As children we can often recall that pinnacle moment when the power between the child and the parent shifted. For some of us, it has never happened, but for those who can recall that place and time it is often revered as life changing. 

My mother’s father, Lorne Brennan, was a tortured man. He decided to trade in his lucrative career on the CP railway to acquire a small gentleman’s farm in Caradoc Township. The end result was questionable at best. What the hell was he thinking?! 

Fast forward… My mom, Mary Jo, was the 12th and last child…her mother, Ethel, was a stoic farmer’s wife…there was never a lack of food or love ..perhaps more for some than others; but every family has it’s unique dynamics.

Mary Jo was brought into the world on February 12th, 1934…it was a bitter cold morning with snow dusting the inside of the master bedroom window sills where her elder sister, Loretta, was the acting mid wife. Ethel was 42 years old and this birthing experience was not new to her, but in fairness..thankfully, it was her last. The delivery was unremarkable and Mary Jo, nicknamed MJ, was wrapped in a blanket and trotted down to the kitchen and tucked neatly into the warming oven. Ethel informed her second oldest daughter, Loretta, (already a mother herself) that she would tidy herself up and be down shortly to nurse the newborn. My mom would recall years later that her mother’s philosophy was that if MJ didn’t survive and had passed on in the warming oven Ethel would have been sad but in her next breath would have said: “we will bury her later, there are chores to be done.”

MJ’s  life was fair but difficult. She felt her mother loved her but her memory of her father is conflicted. “I was one more mouth to feed and girls were helpful, but in his mind, boys were the true asset of a troubled and aging farmer who required their manly toil on the land.”

At the tender age of nine MJ was seasoned to her father’s hot Irish temper. She recalled her dining room error when she inadvertently reached for a piece of pie before her elder brothers had had an opportunity to have a second piece…a house rule. In a split second Lorne pushed back from the table and grabbed MJ by the shoulder. On the wall in a very conspicuous location he reached for the family hickory switch. With the skill of Zorro, Lorne switched my mother’s legs until blood filled her shoes. Everyone was frozen in fear. Even her elder brothers, who were larger than life, remained firm in their chairs. A memory MJ remembers with puzzlement.

The next day her older sister (by 4 years) Elyse lent her younger sister her treasured nylons to wear to school so the evidence of her whipping would be hidden from her fellow classmates. It took weeks for the scars to mend but the emotional wound would never heal. MJ was determined that her father would never bring physical harm to her again. She was prepared to take an “eye for an eye” and she felt Lorne knew his rage was unjustified and reprehensible….but the reoccurring question was…where was her mother in all this chaos? A question that has never been answered…MJ does recall that her father never raised a hand to her mother and that her father’s rage was channeled for the most part at her and her elder sister Jean who she recalls Lorne saying: “She is not welcome here anymore.”

It was mid afternoon in late August of 1945 and MJ was home alone with her father. He was busy in the barn while she was tidying up the kitchen and washing garden vegetables for her mother who was away that sunny summer day visiting neighbours with sister Elyse. 

MJ could hear a loud commotion from the barnyard and raced out to see what was going on…to her dismay, her father was wielding a large mallet and threatening a stubborn hog that was being difficult to load on the trailer. Maybe the pig new that it was a fateful trip…Mary Jo ran between the frightened animal and Lorne..eyes locked, she firmly told him to put the pig back in the barn and if he bludgeoned the helpless creature it would be his last act of rage…MJ gave him the ultimatum..”put the hammer down, put the pig back in the barn, take it to the butcher another day!” Lorne complied without speaking a word – the sword had been drawn and for the very first time she saw fear in her father’s eyes.

Mary Jo recalls that in her heart she was prepared to kill her father that afternoon rather than see him torture the stubborn pig. And from the tender age of eleven the scales of power had shifted and their relationship would change forever. Lorne had met his match in this feisty young girl…..and her life as she knew it would never be the same. 

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Dan Fraleigh resides in London, Ontario Canada. He is a real estate agent by day and at night and enjoys writing poems and stories. His writing has appeared in Literary Yard as well as Istanbul Masticadores.

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