Somewhat surprisingly legacy has been on my mind frequently over this first quarter of the new year. I know that they are just stories, but as I watched the story concluded for the Pearson family on "This Is Us" this winter, along with the recent movies "Encanto" and "In the Heights", I cannot help but think of my own family and the continuing saga that plays itself out in our lives. I so identify with the deep, deep abiding and sacrificial love that Jack had for his children. Just as the fictional Pearson's story was told in generational flashbacks, so too part of the reason for my current incarceration (the weaponized lies of my son) cannot be understood without understanding the bittersweet legacy that he inherited and what would lead him to agree to such corruption as a eighteen year old. Happily, it occurs to me that my both of me dearly beloved children know, or at least have had documented for them at ancestry.com, the ancestral and bloodline legacies that they inherited from me, but probably not from the other side of their family tree a place where dark secrets lurk. However, "I am a streetlight chillin' in the heat. I illuminate the stories of the people in the street. Some have happy endings, some are bittersweet. But I know them all and that's what makes my life complete and if not me, who keeps our legacy?" (1) Alas, Satan thrives in the secret places of our lives. He loves to deceive. Deception is his main goal. He loves to reek emotional and mental havoc with our soul (our minds, will, and emotions)(2). He thrills at causing us turmoil between the spiritual and soulful parts of our human triune nature. He loves to perpetuate negative family legacies that replay themselves out generation after generation after generation(3). Realistically, I truly believe that just as a person, a child, can inherit and live out a legacy of faith(4), that same child can also inherit and live out a legacy of darkness: a generational curse if you will(5). My prodigal Absalom/Kylo's legacy storyline begins to unfold years, decades even, before he was ever born. Partnership with my former spouse began in the spring of 1987 when she paid me to take her to her prom. Very early on in our relationship I had my first encounter with what would be her bouts of frequently reoccurring mental health issues and ideations of self harm. While not her first, nor last, bout of emotional angst and discordance brought about because of her choice(s), it was the first that I was around for. Our fifth or sixth "date" was me trying to "talk her down off of the cliff". Despite her insistence that I just "forget her and move on with my life", I stuck around and supported her in her recovery. (On a side note, ADA Sarah McAmis knew of these behaviors, these choices, and was ready to weaponize that information had my former spouse taken the stand. That was the main reason she did not take the stand in my defense: to save her from this humility. I still wonder how McAmis found out and who would stoop as low as to leak this bit of information.) As we worked together at Service Merchandise in Tulsa's Eastland Mall we began taking most meals and days off together: we spent hours eating and coloring at Garfields, watching movies, going to the PAC, ice skating at the William's Center, and enjoying lots and lots of TCBY! We even enrolled in some of our college classes together so that we could see each other every day.
Eventually, over the course of our courtship and marriage I learned that she was continually living out, and suffering from, the themes of rejection and abandonment, beginning with her birth in San Fransisco. She was given up for adoption at birth. Years later, in 2012, when my diligent research led me to find her birth mother, Mary McCandless, we learned from Mary that she herself was bipolar, manic depressive, and turned to men and physical expressions of sensuality for validation and acceptance. Hence the birth and surrender of my spouse and two other children to an adoption agency. Mary seemed miserable and wishy-washy as her birth daughter tried to reconnect. My former wife did learn that she has several half-siblings. However, sadly for her, a quick Google search of our last name would reveal the unfortunate criminal case that I was caught up in, and they decide not to have anything to do with her. The original rejection of 1969 was just tragically and painfully reinforced. Regretfully, her adoptive parents kept the fact that she was adopted from her as a family secret until she discovered the truth as a tween. I say parents, but it was really just parent, as her adoptive father abandoned her and her already grown brothers before she even turned two years old. She was adopted because her own adoptive mother, Ann, wanted a daughter to replace the husband and older sons whom were no longer dependent upon her and were moving on with their lives. In fact, as each adopted brother turned 16-17, they left home, further reinforcing her own rejection and abandonment issues: rejected and abandoned by her birth mother, her adopted father, and her three adopted brothers. The list of those leaving her aside continued to grow. Even today her birth father remains a mystery. Tragically, she would spend her preteen and teen years seeking the approval of, attention by, and affection from men to fill those voids. There were plenty of men who took advantage of these painful expressions of