Farewell

The day before my last post, I called the hospice and had the nurse hold the phone up for him.  He was by then too weak to do so himself.  And, I told him what had been on my mind those previous two weeks.  I told him how I did remember the good times.  I told him about Red River Valley.  And, I told him that I did still love him, too.  He must have said it himself half a dozen times when I went to visit, but I didn't, couldn't, reply in kind.  I knew I needed to.  I knew that that part was still there, as much as it had been pushed away, buried, forgotten.  I told him.  And then I said goodbye.

He fell into a coma within an hour, from which he did not awake.  He passed two days later.

I went to his funeral on Saturday.  To many, I justified it by saying it was the right thing to do.  It was right to be there and support family members I am still close to.  In all honesty, though, I needed to be there for myself.  

I arrived a few minutes late and sat alone in the back of the church, so as not to disrupt anything.  It was.. surreal.  Surreal to look ahead at this little box and think that is this man who always had "Big" attached to his first name.  The great grizzly bear of a man was this little box.  I couldn't comprehend it.

The gathering was small- 20 some close relatives and a handful of fraternal order "brothers".  The service was short, but meaningful.

The "brothers" gathered in front and delivered their own service after the religious passages were read.  I was struck by some of their words, and later asked for a written copy.  

Let us, therefore, preserve his memory and dwell on all that was good and amiable in his character.  That our Brother was faultless cannot be supposed, but just as we shall all appear before the Almighty Judge, let our hearts register only our Brother's virtues.  Farewell, my Brother; you have gone to meet your God, and may He approve of you.  May we be faithful and when our end approaches, may our eyes be closed in peace.

May he rest in peace, and may those of us left behind to wrestle with the past find peace as well.

Remembering the Red River Valley

I love music.  I have a wide range in interest, thanks in part to my parents- all four of them.  I also have a tendency to memorize lyrics quickly, and I often find myself quoting lines in certain situations. I associate songs with individuals, with events, with memories of completely random and otherwise insignificant moments.  

It's no surprise,then, that there's been a song stuck in my head these last couple of weeks.  For years I did not allow myself to think of the good times, the times before the molestation.  I was focused on avoiding thinking about the abuse and the abuser- and that included the happy memories with him.   When I began therapy, the focus turned to reliving, redefining, and responding to the abuse itself.   All along, that other side of the former parent-child relationship, those other memories, were necessarily and unconsciously squashed.  Faced with his all too human mortality, the memories came flooding back.  It has made for days of conflicting and contradicting emotions; at times nonchalant, and at other times overcome by heart-wrenching sobbing.  One of those memories is listening him to him play his guitar some nights, much like Pa Ingalls and his fiddle.  It is a happy memory, now encased in sadness.  

Come sit by my side if you love me

Do not hasten to bid me adieu

Just remember the Red River Valley

and the cowboy who loved you so true

I remember.

A Step Toward Closure

Closure: a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved

Closure: a lovely thought, but a concept that has always been in some ways unfathomable to me

I am blessed, and cursed, with a great memory.  I remember dates, and events, and most importantly, feelings.  A song, a spoken word, a random memory- and I can relive past horrors that keep me awake at nights.  I will often forgive, but I almost never forget.  Avoid, yes.  But never forget. 

I have been in counseling for the abuse for a year now- a rollercoaster of a year with several gut-punching lows and a few extraordinary highs.  I’ve learned that it’s not enough to simply say “letting go has never been my forte”.   If I want to break the habit of avoidance, while at the same time not allowing those traumatic experiences to break me, I have to learn to let it go.

"Let go and let God” is an expression I’ve often heard.  I’ll admit, I’m jealous of those who have the kind of faith that allows them to do that.  During my various religious odysseys, I’ve attempted to obtain it.  “Fake it until you make it”, right?  It never worked- and in the end, it just wasn’t for me.  No, for me “letting go” will be a different experience.  Letting go by letting it out- by writing, and sharing.

I attempted to let go of the pain and insecurities stemming from my husband’s relationship with another woman (his requested caveat, again: we were separated) by writing her a letter.  It was cathartic.  Whether or not she ever replied was not the point.  There were things I needed to say, and things I hoped would be true for the unchartered future. 

Likewise, I decided that I would write a letter to my abuser.  Everything that had gone unsaid since January 1995, everything that was kept in silence; an effort to extract the poison that had worked its way through each member of our family until it was torn apart.  

