An Inheritance of Promise

By Ernest Michael DeZolt

"The irony of my mom losing her mind was not lost on me. The memories that mental illness had not already stolen from her across her anguished life now fade into the darkened catacombs of progressive dementia. On the drive home, I kept hearing the phrase repeated... “Your mother is losing her mind.” I decided to use this phrase and my mom’s long suffering as motivation for writing what I hope will ultimately be considered an inspirational memoir. I don’t have life all figured out, but I have learned a few things that might be able to help some people.

Although my story is more dramatic than most, every family experiences dysfunction--and every person can benefit from reconciling his or her family history. Childhood is the time when all that we can become... begins. It is the time when we’re supposed to be infused with the hope that we can succeed at anything. But sometimes circumstance gets in the way. Promises are broken. AN INHERITANCE OF PROMISE is a reminder that, sometimes, the most important promises... are the ones you make to yourself."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelaide Books Publishers
• Release date: Aug 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781951214289

Ernest Michael DeZolt

Ernest DeZolt is an "Associate Professor Emeritus" of Sociology and Criminology with thirty-eight years of university teaching experience. Over this time, he has had the privilege of teaching in diverse educational settings across regional, community, state and Jesuit universities. His scholastic interests, though varied, converge around a better understanding of how life opportunities and experiences forge an identity that becomes the prism through which we see ourselves and the world. Over the past two years, his writing interest has embraced literary non-fiction. His first manuscript is a memoir entitled, "An Inheritance of Promise." In this work, he takes the reader on an experience of the pain, disappointment, ambiguity, and ultimate joy of a childhood imposed-upon by depression. His upcoming work, "Love Letters to Promise," is a book of letters that he has written to people and situations dating back to childhood. ​ Ernest DeZolt has called Northeastern Ohio home for most of his life except for a brief hiatus in Kentucky to complete graduate work. He currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Author’s Note

This is a work of creative non-fiction. While the events portrayed here are true, they may not be entirely factual. In some cases, events have been compressed. Names and identifying details altered to protect the privacy of the people involved.

About the Book

Unlike the traditional memoir, this narrative is driven by a collection of seventy-one short stories that underscore my childhood experiences. Those that provided me with great learning and insight. And, ultimately, an understanding of the nature of childhood’s inherited promise.

The stories are grouped into six sections based around broad thematic experiences. Section One deals with experiences of sickness and health. Section Two with experiences on giving. Section Three with daydreams and premonition experiences. Section Four with experiences of institutional expectations and forgiveness. Section Five with the experiences of working-class life. And, Section Six, with experiences of athletic competition.

The common denominator across these themes is the inheritance of promise that childhood guarantees to each child. A promise that their childhood will provide the best experiences possible under the circumstances.

An Opening Thought…

Great Expectations is an archetypal account of the inheritance of promise. In this classic novel, Charles Dickens writes about the experiences of Pip Pirrip who journeys through childhood undergoing both the indignity of abandonment and the immodesty of affluence. Through this work of fiction, Dickens reminds the reader that every childhood is deserving of promise even under the challenge of circumstance.

Like the fictional experiences of Pip, many children live fact-based lives of circumstantial challenge. In the story, Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt writes: When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. McCourt uses sarcasm to emphasize the value of misfortune in understanding that the universality of inherited promise is littered with both blessing and curse.

Other memoirists document similar understanding. Jeanette Walls, in The Glass Castle, describes a childhood in need of cash, food, and parenting stability to accommodate the chronic relocation from one uninhabited residence to another. Andie Mitchell, in It Was Me All Along, examines how her food cravings became an escape from undesirable childhood circumstance. In Furiously Happy, Jenny Larson reminds the reader of the importance of enjoying rational times as compensation for those times when sanity hangs in the balance. And, in A Life Less Normal, Melissa Palmer explains her binge drinking, pill popping, and people hating as coping mechanisms in the aftermath of her mother’s suicide.

What each of these memoirs has in common with Great Expectations is an understanding that the norm of inherited promise is always accompanied by the shadow of family circumstance. In the case of mental illness, twelve-million women, four-million men, and fifteen-million children live in families where the inheritance of promise is at greatest risk of not becoming realized. An Inheritance of Promise examines the effects of mental illness on my childhood. Though exclusive to me, my childhood experiences symbolically represent the universal challenge of seeing beyond the dysfunction of life.