her yet unknown, undiagnosed, and unresolved rejection and abandonment issues. And they hurt her. Even in our marriage it took us years and several relationship classes to realize just how deeply ingrained her need for unconditional positive regard and consistently expressed need for acceptance, words of affirmation, and physical expressions of positive touch were. Unfortunately, her expressed needs were not a part if my natural occurring repertoire of acts of service, quality time, and helps and that saddens me. My heart continues to ache for the pain of rejection, abandonment, and unmet needs she must feel from the men in her life. The apple did not fall far from the tree however. Her adopted mother also was a victim of rejection, abandonment, and self loathing. Her adopted mother's father was also named Robert: Robert O'Steen. He was a physically and emotionally abusive drunkard. His wife, Ann's mother, Annie O'Steen was a bitter, vindictive, and angry woman. The few times I interacted with her I noted that she was a manipulative, pushy, and deeply hurting person. (Interesting side note: The O'Steen family lived off of North Delaware and Independence Street in Tulsa, just blocks away from the Thomas Roland Yerton, Sr. and Carrie Etta McClain house located at @ Delaware and Atlanta.) My spouse's mother, my former mother-in-law, was raised in an environment where love and acceptance were conditionally bestowed based upon performance and men were not only not to be trusted, but were indeed hated.
Annie made her daughters, Ann and Roberta, vie for her affections(6). She also made her grandchildren compete for her attention and love. My former partner never rose to the rank of favorite, and always believed it was because of her adopted status. She was quite jealous of the clans favorite granddaughter. She felt rejected by her adoptive mother's family. In fact, it was the favored cousin whom revealed the secret of her adoption to her in an effort to "put her in her place". Unfortunately, her mother, Ann, inherited Annie's predilection for playing favorites. Not surprisingly the few interactions that I had with the O'Steen clan reinforced to me just how deeply entrenched the entire clan was in codependent spiteful and vengeful behaviors. Annie and her siblings would lie to each other, commit financial sabotage against each other, and sue one another over the most trivial of matters. To Ann's credit, by the time I came into my partner's life, she had already limited their interactions with this dysfunctional dynamic. However, she couldn't quite shake all of these ingrained behaviors. She was still a manipulative busy body and a "right fighter", even when her cause was wrong or flawed. As an example, she filmed a "disabled" neighbor doing yard work and turned him in to the Postal Service from whom he was receiving workman's compensation for a work related injury. This resulted in unnecessary financial hardships for the Gallutza family. Anytime a neighbor annoyed her she would call the city or 911 for every minor statute infraction and insist that the police or code enforcement come issue a citation. Sadly, my former wife rarely had interactions with her adoptive father, Larry Lou Henderson. Larry owned a grocery store in West Siloam Springs, Arkansas (interesting side note: this store was only blocks away from the home of my great great aunt Rose Burns whom my Granny moved in with and took care of for a year or so in the early nineties). After really getting to know my former mother-in-law I totally understand why he left! My former wife recalls a trip to Colorado and/or Montana once to meet one of Larry's brothers. One time, while doing "homework" together for a His Needs/Her Needs seminar, we were sharing about our past and she revealed to me that she thought she remembered possibly being molested while in Wyoming, but wasn't 100% certain. This was the only time in our 25 years together that she ever mentioned this possible false recollection. Her only other interactions with Larry were for financial support: a car and to pay for a wasted partying semester of college in Tahlequah. Her last interaction was to briefly visit and show him our daughter. I only met the man once, when he attended our wedding. He was good enough though to treat her fairly in his will and division of his assets. Even though it was like a stab in the heart, I will never understand why, when my son chose to change his last name in 2011 that he reverted to the surname of an absent adopted grandfather whom he never knew a man whom abandoned his family, whom he has no blood relationship too, rather than reclaiming the family name of his biological father. At least his biological father is a man of honor, and he has several half siblings to share that last name with. Retrospection allows me to see that my former spouse always longed for unconditional love and acceptance from her family, and she found that in spades with my parents and my entire extended family. I often felt, I knew, that my own parents, especially my mother, liked her more than they liked me. She was the daughter they always wanted! My own father was the father figure that she always longed for, and they loved one another fiercely. And she has completely broken their hearts with her rejection and abandonment of them after they began to hold her accountable for her questionable financial activities after my incarnation.
