Thursday, March 28, 2013

Chapter 16

One Thursday evening the Ladies Fellowship Group was meeting at my house.  The kids were in bed and the meeting well underway when the phone rang.  It was Gary's boss calling from the school.  It was a teacher/parent interview night and one of the teachers had called her because of Gary's strange behavior.

Lorraine, my Pastor's wife and I left the other ladies to take care of the meeting and the kids and we went up to the school.  Gary's boss met us at the door and took us to the custodians room.  We found him pacing back and forth, very agitated and mumbling.  I tried to get a response from him but was unable to.  I called 911 while Lorraine and his boss blocked the door.

When the ambulance arrived it became quite apparent that it wasn't going to be easy to get him out of the school.  It was quite a workout for the paramedic's and the firemen who had shown up to assist, to get him on the stretcher and strapped down.  A big crowd of onlookers had gathered by the time they got him out of the school and loaded into the ambulance!

Lorraine and I went back to my place and while she explained to the ladies what had happened and made arrangements for a couple of them to stay after the meeting to care for the kids, I called his parents.  His mother got very angry with me, telling me that I was lying and blowing things all out of proportion.  I gave up and hung up.  I turned to find Josiah looking at me, he wanted to know what was wrong.  He was 7 now, so I explained to him as simply as I could that daddy hadn't been thinking right and had been taken to the hospital.  One of the ladies came to take care of him and Lorraine and I left for the hospital.

As we entered the emergency department we could hear Gary ranting from somewhere inside.  After an hour or so I was allowed to go in and see him.  The moment I entered the room he lunged at me and screamed that he was going to kill me!  Thankfully one of the hospital guards was right there and he grabbed and pulled me out of the way.  Two RCMP officer's quickly arrived in the room and handcuffed him onto the stretcher.

I had a brief conversation with a doctor who told me the paperwork was being completed to transfer him once again across the street to the Mental Hospital.  I signed the papers I needed to and Lorraine took me home.

I was back to picking him up for a few hours every day again.  But this time it was even harder.  I had to take and pick the kids up each day from school, plus I was taking care of 3 other children as well!  Josiah and Elizabeth were old enough this time to each have questions as to what was wrong.  Once again the cycle with food became out of control.  We lived 35 minutes from the church and Jessie was the closest being 15 minutes away.  I leaned on her alot during that year and she became even closer and dearer to me.

This time it took nearly a year for him to recover enough to go back to work.  With not being able to work, he took a cut in pay which put us into even more of a financial bind.  We had been relying more and more on the Food Bank.  Gary would force me to go and then get mad at me for going!  His personality changed and he was becoming more unpredictable all the time.  No matter what happened it was my fault, except for this one time.

Josiah had been blamed for something that had been just an accident and not his fault at all.  I always tried to take the blame for things because I could handle the rage but I knew the kid's couldn't.  Before I could step in this time however, Gary had thrown Josiah on the bed and was wailing on him with his belt.  As the beating continued I just couldn't stand there and do nothing.  I forced my way into the bedroom and laid down on top of Josiah covering him with my body.  Gary never stopped.  I could feel my little boys body shaking with sobs and I kept whispering to him that he would be OK and that I loved him.  Gary eventually left and I slid to the floor and held my son, crying along with him.  My loathing for Gary increased measurably that day.  I vowed that I would never let him touch either one of my children again, and he never did.

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