Deciding to write, and actually writing, turned out to be two completely different tasks.  This would be a much different letter than the one to the ex-girlfriend, for which there was no writer's block.  This one- I spent months gathering thoughts, but never put any to paper.  I did not know where to start.

Then I received a phone call.

He has stage IV cancer, and only has weeks.

I knew writing would be futile.  I knew I needed him to see the letter, to read it, to hear my words.  I had not seen the man in six years and had been content with that arrangement, but suddenly I knew I had to go.  I knew that if I did not, I would regret it.  I knew I would regret him not hearing what I needed to say, nor giving him the opportunity to say what I needed to hear.

It’s not that foreign a concept to me- rushing to the hospital bedside of a man who’s long been written out of my life.  My grandfather, for lack of better words, abandoned the family when I was 12.  The following twenty years offered a few, largely unsubstantial, contacts.  Yet, when word came that he was dying, I left work and drove the two hours to make sure I got to say goodbye.  He was still, despite it all, “Grandpa”.  He died 30 minutes later.

No, driving five hours to see the man who was Daddy during those same twenty years was not so outlandish.  And unlike Grandpa, there could be words spoken by both sides.

I sat in the hospital parking lot for fifteen minutes, suddenly anxiety ridden and nervous.  I did not want to go in.  “You just drove five hours here, Melissa—you ARE going in.”  Once inside, I hesitated some more.  Eventually though, I gathered myself together enough to head up to his room.  Just as I turned the corner, my stepsister was there, leaving.  She might not know this, but she was my lifesaver at that moment-  and the icebreaker.

It was a short visit; 40 minutes tops.  After my sister left, I said what I needed to say.  I am not one to kick a person when they’re down.  I didn’t drive all the way up there to make a dying man feel worse than he already did.  I chose my words carefully- more carefully than I typically do.  And, I kept it together- something I’m not particularly known for, either.

My thoughts and feelings were understood, and acknowledged. 

As I was leaving, he thanked me for coming.  “You didn’t have to do that.  I appreciate it.”  I told him I did.   Then, for the first time in 22 years, he apologized.  Sincerely.  This time I believed him.  This time, which I knew would be the last time.  I left the room, and made it back to my car before completely falling apart.

It was a trip I had to make, and a trip I am thankful I had the opportunity to make.  Whatever “closure” means, whatever letting go will look like for me- I know it would not happen had I not gone to see him.

Ghost on the Mountain

Last week, my travels took me past a town I visited often as a child.  While stopped at a gas station along the highway there, I chanced to look up at the mountain rising above.  The mountain upon which I had hiked as a third grader, searching for fossils for a science fair project.  It is a fond memory from my childhood, but it brought tears to my eyes nonetheless.  The memory has been tainted because my companion that day later became my abuser.


My parents divorced when I was young.  Distance, work obligations, and a child custody schedule typical of the 1980s ensured that I only saw my dad 4-5 days each month.  My dad is a good man.  He is a provider, and I've never doubted his love for me.  He was not, though, demonstrative, nor very talkative.  (They say women marry men like their fathers- oh how I can relate!  But I digress..)  I did not have a close relationship with my dad growing up.  We've bonded over the last several years, through health crises and common interests in couponing, genealogy and the mighty New York Yankees.  Throughout most of my growing up years, though, he was not the daddy-figure.  That role was played by my abuser.


He was the one who taught me to ride my bike.  He was the one who so skillfully covered my schoolbooks in ironclad brown paper bag and packaging tape covers.  He was the one who attended every school event, every concert, every parade.  He was the one who stayed with me at the hospital after my appendectomy, reading Little House in the Big Woods aloud, instigating my love of reading.  He was the one who taught me to respect my mother when I became too flippant.  He was the one who drove me on the back of his motorcycle to and from typing classes the summer after sixth grade because a teacher had docked me a letter grade for handing in a (neatly) handwritten report.  He was the one who was there every night for homework, for dinner, for bedtime.  He was Daddy.


And he was the one who abused me, whose actions tainted those special memories from my childhood that should bring smiles, not tears.  The juxtaposition is equally impossible to fathom and to convey.