Prominently, the next significant part of this story unfolds in the fall of 1991 when, after 4 years of dating, I was given an ultimatum by my former wife: marry me or leave me. Given those were my only two options, we broke up and I moved on. She gambled and lost. This triggered her deeply held (but yet unknown to my 22 year old self) rejection and abandonment issues. This also began what we affectionately termed "the year of stalking". It was also the time when she became pregnant with my (adopted) son, if she was not already. Eventhough she always had a very platonic relationship with my son's birth father, while we were dating he (mostly) kept his distance. They lived across the street from each other, were the same age and therefore went through school together. Growing up they would often sneak across the street in the middle of the night to be with each other. According to her an occasional casual sexual encounter was no big deal to them. Since we were not together and he was going off to boot camp, a goodbye hookup seemed to be a fitting way to say goodbye, good luck and farewell. Nevertheless, my son's biological father is a good guy who has served this country honorably. He always paid his child support. When I asked to adopt my son, he agreed without issue. His existence and biological parentage was never hidden from my prodigal. In fact there was a prominent picture of them together in his life's story scrapbook a book I assembled and kept current. He and his family were treated horribly by Ann and her daughter after my prodigal's birth. The next 12 months or so while I was working full-time and finishing my degree, she continued in the year of stalking in full denial and/or (as she would emphatically claim) total unawareness of her pregnancy. On April 20,1992 her mother came home to find her laying in a pool of blood and in full labor. She almost bled to death, killing both herself and my premature son (the ultimate form of rejection and abandonment), rather than confess to Ann that she was pregnant. Then, for another period of 18 months I had no contact with this new family: my prodigal Absalom/Kylo, his mother and his maternal adopted grandmother. As a result of the eventual paternity test and child support agreement, he was given his birth father's last name. As he was born premature and had received no prenatal well checks, vitamins, or nutritional support he had sever compilations at birth to include a coration of the aorta that required immediate open heart surgery. His adopted grandmother then became his primary care giver along with support from his mother. Essentially, his paternal grandparents had very very little interaction with them. They immediately moved from living across the street. As they were acting as their sons advocate in court proceedings since he was still newly in the military, they were the recipients of Ann's vitriolic tirades, as if her daughter had gotten pregnant all by herself.
Easily I can recall on the day that my son was born being at work at Target and receiving personal hangup call after personal hangup call, then having my flip phone "blowing up", and finally receiving a personal visit at work from a barely known future sister-in-law telling me that I now had a son. I knew this was not just an improbability but an IMPOSSIBILITY! However, I did not immediately offer up this information to the anonymous callers and visitor until I had had a chance to talk to his mother. I learned years later that it took her a few days to admit who the birth father was. Indeed, at first, she told her family that I was the father. Meanwhile, I was not going to offer my speculation or snitch we had not even spoken to one another in more than an entire year (On a side note, ADA Sarah McAmis knew this "birth story" and the reckless neglect during my prodigal's gestation and was ready to weaponize these facts against my former life partner had she taken the stand. I still wonder how she found out and who would stoop as low as to leak this bit of information). The legacy timeline now jumps to 1994 when I had already been teaching for a few years, and was also finishing my masters degree in counseling. As I was doing "clinicals" I was to find people to practice listening too. As I was praying about whom to use, I was also praying about being ready for a new girlfriend, future marriage, and becoming a parent. The Lord told me that I needed to make things right with my ex girlfriend first(7). Upon reconnecting and explaining what was going on in my life, I wound up using her as one of my clinical studies. We spent several sessions together walking around LaFortune Park as I listened and reflected what I heard. Our loving feelings for one another also began to rekindle. Eventually we began to date, but during this entire time I never met her son. She also hid the fact that we were spending time with each other from her mother. However, when my class was over, our relationship turned into a more personal one. It was then that I was introduced to my future child. We were engaged on Valentine's Day of 1995 (and married just two weeks later). My prodigal's adopted maternal grandmother, who was for all intents and purposes his co-primary care giver, was kept in the dark during this time, believing all occasional references to a "Robert" was their next-door neighbor who was