Page 344 - Reason To Sing by Kelita Haverland

Reason To Sing

miracle that we had hoped and prayed for did not happen.
But we had closure.
Another family member – gone tragically, much too soon.
Billy was only 58. And to this day we don’t really know what
happened on the water’s edge the night of Friday, April the
13th. I guess we never will.
I think that, of the five siblings, Billy was the one who
kept the pain most hidden. On the outside he was cool and
laid back. But I believe that, on the inside, everything haunted
him. Did he blame himself for sending that deadly envelope to
Jimmy from Thailand? I can only hope that if so, he was able
to forgive himself.
It pains me deeply that Billy and I were denied the
opportunity to be closer adult friends. His kids are beautiful
people and he truly did a great job of raising them.

Mike: Mike never gave me away at either one of my weddings.
My grandmother walked me down the aisle for my first and a
friend for my second. He also never sent a telegram or gave any
kind of gift. Being that he was the only parental figure in my
life, I was extremely hurt. I longed for some kind of parenting,
anything. But I came to understand that he was incapable of
fulfilling that role.
To my dying day, I will never understand what my mother
saw in Mike, besides an escape from my troubled father. I
believe that, out of all the trauma I experienced as a child and
teen, living under this man’s roof was the most damaging. I
existed in perpetual fear. I learned to hide, manipulate and lie.
I never learned how to stand up for myself or voice an opinion.
Neither was tolerated. The anger that oozed from this man was
toxic. Sadly, I still deal with some of the aftershocks all these
years later. My nervous system has been negatively affected

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