I distanced myself as an adult, but for years he was always there.  That changed drastically and suddenly in 2011, and I've had little contact with him since.  I do not miss the man.  I do not miss the (what became for me) awkward hugs.  I do not miss feeling self-conscious in what was my home.  I do not miss feeling obligated to love and respect the man for no reason other than his role as my mother's husband.  I do not.


I do miss the idea of the man- the role he played.  I realized last week that I mourn for what could have been, for what should have been, and that is okay.  I'm allowed to mourn that, but like anything else it cannot consume me.


There's a ghost on that mountain, and I'll never not think of it whenever I drive by.  But there are other mountains, mountains I've climbed figuratively and literally with memories untainted, and as I wiped the tears that had gathered in the corners of my eyes and drove away, it was those vistas I turned to.

Not that brave, after all

I've written three more posts that remain hidden in my notebook.  I can't bring myself to publicize them; this process.  It is all incredibly personal, and while putting it out there may be a way to let it go, I've yet to take that next step and increase my vulnerability to that.  I don't want platitudes of sympathy.  I want understanding.  I want to understand myself- and for others to understand as well.  I read stories online and in self-help books and think, "there is someone who would get it".  I know too well how important that is.  I would like to think I could offer that same feeling of understanding to someone else.  I'm just not there yet.

A relative who is a counselor told me how brave it was to share my story.  I think that may have been premature.

I AM- an Adult Survivor Of Child Sexual Abuse

It's taken me over twenty years to intellectually and emotionally recognize and accept that I was sexually abused by a trusted male relative as a young girl.  Twenty years of denial, minimization and avoidance.  Twenty years of burying the memories and the emotions because that is what I was taught to do at the time, and doing so became my go-to coping mechanism for all things conflicting; my means of survival.  I've always felt somehow "off"- incomplete, unwhole, undefinable.  I searched for meaning and wholeness externally- in relationships, religious practice and outward accomplishments, while always ignoring the internal.  I have been blessed with a loving if dysfunctional family, a committed husband, beautiful children, kindhearted friends and a successful career, yet I've felt empty and alone inside.  I've been embarrassed by those feelings- don't I have enough?  What more could I ask for?  Yet they persist, and happiness eludes me.  In fact, most emotions do.

It was not until I fell into pure crises mode- a disintegrating marriage, my husband in another relationship (caveat: we were separated), shared custody of the children, problems at work- that I began to recognize the harm not just of the abuse but also the long-term effects of the twenty years that followed.  It was not until I hit that proverbial bottom that I recognized all that was wrong, and that all roads led back to the abuse.  I'm only just beginning the journey to climb back out and forge a new road, to find the authentic me.  To find serenity.

Adult Survivor Of Child Sexual Abuse

I hate labeling myself, but I must own this one.  

Each word is loaded with meaning as I'm typing it.

Adult

I am no longer 13-14 years old.  I have control over my body, and to large extent my environment.

Survivor

For 22 years, I was a victim.  By refusing to cope with the events of my past, I allowed what happened to continuously victimize my present.  I allowed what happened to victimize my husband and my children, because I was not whole.  I allowed HIM to continuously victimize my dreams and my relationships.  NO MORE.

Child

I am not sure when it all started.  I may have been 12; definitely by the time I was 13.  I've often minimized what happened because "it's not like you were 3 or 4 years old".  It's been hard for me to recognize and accept that legally, emotionally, developmentally- yes, I was a child.  HE was the adult and it was not my fault.

Sexual Abuse

Another term I've avoided and trivialized over the last two decades.  I felt guilty labeling it for what it was because it wasn't bad enough.  He didn't rape me.  He didn't force intercourse.  He only fondled me, touched me inappropriately, exposed himself, peeped into the shower and commented on my growing body in sexual terms- "that's not sexual abuse", I told myself.  In comparison, no, it was not as traumatic physically as it could have been, but it was abuse nonetheless.  The long-term effects are the same.

Adult Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse.  That is me.

I've debated writing this.  I've debated sharing it, or keeping it anonymous.  I've worried about the reactions of others, thoughts of airing "dirty laundry", and protecting the others involved.  I still don't know to what extent I will share this, but I must.  It's not about others.  It's not about dirty laundry, and even if it is, it's mine to air.  It's not about protecting others, because I've done that for far too long already.  This is about me.  My need for healing.  My search for serenity.  If writing helps, then that is what I will do.  If my writing can help someone else along the same journey, all the better.  It's time.