sweet on her daughter. Indeed, upon learning of our engagement and intention to marry in less than two weeks, my future mother-in-law flipped out. To make matters worse, we had immediately moved into an apartment together: of course with my future son. This triggered Ann to place an urgent phone call to Child Protective Services and the Department of Human Services to report that "her child" was taken and that he was endangered because of his special health needs. It only took a minute for DHS/CPS to see through her deception and offer an apology for showing up on our doorstep. So indeed, my future son did have special health needs. He was only just almost 3 and had been a premie with a congenital heart defect after all (an interesting aside: in my college freshman year of anatomy I turned in a research paper on congenital heart defects, their causes and treatments). He was being hospitalized over and over and over for reoccurring bronchitis and pneumonia. He was continually using a nebulizer. He rarely went outside. His diet was poor and nutritionally void. Albeit radical, one of the first things I did to help rapidly mature my three year old prodigal Absalom/Kylo was to turn his life upside down. He was no longer the boss of the home and the focus of all his mother's attention. I prayed over him and declared him healed(8). I changed his diet, introducing fruit, vegetables, vitamins, supplements, and water. He was sent outside to play and taught to swim. He was enrolled in soccer. Most significantly he was never allowed to visit his adopted maternal grandmother if she insisted on continuing to be a pack a day chain smoker. I also taught him the breathing exercises I had used to defeat my own childhood asthma to increase his own lung capacity. In less than two months he was no longer using his nebulizer, had lost his "baby fat", and was turning into a normal healthy three year old boy. As a matter of fact, he never became ill for the remainder of his childhood nor as a teenager (nor did his sister). After three years of hospitalization after hospitalization for bronchitis and pneumonia, he was finally healthy. At five years old or so he was given a clean bill of health by his cardiologist and was told, essentially, to go live a normal life and never look back. The only caveat being to take an antibiotic prior to dental work. This explains part of our deep concern upon realizing that Kelsey Spears was possibly encouraging him to become a marijuana smoker: we had spent years building his immunity and keeping him healthy given his chronic illnesses present at his birth.
Thankfully his adopted maternal grandmother did eventually (supposedly) quit smoking, acknowledged his much improved health and behavior, and came around to supporting my efforts (there were relapses on her part which her grandchildren quickly snitched on her for, but there were also repercussions for those relapses in that she was unable to be around her grandchildren. She did finally break her addiction permanently once she realized that I was willing to carry through in my promise to keep her out of our lives if she continued to smoke anywhere near where my children were or were going to be). She actually told me once how grateful she was for the way I turned his health and life around. Our relationship grew over the next fourteen years and the birth of our daughter in 1997 made us all even closer. We even chose to buy our first home in the same neighborhood as hers so that she could continue to be closely involved in their lives (in retrospect, too involved possibly, especially in my sons). We even invited her on family excursions and vacations, even taking her to Europe with us for two weeks. In 2002 we moved across town and in 2009 we were even considering purchasing the house next to ours for her to move into so we could more easily look after her in her declining years. Unfortunately, like too many grandparents, she rarely said "no" to our millennial entitled son's wants and desires. She was overly permissive, but it never appeared in detrimental, underhanded, or subversive ways until it did. Here is where the storyline takes a turn for the worse after 14 very good years. I began this reflection by writing about legacy and the fictional Pearson family. My mind has actually been focused on legacy since the holidays and once again since my parents 55th wedding anniversary (1-24-22 day #3433) when I wrote about the quote from "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", that "You are the product of all who came before you, a legacy of your family, all of the good and the bad, it is all a part of who you are. Stop hiding. It only prolongs the pain." Just as the fictional Pearson's story was told in flahbacks, so too is a majority of the Biblical New Testament. The teachings of Jesus and especially the letters of Paul lack context without understanding the legacies, histories, covenants, and stories of generations of Jews before them. Similarly, part of the reason for my current incarceration (the weaponized lies of my son as encouraged by ADA Sarah McAmis, retired and disgraced TPD Detective Dianna Baumann and supported by his maternal adopted grandmother) cannot be understood without understanding the legacies that he inherited and are part of what would lead him to agree to such corruption(9) as a eighteen year old.