Fashback #3
Innocence Shattered
Chapter 12
Me for Me.
I crash into everything that once was
Earth-shattering memories overwhelm
my already wrought soul.
Immersed amongst my painful past,
I crumble beneath all that I have denied.
I have avoided the reality of what I have been through,
for so long,
That I’m not sure that I will be able to function and cope-
all at once.
The demons from my past creep upon me
when I least expect it,
When I’m feeling most vulnerable,
I get swallowed into chest heaving tears.
I’m invisibly shaken, hiding all of the hollowness
That my soul possesses
Within my “everything is okay” smile.
I have locked away so much.
Its buried somewhere beneath my heart.
Everything seems safer there.
My life is a twisted sort of lost.
Facing my childhood,
Attempting to regain some
Sort of control..
Has stripped me of who I am,
And forced me to look at
Myself in the mirror
And learn to love me for me.
- Cassandra - a person who was abused as a young girl http://overcomingandconquering.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
My daughter, my one and only child who developed beneath my heart. I conceived you with your father with the intension of raising you at home, but when your father left us on our own, I was proud and I felt I needed to be independent - I needed to go to work as soon a possible. But I had the good fortune to have contact with a social worker who understood the value of a mother raising her own children. When she heard my initial steely determination to go to work as soon as possible, she arranged for me to meet another single mother who had made this decision - her son was then 4 years old.
What I saw frightened me: I saw a mother who had not bonded with her son, whose days were busy with comings and goings, who had very little time to spend with her child. I saw neither a happy child nor a happy mother. With this shock therapy, I immediately realized that I did not want this for you, and, in my heart I knew I did not want this for me.
As a child, I remember seeing pictures in the LIFE magazines of tiny little tots, barely able to walk, lined up like little soldiers in daycares and nurseries in China and Russia. I remember being shocked by these pictures. In those days, day-cares were a foreign concept only implemented in communist countries, where the state controlled their people from cradle to grave.
This was NOT a North American aspiration ! Family was seen as the basis of our society, and the raising of children within the family unit was a sacred concept. This is the Canada I grew up in - I know things are different now and the young mothers of today do not even remember when there was no day-care and most women stayed home to raise their children.
When I had my daughter, times were a-changing. Daycares were now thriving in Canada and the society of women were split, between us and them: the women who went out to work and the few who still chose to remain at home to raise their children. There was a rally cry from the vocal woman libbers of the day pressing all women, everywhere, to get a job. If you didn’t, there was something wrong with you - you were somehow the enemy of the rest of the women who were fighting to open this “brave new world”. It did not matter how young your children or how many, you were to leave your babes-in-arms just as soon as you could and go out and work. And the rest of us were despised and looked down upon - And this hurt. It hurt that we, as women, were devalued by other women because we made a choice to personally raise our families.
For the first time, neighborhoods that once throbbed with the life of laughing, calling, chattering children, hard at the work of play, were silent and empty. When I grew up, we ran the yards, the fields, the streets with our play. The roads, then, were safe havens for hopscotch, skipping, “war”, dodge ball, bike riding, roller skating etc, because during the day the men had taken all the cars to work and in the evenings they were all parked in the driveways. We were not the consumer society we are today - always shopping.
And I remember the playgrounds, then - bursting to capacity. Go to a public playground today - Most are deserted .
We have stopped having children and the few we have are locked away for most of the day within the four walls of some daycare or hidden behind the gates and fences of these institutions we pay to raise our youngest children. And the older children have forgotten how to play. They have forgotten how to play spontaneously and the traditional games and skipping songs that were once handed down from child to child have vanished. Even the traditional rhymes and stories that were handed down from generation to generation have all but disappeared. Now our children learn the games and songs and stories the adults in the daycares and schools teach them. And all of these stem from a commercial source that makes its money selling new songs, new games, new story books etc .
But I chose to be an outcast to raise you. A social outcaste, because I was a single mother, and an outcaste amongst women because I chose to be a stay-at-home mother for you. I did not want a stranger raising you, imparting their values to you. I wanted to raise you with mine.
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And then you were three, cute as a button and only three. Up until then, I had only left you with the family of the man I was going out with, a family I had come to know well over the years. Two of the younger sisters, high school students, looked after you when we went out in the evenings. And occasionally his mother looked after you during the daytime. Otherwise, you were always with me.
It was around this time that I began going to a mid-week prayer meeting, an informal gather of believers who gathered to talk and share scripture and songs, at a church in Halifax. Another woman who lived in my apartment building went with me while her 14 year old son looked after my daughter. Her son was neat and well kempt, quiet and polite and every week my boyfriend drove us to the church and later picked us up.
Meanwhile my boyfriend, a licensed mechanic, began befriending this young man, left fatherless when his parents divorced when he was youngster. A love for tinkering with cars drew these two together.