Introduction

I lived with a mom who lived with mental illness. A condition that left her a casualty of circumstance. Long-suffering, she surrendered control over her life to the promise of relief from the bottom of a pill bottle. Valium, Darvocet, and Librium, the gatekeepers of temporary asylum, locked-away my mom in a haze of prescription drug dependency.

My mom’s mental illness, and drug dependency, was the eventual outcome of an abusive childhood. As the youngest daughter, in a family of ten children, my mom was raised at the crossroads of an overprotective mother and a domineering father. A home-life residing in an environment of obedience and control where the only pushback from my mom left her orphaned to a sense of well-being.

After a series of adult nervous breakdowns, my mom was officially diagnosed with mental illness. Unable to cope with the functions of daily life, she was hospitalized and sanctioned to undergo electro-shock therapy. And, though, the therapeutic process was inhumane, it improved my mom’s emotional stability enough for her to return home. Back to a life where she was a stranger to the familiar thanks to the therapeutic erasing of her memory.

With improvements to my mom’s emotional well-being came an interpersonal strength to stand-up against the wrongs of the past. And, though, I was proud of her for reclaiming her lost sense of self, it left me without a purpose.

The fact was that my mom didn’t need me anyone. Ironically, I went from being lost to her to being unneeded by her. I drifted from one identity to another throughout the remainder of my childhood, and adolescence, in the hope of finding the answer to who I was. Then, in 1984, the universe stepped in and provided me with the guidance that I had been seeking since childhood.

One day, while at a local bookstore, I noticed a book about to fall from one of the shelves. As I repositioned it, an inner voice suggested that I read a few pages. To my surprise, I had much in common with the protagonist. Like Dan Millman, the broken promises of my childhood fueled me with a willful response to life. A blind perseverance that left little consideration to its effects on myself or others.

I had become an accidental warrior to life’s circumstances because I didn’t have the wisdom to accept things as they were. Thirty-five years later, thanks to that first reading of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, I live life free of the broken promises that once held me captive to circumstance.

SECTION 1: In Sickness and in Health

A willingness to care for someone in sickness and in health is a default commitment expressed in most wedding vows. A public declaration between the bride and groom that is often spoken more from the legacy of tradition than a habit of the heart. Yet, every now and again, moments arise when honoring this commitment becomes the sincerest version of itself.

Sickness, more than health, was the standard in my family. With each of us habitually obliging the sick role. Whether the mumps, measles, or broken bones was the reason for medical intervention, our family doctor ribbed that he could make a decent living providing medical care just to our family. Though humor was always good medicine, it wasn’t enough to keep us healthy. This was especially true when the origin of sickness turned from physical to emotional. My mom and dad’s struggle with depression and anxiety took tolls on their health, their marriage, and family stability. Confounding these troubles, prescription drug dependence, money shortages, and ineffective coping strategies left our family life on the skinny-side of normal.

The stories in this section represent my experience with failing physical and mental health. They do appear on face value to be unimaginable and overwhelming. And, at the time, they did present challenges to my life that few have since. However, what these health challenges also provided was an understanding and acceptance of the layers of normal family life. A normalcy that drifts to accommodate both time and cultural sensitivity.

A Forgotten Birthday

I come home from elementary school to find my mom and dad huddled on the living room floor. They mutter that they can’t take it anymore. I am scared for them, though I am familiar with this routine. Nervous breakdowns have once again claimed control over my parents. There is nothing I can do for them but call for an ambulance and wait it out.

Thirty-five days later my parents return home. It is a special day. They can get back to their routines, and I to planning a celebration for my ninth birthday. I watch from the front window of our home as my uncle’s car pulls into the driveway. My parents are shuffling their feet. Holding onto one another to steady their balance, the way young children lean on slide chairs when learning to ice skate.

My sisters greet my parents with hugs and kisses as they come through the front door. Hi mom. Hi dad.

Careful, now. Your mom and dad have been through quite an ordeal. Go easy on them my uncle encourages.

