Never Forget: The Date Comes Again

It actually started yesterday. I woke up thinking about it. It hovered around me all day and at times it commanded my attention. At one point while sitting at my desk at work, wells formed in the bottom of my eyelids and I tried to keep from looking at those around me. It always hits me hard, but this year it started a day early.

Now today is the day. Four years ago today it took place. Images flash in my mind as emotions travel like waves on the shore. I often wonder what it is like for my daughter. I never bring this day up to her nor ask her about it. I just pray she has put this day out of her mind for now and it is like any other day. It is not her revelation about the sexual abuse that I worry about. We are all dealing with it and talk about it. It is her attempt at taking her life that I hope she has set aside.

I cannot erase the images of her on the floor with cuts in her arms and blood smeared on the carpet. I cannot erase her screams when she opened her eyes to see the medics helping her and when they carried her out to the ambulance. I still hear her voice demanding that she be left alone to die. This is what haunts me.

Each year on this date, I play Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” and sing along while I cry. It was the song playing when we found her. On this day I mourn for the innocence lost and worry that some day she might get into such a dark place again that she will try to end her life again. Then I play “Answer” and sing the lyrics with conviction:

I will be the answer
At the end of the line
I will be there for you
While you take the time
In the burning of uncertainty
I will be your solid ground
I will hold the balance
If you can’t look down

If it takes my whole life
I won’t break, I won’t bend
It will all be worth it
Worth it in the end
Cause I can only tell you what I know
That I need you in my life
When the stars have all gone out
You’ll still be burning so bright

I dedicate the song to my daughter. May she always know and feel my support and love. May her light shine long past mine.

Smoother path, but haunting road ahead

Time ticks on with wounds healing, leaving the path a smooth one for the moment. However, just as one road smooths, another haunting path starts. My middle daughter shared what happened to her sister with someone who knew her and the family during the time it took place. He was shocked and offered full support. During this sharing, she received a revelation about a person that the family knew at the church of Christ. She called to tell me about it and this is what started the new haunting road.

As you know by my previous posts, I once belonged to the church of Christ as did my ex-husband the offender. I left the congregation six months after leaving my ex-husband. The freedom it brought amazed me. For the fist time in my life, I felt whole and content again (this was years before my daughter revealed that her dad had molested her). Eventually my ex-husband moved to a new congregation as did my daughters. Now, my youngest and my middle daughter have left the church of Christ (conservative for those who know the whole conservative/liberal/Boston movement distinctions). My ex-husband and oldest daughter remain members of the same congregation, but not one that we had membership in as a family.

I am telling you all this, because I found out from my daughter that a man at the last congregation that I attended, was found out and convicted of child molestation. Worse, the elders there, the same ones that condemned me to hell for leaving, covered it up! She said he had been convicted and is serving time. He molested his own grandchildren too! I gave thanks that although we knew this man and his wife, none of my girls were ever alone with them. I was very careful on who took care of my children. Lot of good it did me since it was my own husband who presented the biggest danger, but I digress.

Since this revelation, I have been haunted. I want to know more, but have not been able to find anything out. I have been doing searches and will do more, but for now it haunts me. This is the second sexual incident that I have heard about in that congregation where the elders kept it hidden. My youngest daughter told me that she was sure she told someone at this congregation about her dad molesting her, but they did not do anything. Well, now it all fits and her statement is truly verified.

My three daughters are getting along better than ever and the old wounds are healing. The path in regards to them is smoother and they are closer than ever. This new revelation is only known by my middle daughter and myself. I hope to keep it that way for now, until we know more. Meanwhile, it is haunting me…

Small Steps in a Big World…

Time continues to tick along as we continue to walk along a path that changed only such a short time ago. Healing is taking place, but hurt still looms like a dark cloud over all of us. Emotions at times are level and then in the blink of an eye, they flare up slapping us all in the face with reality. Three months ago, my oldest daughter posted a picture on Facebook of her dad holding her daughter’s hand while she walked along a log on the beach. Since he was wearing a hood, it took a few seconds to identify him, but it jolted me when I realized it. I had to swallow my anger at the picture being posted. Then I heard from my youngest via post about how it affected her. We both know that my oldest does not believe anything took place, but to see him with his granddaughter brought about fear and worry. My youngest responded by saying she would block her sister and cut her off. I debated whether to intervene, but decided to let it ride its course. Eventually the two of them worked it out so they remain in touch with each other. One step in the right direction.

