Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper

To understand Frank, Jill’s father, in Baggage burdens one must dig deep, deeper than Jill was prepared to endure.

Frank’s employer at the Oshawa General Motors plant didn’t find out what Frank’s real problem was. Even though Frank was a highly valued supervisor his drinking lead to him to being fired.

Only Alice understood her husband’s need to drink. Her insight enabled her to defend him in spite of his drinking that lead to violent behavior and the running away of both her daughters. What could possibly have won her loyalty?

A foundational hint of Frank’s deep-seated problem appears in Jill’s recollection of her childhood. Frank brags to the men at work about his daughter in a school play. He mistakenly thinks she is an actor. The error shows him up as not being a father who knows his children. The result is he reverts to the role he experienced from his own father. Be a good provider and an authoritarian. Jill lacks her mother’s perspective to see how Frank’s mistake became a thorn that festers and poisons his self-image.

Alice’s lifeline insight peeks out when she is in the hospital. Frank visits her and quits drinking. Josey’s pressure failed to force Frank to change. Alice’s strategy worked. Why? When Kathy, Jill’s sister, visits her mother in the hospital she learns why Alice supported Frank so many times. The explanation opens the door for her to meet with Frank several years after Alice’s death. Kathy eventually learns first hand that her mother was right. Frank claimed no one cared about him. Even God deserted him.

For a while Frank had it all: he was married, had two children and a very good job. Then his childhood flaw grew like a thistle and through the liquor bottle it sucked his blessings. He died with nothing.

It is important for someone to believe in you.

Who has fulfilled that role in your life?

How have they shown it?

In what way was it important to you?

Three characters in Baggage burdens. fall victim to a personal tragedy. A character’s flaw serves as a foundation for a downfall. In the case of Joseph, Jill’s husband, good intentions are not enough to save him from his sorry fate. How can an honest, loving, hard working man be subjected to such a fall? That is explored in the next blog.

Same, But Not the Same

Same, But Not the Same

Which character in Baggage burdens is in the best position to attempt to alter Jill’s impressions about her father? Jill’s highly respected grandmother, Josey, never approved of Frank. Her changed impression would be impressive, but how could Frank and Josey connect for any length of time. Kathy, like Jill, feared her father. A change in Kathy’s feeling could possibly influence Jill. Is it more likely that a rebuilt relationship might occur between father and daughter?

Jill and Kathy both grew up under an umbrella of fear that their father, in a an alcoholic rage, would beat them. Both became so desperate that in their final year of high school they chose to run away from home. If any one could understand Jill’s apprehensions about her father it had to be Kathy.

Kathy’s sympathetic view of her father shocks Jill. What differences in Kathy’s life could account for her change? While Jill and Kathy were both married, Kathy remained married and Jill was divorced. Jill had four children. Kathy had two. Could Kathy have more room in her heart to forgive and love her father? Deathbed insights from Kathy’s mother about Frank could shed a new light on Frank. Kathy was there to hear those comments. Jill wasn’t. What different wisdom about Frank could Alice Rezley give that would turn her daughter’s fear away?

Another difference between Kathy and Jill is that Kathy had limited contact with her father for twenty years after Alice died. Could the death of Frank’s wife, Kathy and Jill’s mother, have changed Frank’s life-long drinking habit? Would that have been enough to erase the pain and suffering he caused Kathy while she lived under his roof?

Sibling differences during childhood often form the basis for friction. However, other family experiences cement lasting supportive relationships. What stories can you tell to illustrate that situation?

Three characters in Baggage burdens. fall victim to a personal tragedy. While a character’s flaw serves as a foundation for a downfall, in the case of Frank, Jill’s father, it would be easy to miss his flaw or correctly anticipate his sorry fate. Both elements of Frank’s tragedy are explored in the next blog.

You're O U T !

You’re   O u t !

Glaring personal traits can lead to a person being prejudged. Glaring trait is in the eye of the beholder. Martin Shopka had three strikes against him. He was a man, he had a beard and he smoked heavily. In Jill’s eyes, he was no better than her father, a man she learned to fear.