I cannot recall now how long I went to these prayer meetings when one night, when my daughter was asleep in the bedroom, there was a knock at my door. When I opened the door I was surprised to see my neighbor with a police officer. As they walked in, it was apparent my neighbor was upset - she was trembling and obviously distraught. The officer informed me that another officer was presently with her son. Earlier they had taken a statement from him and now, because my neighbor was illiterate and could not read this for herself, they wanted someone, not a police officer, to read the statement for her. Puzzled and perplexed, I agreed to do so.
As I began to read, and the narrative unfolded, my friend, cried and I attempted to comfort her as I labored to the end of the statement, juggling between reading, comforting and contenting with my own shock. Her son was confessing to sexually abusing a little girl he had been babysitting just down the hall from me. This woman’s grief was maxed and my compassion was focused on this poor woman who was grieved to the bottom of her soul.
After I finished, the police officer began to tell us what they were doing concerning charges against this young 14 year old youth. We were told he would be sent into treatment, and with the permission of the mother of the child who was abused, the charges would be held over him, but not laid, as long as he continued in treatment. However, if he stopped treatment before the specialists had finished, the charges would be laid against him.
At a certain point, the police officer went, leaving us both his card, and now I was left alone to comfort this broken woman. I cannot remember how long the evening was, but I do recall that all my energy had been directed towards this woman, attempting to comfort and console her.
When finally she stood to leave, I walked her to the door. It was that very moment, as the door was closing behind her, when I was finally able to break from the emotional turmoil of what had just transpired, that my mind, finally released from the choas of the evening that had enveloped me, instantaneously and abruptly made the connection - O my God, this person had babysat my daughter as well.
One might think this would have been the first thing, I should have thought of when I read this young man’s statement. I can only understand that I was in shock, reading the statement for the police office while at the same time trying to contend with and comfort the grief-stricken mother.
Immediately, I woke my daughter. And then being careful not to lead her thoughts, she told me, in some detail, how he had attempted to penetrate her, how it had hurt and how she had pleaded with him to stop.
Now I was the grief-stricken mother. And I remember hugging my precious daughter, kissing her and telling her I loved her, as I always did, several times every day. I lay in bed with her nestled in my arms until she went to sleep. Then I slipped out, and phoned the officer who had left his card.
I don’t remember how long we spoke, but I was told they would arrange for a doctor at the hospital to examine my daughter and speak with her the next day. They would send a police car to drive us to this appointment.
I can only tell you, I was devastated, but, at the same time, I was also aware of a peace and a comfort that I knew come from this new-found God of mine. When I went to the hospital with my daughter, a nurse commented on my composure during this trying time, and I remember telling her from whence this calm came from.
I did not hate this young man. And I also agreed to allow the charges to be held over him to force treatment. I felt this was best for everyone: the boy and any future children he might be in contact with.
I continued to comfort the mother as her son went through months of treatment. Oftentimes, I recall, she would come to my apartment in tears after a particularly strenuous session. But I was her friend and I did what I could to comforted her.
In the end, I broke up with my boyfriend over this. My primary focus was my daughter. I had no objection to my boyfriend continuing to mentor this young man, but I asked him to tell this boy not to run up to him in the parking lot when he came or left if my daughter was with him. But my boyfriend just didn’t get it. He refused to set the boundaries for this young man. I remember we had a HUGE argument over this and, as a result, I abruptly ended the relationship. My daughter and her well being came first!
I remember his family, particularly his mother, were disappointed - they had expected us to marry. But there had been other things - he was a loving, giving man BUT he just was never able to get his priorities straight.
To this day, I remember the exact words of the doctor who saw my daughter “ If she was any older, I would put her in therapy, but because she is so young she will forget this.”
They didn’t know any better then. At that time, the public was not being educated on child abuse. The research on the long terms affects of abuse were not known, and they obviously were ignorant on how this could effect even a very young child. And, most importantly, they didn’t know my daughter. Even at 3, she had a phenomenal memory. I knew she would not forget.
It was approximately 1 year later that the first public education advertisements concerning child abuse began on TV. It was the NO-GO-TELL campaign educating children to say “NO” then to run away and tell someone.
My heart breaks, and I still feel the sting of tears welling up in my eyes when I remember the image of my 4 year old daughter standing right in front of the television screen watching this advertisement. With the back of her head to me, her eyes mesmerized on the screen, she said “ They didn’t have this when it happened to me.”
My precious innocent baby, what I wouldn’t do to be able to go back in time and take this experience away from you - to rescue you, to keep you safe ! But I cannot do this and my pain is more than I can bare.
The doctor did tell me that my daughter might suddenly bubble up details from her experience - And she did - many, many years later - You see, she never forgot.
never ending battle.
anger envelopes my wretched soul
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