But uncle, we haven’t seen mom and dad in weeks. We miss them, my youngest sister replies.

I know. It’s just that your parents are not used to all this attention. At least let me get them to the kitchen table before you overwhelm them with your welcome home.

Okay uncle, my sisters’ reply in harmony.

Once my parents are seated, my youngest sister speaks-up first. Mom, do you remember the Barbie doll that you bought me for my birthday? Well, Kelly gave me a Ken doll… a Barbie car… and some Barbie clothes. Isn’t that nice of her?

Indeed, my uncle responds on behalf of my mom. He then turns to my mom and asks, Do you agree? Before my mom has a chance to respond, my uncle answers my sister… Absolutely terrific! All of the little girls in the neighborhood are going to be jealous.

That response brings a proud smile to the face of my little sister.

My other sister asks, Hey dad, do you remember fixing the chain on my bike before you and mom go to the hospital? Well, I can ride my bike now without assistance. Isn’t that great?

Once again, my uncle answers… I notice you waiting at the corner for us on your bike. You are good at riding that twenty-six-inch bike. Your mom and dad are proud of you. My mom and dad shake their heads in agreement as my uncle asks them, Am I right?

This one-man show continues for about thirty minutes with my sisters altering lines of questioning. I just watch from the far corner of the kitchen. I don’t have to be told that something is terribly wrong. Before my uncle leaves, I help him take my mom to her bed and my dad to the couch for a short rest. Even though my parents have been hospitalized with complete bed rest for the past five weeks, my uncle mentions that the new medication they’re taking for depression makes them tired.

I tell my sisters to go outside and play. After my parents are settled, I join them. Once outside, I turn my thoughts to my birthday. As soon as my parents have a short rest, I’ll wake them to call and invite my aunts, uncles, and cousins over for my birthday party. But, I’m not sure who is making my birthday cake. Undoubtedly, my mom asked one of my aunts or a neighbor. As a return favor for all the baking that she has done for them in the past.

As mid-afternoon arrives, it is clear to me that my parents are in no condition to celebrate my birthday. And, even if they do feel better soon, I’m not sure they will want family members over for a party. Sadly, the thought of my birthday coming and going without a family celebration makes me feel forgotten. The more I think about it, the melancholier I get. I feel as though their depression means more to my parents than I do. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to have my parents back home. But I feel cheated.

On the chance that no one is planning to bake me a cake, I go into the kitchen and make my own. I have, on occasion, previously helped my mom bake. So, I know exactly what to do. As I place the cake into the oven, my sisters inform me that my parents bought birthday presents for me and hid them in the bedroom closet prior to their recent illness. I send them outside to investigate.

I enter my parents’ bedroom and walk quietly past my sleeping mother. I open the closet door and grab the bag of presents. Once I get it outside, my sisters beg me to open the bag. But I suddenly feel guilty. I am not sure that I should open the bag of presents without my parents. It might anger them or at least hurt their feelings. Then again, they lie there in a prescription-induced amnesia fog unconcerned about me not being able to open my presents on my birthday.

I go back and forth deciding what to do. My sisters continue to encourage me. They begin to chant. Open the bag! Open the bag! Open the bag! I finally give in.

I tear-open the bag with reckless abandon, the way a blind-folded child swings a stick at a piñata. As the bag opens, a rocket and a plastic football fall to the ground. They are what I wanted but didn’t expect to get because my dad has been on strike for the past few months. I would have been happy with an I owe you. But, in all honesty, I am happier with the presents.

Within minutes, I transform our front porch into a makeshift Kennedy Space Center preparing the rocket for flight. I give the okay to my sisters to begin the final countdown. They respond, Astronauts… ‘T’ minus ten minutes and counting.

With the countdown underway, I go inside the house to borrow my dad’s matches. I need them to light the wick... my rocket boosters.

I enter the living room and find my dad sitting upright on the couch. I am glad to see him alert. Hi dad. How are you feeling?

Who wants to know? my dad responds with a dismissive edge in his voice.

Mistaking my dad’s question as playfulness… I answer, The President of the United States. What’s it to you? As soon as the words fall out of my mouth, I know that I have made a mistake.