The next step taken was small, but very important. During a recent coffee and cupcake outing with my middle daughter, we started talking about her sisters and during the discussion she revealed her belief that her dad did indeed abuse her sister. I almost wanted to record it as it lifted a bit of weight off my shoulders in knowing that she believed. She already stopped seeing her dad on a regular basis and will not leave her children alone with him, but I thought it was just over philosophical beliefs in child raising. Now I now there is more to it. She just wishes her sister had said something sooner because her dad had time with her oldest daughter before the revelation. I had to tell her that it was because of worry and fear for her nieces that her sister finally started addressing the abuse and it was a factor in her coming forth.

One daughter now believes, but the other still denies. These are small steps in a big world of hurt and pain caused by sexual abuse, but they important–progress and healing.

Three Years Ago: Haunting Images Never Fade

It was three years ago today that it all took place. I have been dreading this day for 364 days. The images still haunt me. I cannot wash them away. They are scarred into my mind and burned into my heart.

I remember being on top of the world and on my way to see my all time favorite singer and having it shattered with a phone call just before entering the parking garage near the venue. I remember entering the dark apartment and hearing “In the Arms of and Angel” flowing from the computer speakers. To this day I cannot listen to that song without crying.

She lay so silently on the floor with blood oozing out of multiple wounds on her arms. The kitchen knife with blood still on the blade sat only a foot from her body. I knew not if she was alive or dead and my feet would not move. I cried as my husband and her boyfriend at the time rushed to her. Their words that she was breathing echoed and brought only momentary relief. My baby was on the floor and tried to end her life. I remember wondering how life could be so bad that it would cause her to do this.

Next came the police, the medics and the ambulance. My husband who is a nurse had attended to her until they arrived and now her blood lingered on his hands and clothes. She woke on the way to the ambulance crying and screaming that she wanted to die. My heart broke as I could not take this pain away nor at this point did I know why it existed.

Over the next few hours, I would learn the most horrific news. It is something no mother wants to learn. I wanted to go shout at her dad for what he did to her. I wanted him to know that he destroyed her life and set the world off its axis. Then I started questioning myself. How could I not know? Why didn’t she tell me? These questions still haunt me. I am her mother and I failed to protect her.

Life has moved since that time and healing has taken place, but only on the surface. I still see the images when I look at the scars on her arms now covered partially by tattoos. I still recall in every way the emotions of that night and the sorrow that forever lingers in my heart.

My darling daughter, you have come far in three years. You have moved on to a new job and a new boyfriend who loves you as you should be loved. I hear from you when you struggle. Please know that I am and will always be here for you. I believe you, I fight for you, and I protect you. My only regret is that you did not tell me when it was happening so I could stop it. I know when I asked you when you were younger, you denied it because you were protecting me from him. I hate this fact and each year I ask quietly for forgiveness for the mother protects the daughter not the other way around. You are a strong woman and I am proud of you.

Today is the third anniversary of the night that changed lives… My dear daughter, I am sorry and I love you so very much.

The Past Stirred Up

Saw him a couple of days ago for the first time since I told him to stay away from his daughter. It was weird and it stirred up the past. He was shopping with his new wife and they did not see us. I still look at her and wonder how she could marry a man who molests little girls.

I just hope my youngest daughter (the victim of his molestation) never encounters him by accident. She is healing and it can rip her open once again. I just wished I had not seen him…. How do women forgive these men? I am baffled… any insight?

My Story: The Road and Battle Never Ends

By the time I was five, I witnessed my mother being thrown into a wall, my father hitting my mother, and my father proving his target shooting ability when drunk by shooting between my half-brother’s legs. This latter incident resulted in the three of us (my half-brother, my sister, and myself) being taken away and becoming wards of the court.

In our foster home we felt safe, but before we both left home, we would see domestic abuse rear its ugly head again. Our foster dad started drinking heavily when we were in our teens and he and our mother fought occasionally. He never struck her with his fists, but he threw things and shoved her down. I would react by leaving the house and my sister would step in and try to defend her. Our foster brothers would usually end of stopping our dad. He went in for treatment and the abuse stopped. We never talk about this time even to this day.

When I was old enough to start dating, I stated I would never go out with anyone who was abusive. The abuse was going to stop behind me. Note I said behind, not with me. It was going to be a thing of the past. So my first year at college when I met a grad student at the church of Christ, I felt I was safe to date him. He was “God-fearing” and even toned. His family seemed to have come off the page of a Normal Rockwell painting or out of the “Leave It to Beaver” neighborhood. Naturally, when he asked me to marry him, I said yes thinking I was burying all abuse behind me.