As in baseball, a strike one call isn’t serious. Martin’s first fault is that he is a man. Because of Jill’s father’s violent alcoholic nature and Dave’s indiscretion, Jill knew men could not be trusted. Yes, Jill was married, but she often didn’t trust Joseph completely. Later in her marriage she frequently disapproved of some of his actions.

Strike two! More serious! Martin’s second fault is he had a beard, a scraggly beard. Jill’s father had a beard. Any man with a beard fell under suspicion. Even in a half conscious state when Jill saw the doctor in the hospital bending over her, she became very anxious. Having two strikes against you doesn’t mean that Jill would avoid the person. Ben, a boy who tried to win her heart, succeed many times in dating her. But as a marital partner he was out of luck. His second flaw––he was a social drinker. It never happened in her presence, but the grape vine stories disqualified him.

Strike three! You’re out of luck! Jill will not accept Martin. His fatal third flaw? He was a smoker, a chain smoker. Yellow stained fingers testified to an entrenched addiction. His habit clung to his clothes and assaulted her nostrils. It stirred disturbing memories of her father.

YOU'RE O U T !

  

          Do those three aspects of Martin’s character make him a bad person? He did let Daniel, and Amber ride his horses. He sold Hoss to Joseph so Amber would have her own horse. One could argue in the first case Martin’s horses were exercised and in the second he received financial compensation. At Daniel’s wedding, countering negative opinions, Martin pointed to Jill’s actions to show she was a good wife. When Jill wanted to move to Camrose, Martin bought Joseph’s farm. Later when Jill was in the hospital, he asked about Jill’s health. Joseph was already divorced from Jill at the time.  

Personality conflict based on generalizations leaves one with blinders. They’re rendered a person incapable of appreciating another. Know of a personality trait or behavior that has blinded another person so they can’t see any good in another person?

In Baggage burdens Kathy, Jill’s sister, was raised by the same parents.  While they had similar childhood experiences, Kathy turned out very different from her sister. Why? That’s the next blog.

Indispensable Link

Indispensable Link

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you . . .”  Jeremiah1:5 Before I created Julie Wyler  for Baggage burdens., I already knew that she would serve as a vital link to Jill’s past, to Jill’s chance for healing.

Jill fled Brampton, Ontario intending on making a clean break with her past. Only memories of her grandmother brought her comfort, but contact with her was out of the question.

A critical element for healing the psychological damage done by her parents is Jill talking with the person she most respected, Josey, her grandmother. Given Jill’s predisposition to have nothing to do with her former life how can she be drawn back? Answer: Julie.

First create a situation where Jill is starving for companionship. Then use one of Jill’s few true friends to introduce Jill to Julie, Jill’s second cousin. While Julie could be seen as a potential threat, a connection to her feared past, Julie’s news about Jill’s family, particularly the death of her mother, erases all apprehension. Julie empathizes with Jill’s loss. A close friendship develops. It also provides the conduit by which Jill learns of Josey’s failing health. Josey hopes it would be a powerful enough urge to draw Jill back to Ontario.

 Unknown to Jill, Josey had asked Julie to find  her granddaughter. All Josey knew is that Jill lived in or near Camrose. She missed her granddaughter and wanted to be in a position to help her if she was ever in need. Because Josey knew the depth of Jill’s independent streak, Josey made Julie promise not to reveal that Josey had found her. Julie kept that secret until she thought Jill had attempted to take her life. Julie hoped the threat of calling Jill’s grandmother would snap Jill out of her depression. Julie also updated Josey on developments in Jill’s life.

From information given by Julie, Josey establishes other contacts by which she follows changes in Jill’s life.

When Jill finds out that Julie has been telling her grandmother about Jill’s life she calls Julie a spy. Do you disapprove of Julie’s reporting to Josey?

The most discriminated character, in Baggage burdens is Martin Shopka.  In the next blog you’ll see why in Jill’s eyes, he has three strikes against him.