight and by that time, the Medical Examiner had arrived to gather up his lifeless body. We didn't leave the house until three in the morning to go back to my sister's house. The next day, my oldest sister had to go pick up our mother from the airport. My oldest sister had called her while she was sleeping at her mother's house in New York so, she already knew.

    I knew at this point, it wasn't going to be pretty having to face my other two sisters and my mother, knowing they knew what I had just gone through just hours the night before. When we finally got my mother home, I promise you as God is my witness, I had never heard a woman cry the way she did when she ran to his room upstairs. I will never forget that for as long as I live. A few days later, we were making memorial and funeral preparations. My step father had served in the Navy at Pearl Harber just after World War II. So, in honor of his service, m father being retired Navy reserves for over 40 years. Taught me and walked me through the flag folding ceremony. That was the last time I have ever seen my father in his Navy uniform.

     Now, it's 2020 and my step father has been gone 22 years. SInce 2010, I had gone through extensive mental health counsiling and grief counseling. Yet, I have reoccuring nightmares, of what I went through, with the beatings and his death and I feel like he is haunting my dreams and taunting me. I now suffer from depression, bipolar, anxiety and PTSD and am on medications for that today, to control my moods and depression.

       The nightmares come and go but, I don't know when they will happen, they even happen when I am wide awake outside  smoking a cigarette. I feel like I have been scarred for life. I just live life day by day not knowing when or where they will happen but, I try not to think about it...........