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Like every child, Dominic wanted his
parents to protect him, but sadly neither of them could
help. They both hurt him in so many ways. They
did not affirm him as a young child. He had to console
himself, lick his own wounds and frankly survive the best
way he knew how. All Dominic really ever had was his
grandmother and his Aunt Inez. They were his mother
and his father. While he can offer no explanation as to why
his biological father outright rejected him, with his mother
Dominic does have a better understand.
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March 1976 |
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Laverne Carter
during her healthier days. Dominic
would try to forget the past, but it
would always haunt him. Even as most
of the responsibility fell on him
to take care of his ailing "mother."
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Photo one of the proudest moments
ever, of this mother-son bond. Laverne Carter travels
to upstate New York to attend the college graduation of her
son Dominic. The first Carter to graduate from
college. |
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There was so much that Dominic didn't
understand. Laverne Carter's was not a life well
lived; this was a tragedy. A tale of great
sorrow. Dominic doesn't know if Laverne was ever truly happy
at any point in her whole life. There was trouble -
always trouble.
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To his knowledge, no one ever gave Laverne a
birthday party she didn't go to the prom; and she never
married. No one celebrated Laverne being on the planet earth
... ever. When he, her first born came into the world, she
went from the maternity ward, and just months later, to the mental
ward. Every man she loved, beat or betrayed her. Yes, Dominic
Carter's mother undoubtedly wrestled with memories of
straightjackets and mental institutions. She probably lived
with a near paralyzing guilt of her abuse and abandonment of her
child. And she lived in public housing, owning very little and
having no means of making an independent living. She didn't
even use his success to buoy her life. She never told Dominic
she was proud of him - though a twinkle in her eye gave away that
she truly was. She showed interest in his career, but only
from afar. It essentially rained every day of Laverne Carter's life,
and in the end, through all the bitterness, Dominic was deeply
saddened that his mother-- his mother-- was leaving this world
essentially the way she came: helpless, unable to communicate
and dependent on others for her survival. |
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Tracing his mother's life as a grown man,
Dominic, the Journalist, would visit the grounds of "Rockland State"
Psychiatric Center. One of approximately six facilities she would be
a patient at.
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