Patrick Sullivan

My earliest memory is the day that my father left me.

I was three years old, standing in the hallway of our small apartment. As I looked on I could see that my mom was talking to a man - a stranger as far as I knew him - and so I asked in my little voice, “mommy, can I play in my bed.”

I don’t remember much more than that other than the fact that the memory persisted for years. Sometimes I thought it was a dream. Other days I just thought I had a vivid imagination. But years later my mother would confirm it. “That was the day he left us.”

My mother did what she could to keep me and my siblings together and happy. But we lived in a very rough neighborhood, the kind where the protection of a father was sorely needed.

At my first day of school, I was kicked in the groan for standing in line before another boy. By the last recess, I was fighting a child two years older than I was. This was kindergarten, and not much would change as the years rolled on.

In time, my mother married a man who by all appearances was a ray of hope. Raised as a farmer, he knew what hard work was and how to make it even when things looked dreary. To be honest, he was the first and only dad I had ever known.

Sadly, it wasn’t long before the yelling and hitting began. Frustrated perhaps with his own work prospects and the dead end situation that many in our neighborhood seemed to be facing, anger and violence in the home became something of a daily occurrence.

I remember one night as a child I laid there crying, wondering when it would stop. And in my mind - I remember this quite clearly - saying, “Father, when will it stop?” And somehow I knew that I wasn’t speaking to my step-father and I wasn’t speaking to my biological dad either. I knew​ that there was a Father that was listening, someone who cared.

As I grew, I got better at violence. Better at not feeling pain.

I remember for example in grade four I had decided that I had enough with fighting. It all seemed so pointless. So I laid down on the grass looking out over the fence with a soccer game playing somewhere behind me. It wasn’t long before a scramble for the ball behind me led the older boys in my direction.

In the quick chaos that ensued, one of the boys in the game who didn’t like me took a full swing at my face as I lay there. Whether the kick was intentional in its target or not I will never know.

Regardless, blood was everywhere; I couldn’t see out of my left eye. And the reaction of the lunch monitor pretty much said it all. As I was rushed to the principal's office, I remember the scramble around me, but through all the noise, someone’s voice stuck out. “You know what worries me,” one of them said, “is that he doesn’t even care.”

My eye would survive the event and I was left with a deep but subtle scar on my face, often hidden by the shadow of my brow.

I would like to say that things got better at this point, but they didn’t. By the time I reached high school, our mother had moved us to a safer area where the rules of the jungle just weren’t as applicable. And though I knew that I was in a safer place, I just couldn’t fit in. In fact, after a few altercations with some other ‘not so nice’ characters, I learned from another student that my reputation was a little less than a mother would desire for her son. Apparently I was “the psychotic, military, ninja guy.”

By grade eleven, I made a radical decision, or at least was for me. I signed up for a drama course.

It was here that my life began to make a turn. I learned that I could be funny. I learned that I could tap into my pain to make real the pain of some character I had to portray. And I began to hope for the first time that I might somehow have a different kind of life. Maybe I would go to university. Maybe I would get married and have a home without yelling. Maybe.

Mid year, it really seemed like all of it was going to happen. My grades had improved drastically, my reputation in the wider school began to change, and I even met a girl in the class that I thought, maybe - just maybe - we could have a happy life together. After some months of dating she came to me and said something really strange, “I have to go away for awhile.”

“What, like prison?” I half joked. You could tell the kind of environment I had thought was normal even then.

“No, not prison. I am going on a retreat.”

“A retreat? For how long?”

“Two weeks. But when I come back let’s meet at our usual spot.”

Our usual spot was the bench just outside of my apartment where I lived with my mother and siblings. My mother had left our step-father just a year before.

It was an odd time, those two weeks. I didn’t know what a retreat was but she seemed to be quite excited about it, and she assured me that she ​was​ coming back, so what could I do?

When she did return, I was elated. We had so much to talk about. So much that I wanted to hear. But when she approached the bench that I sat on, her demeanour was much different from what I remembered.

“You used to pray this,” she said quite matter of factly, and she put a rosary in my hand. “And you used to read this,” she put a Bible into my other hand.

I was dumbfounded. Shocked really. I couldn’t process what was going on.

Finally in frustration she blurted out, “what, did you really think that I could marry someone who isn’t a Catholic?”

I couldn’t believe it. It was all crumbling. My certainties about the future were becoming maybes, and the maybes becoming never. I was not to be happy.

Trying to compose myself I looked up at her and cursed her. I don’t need to repeat the words here, but with a venomous tongue I broke her heart.

In pain, I walked back towards the building and I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass. I was weeping. I hadn’t wept since I was a child. And I remember thinking, “I can’t go upstairs crying in front of my siblings. I’m supposed to be tough.”

So I counted the steps in my mind. It’s not very far to get from the front door of the apartment to my room where I could sob in silence. All I had to do was pretend. Yes, ​act​ like I had become accustomed to do in drama. Don’t let them know how much you are hurting. So taking a deep breath I stepped inside.

Somewhere from within the apartment my mother yelled out, “what’s wrong?” And before I could answer my sister responded without lifting her head, “I know what’s wrong, she dumped him.”

My head swam. My pain erupted. I was the angry child again. I turned and punched the door as hard as I could and stomped off to my room. Within moments, my mother was knocking ever so gently on the door, “are you okay?”

No, I was not okay. I was far from okay. And I knew just what to do about it.

I grabbed my basketball and headed to the courts where I was hoping to engage in what we called ‘street ball.’ Essentially street ball was basketball, but it was expected that you would throw an elbow here or there against another and possibly draw a little blood. And if you were lucky, there would be a fight.

That’s what I wanted. Violence. I wanted to turn my anger on someone, ​anyone​.

When I got to the basketball court no one was there. So instead I threw my ball as hard as I could against the backboard. It was then that I had a thought. Looking up at the clear sky I said, “It is ​you​. You are the reason that my life's falling apart. If she would not have went to You then I would have been fine.” At these words the wind picked up something fierce, so much that it took my ball as it rebounded and sent it flying to the soccer field nearby. I continued, “where were you when I was crying in my bed! Where were you when I needed a father! I hate you.”

I was broken. Utterly broken. I decided to get my ball and continue the insults I would throw upon this God.

The ball was right beside the soccer post. I meant to bend down and pick it up but I couldn’t. Instinctively, because of the wind, I was grabbing onto the post with both hands and then, with moments, wrapping my legs around it.

The post was rocking back and forth and I was drenched with water. Listening, I could hear the clubhouse being torn apart behind me and a violent wind ripping across the land.

Now I am sure that we will all get there one day. That moment when we realize that death is imminent, but I never expected it to come so quickly as it did when I was 17.

It was in this moment, when I knew that I had seconds left and that the I would die in a tornado, that I heard the quiet but certain voice of my God. “What do you want, Patrick?” He asked me. Even then I still had anger in me. I responded with sarcasm, with spite, with mockery. And as the sound of the storm boomed seemingly right next to me and my life was no longer mine to control, God asked me one last time, “Patrick, what do you want?”

“I...I want to try harder.” It came from somewhere deep within. I didn’t know what I meant. I didn’t know why I said it. But it was perhaps the only authentic and honest thought in me.

The moment the words left my heart, everything slowed. The rain slowed. The wind slowed. And letting go of the soccer post, I took one giant look around. The clubhouse was still there. My ball was still beside me.

My journey since has been the effort to fulfill a promise. I would leave careers. I would let go of everything that the world has said is important and necessary. And with my wife and nine children, I have dedicated my life to doing the Lord’s will. I am going to continue to try harder. For my wife. For my kids. And for all of those who need to be evangelized.