Never in my life did I think that abuse was anything else but physical. Less than a year into my marriage, I had a huge awakening when my husband got mad and tossed a trunk down a stairwell in the airport parking garage. Just a fluke I told myself. When he took control of the money and told me I could not go visit my family because there was no church there, I accepted it and felt I was doing the “Godly Christian” thing. When my first daughter was 6 months old, we got into an argument and he marched into her room where I was sitting with her and told me he wanted a divorce because I was not a “submissive wife.”

I felt caught and pressured in this life. I was a young mother who had two years of college and the only work experience was working at a grocery store during high school and fast food while in college. With a young baby, no job prospects, and no place to go, I decided to work on making the marriage better. We had two more daughters and I put all my focus on them. Ten years into the marriage, I knew things were not good. I tried to find an old friend that I knew would help me, but I could not locate the person.

My husband controlled everything and used guilt as his tool. He would take us out to dinner, then complain of not having money after we arrived home and stated it was because we ate out. Once he told me I could spend $100 to buy all of us clothes, and then came home to say his overtime was coming to a close and he did not know if we could afford the clothes. He had over $5,000 in a savings account that I could not access and our bank balance at the time was well over $2,000.

I grew up with the mantra that marriage is for life, so I held on trying to make it better. Each time I decided to leave and tried to get out, something else would happen. I took classes at night to update my college credits and to get my Associate in Arts degree. During the day I was home with my girls and also provided daycare for another little girl to make money for my classes and to have money I could spend. While my girls were in their teens, I started full-time at a local university. I was gaining independence and felt I finally could ask him to leave, but then my oldest daughter was diagnosed with a rare cancer. We were devastated, but I swallowed the bitterness, the desperation, and the loneliness of my marriage to see her through it all. She made it through, went off to college and remains cancer free.

I finished my Bachelor’s degree and moved on to graduate school. Just after getting into graduate school, I found out my husband had maxed out our credit and we were hanging close to the edge. I took an internship and started planning for my independence. I could not afford the mortgage on the house and I knew he would not move out, so I found an apartment and moved out with an inflatable mattress, a laptop computer, two speakers and a stereo receiver. The first night in this new place I sat on floor in the dark, listened to Pink Floyd and cried. I wondered how I ever got myself into this predicament.

My daughters visited me at my apartment, but now two were at college and only the youngest remained home. The youngest stayed one night with me and it was interrupted early the next morning with a call from her dad that her guinea pig had died during the night by getting caught in its hay loft. At the time it seemed like a horrible accident, but now I wonder if he killed the animal to keep my daughter under his control and quiet. I finished graduate school, obtained a job, reconnected with my high school sweetheart, moved into the house and had him move out. I filed for divorce.

After I moved in the house, my high school sweetheart moved up to where I lived and after my divorce was final, we were married. My youngest was the only one at home during the school year and it was during this time I found some of her writing. In this writing she stated she had been sexually abused. We talked with her, but she would not say who abused her. Eventually she hinted it was her dad, but said she was not 100% sure as the memories were foggy. We let her know that the door was open and we were there for support and trust. She asked us not to say anything about the abuse as she was afraid of how her sisters reacted. We let her know that we would not say anything until she was ready. It was not until she attempted to take her life that she opened up to us all and let us know that it was truly indeed her dad. I still do not know what he held over her head that kept her quiet. I only know it was a threat against me and she was protecting me. Such a burden for a little girl.

I am the mother of a daughter who was abused by her dad and my story is here in this blog.  The heart aches, the sorrow, the moments of forgiveness and our growth. Now 3 years later, we have survived and are stronger. It still eats at my heart and soul and I am not sure I can ever forgive myself for not pushing harder when the first time about sexual abuse came up when she was younger. I will never be able to come to terms with all that has taken place. I just offer my love and support and know that the road and battle will never be over….

Sharing and Healing: Reaching out to others

One of my earliest posts addressed mothers whose daughters were molested by their dads–Where have all the mothers gone? At the time of the writing, I could not find any blogs or support for mothers who were the non-offending parent. I wondered if I was alone.  Many took the time to write and let me know that I was not alone–a sad, but true fact. Their courage and words gave me strength, but now I wonder how they are doing and how are they coping?  I also wonder if there are more mothers out there who are just now discovering the horrible secret that it happened to their child. This almost scares me more as I want to protect all children and all mothers.

If you are one of those wonderful mothers who wrote earlier, would you please let me know how things are going? If you did not comment before, but are a non-offending parent, would you be willing to share your story? I also appreciate all the victions who shared. They provided an insight into the horrors of the senseless act of childhood sexual abuse and the lifelong effects. Take a moment and reach out to others. If we share, then we can grow and heal–a lifelong process for all.