PIECES

I

It is OK to be caring, thoughtful, sensitive, compassionate, and loyal to myself, focusing on needs, bodily hurts, and emotional wounds.

That is what comes naturally to others not living with chronic post-traumatic issues. But for me it takes work, attention, and persistence. And still there is no way to recover the shattered pieces, shards so miniscule they’ve scattered in the winds.

First it needs to be learned that it is safe in my body, that running from fears and memories splits me- how most of my life has been lived. Yet splitting has also meant survival. I could not be with it all at once, it has taken a lifetime to chip away at.

It is interesting that only late in life, after all 4 siblings who attacked me sexually have died, that this feeling of OK-ness tentatively wafts up from my core.  

That it is safe to love me, or at least learn to. That tending to that tiny cut, or other seemingly minor wounds is not only OK, but of primary importance. But first I must be in me to even notice the hurt, not split between mind, body, and spirit. With courage the work of coming together continues.

What others take for granted, I work at, but that’s OK too.  Sometimes the more you must work for something the more it is appreciated.  

BUSY HANDS

Brighten the dark days, especially the ones following a rough night. Yet even when adequate sleep comes, the low mood prevails, that dip in fall that must be accepted till spring.

This year it feels more prominent, and that is due to the sicknesses, one after the other. Fear shadows me, thoughts of bodily illnesses, death. We all die, but where has the courage gone that sees me through my days knowing this fact, so cherishing each moment because of it? With the sunshine and long days. But it is coming back, and so will your zest for life.

Keeping my hands busy helps, whether a puzzle or crafts, doesn’t matter, I’m not out to save the world, though I would if I could. My focus is on saving myself, and all else flows from that. It is on to paper woven Easter baskets, blooms, bunnies, and bright green grass.

MEMORIES

The haze of Tom’s death in December has brought him more alive than he ever was in life. Relief that no more snickering and put-downs occur, but also sadness.

Thinking about it too much harms me, yet not allowing in feelings is harmful too. The times he followed me around the hospital when Mom was sick, perhaps wanting to talk.

But only if it were easy for him, if he felt me open to it. As an attorney he didn’t want it in writing fearing it would be used against him?

But that would have felt safer to me. A true apology when it could be felt safely. But he wanted it easy, and safe for him.

Memories of all 4 who have passed make me sad. Then the thought, if I hadn’t lived, they wouldn’t have touched me that way, and THEN they wouldn’t have to carry the guilt and pain of it for life.

And me? What about me? It is so confusing to love, or want to love a family- but cannot, not safely.

SHATTERED- CHAPTER 6: DAN

A memoir by Patricia Grace- Available on AMAZON

It was 1975. I left Roger Williams in Bristol, Rhode Island, one course short of an associate’s degree. Not just one course, one paper of one course, that’s the bitch. I just couldn’t finish that last philosophy assignment, like I couldn’t finish many things. We were asked to compare one culture to another with the question, “Can two cultures ever come to understand each other?”

I was flummoxed. One needs to have at least some understanding of self before even attempting to answer a question like that. I bravely made an effort to get the help I needed from the professor, but a classmate tagged along, an albatross. I didn’t want her to come but had no clue how to get rid of her. The instructor was unimpressed.

Sitting down, sweaty and scared, I managed to squeak, “I need help. I can’t get started.”

We must have seemed like two lazy nitwits but he said, “I have complete faith in you both. You can do it.”

He was cheery and lighthearted, but I felt like my life lay on the line. I knew if I blew this one, it would be another in too a long list of failures. How many could one take and keep going? I felt I had failed at being a daughter, sister, friend, a person; I existed as a fat thing that didn’t deserve life. The song that struck me most at the time was “You are a Child of the Universe,” but I related more to its spin-off, “You are a Fluke of the Universe. You have no right to be here.”

I genuinely needed help. I felt frantic for assistance, though outwardly appeared quiet and calm. The other girl, all smiles and silliness, made the pair of us look foolish. She probably went back to the dorm, finished the paper, even if only barely passing, and completed the course. I couldn’t and didn’t.

I gave up, dropped out, and moved to an apartment in Newport, finding a job at Cumberland Farms, Rhode Island’s version of a 7-Eleven. Three college friends, all males, including Coke, my boyfriend, eventually followed and moved in. They were welcome to come; it made the rent doable, especially with the minimal amount I made at the convenience store.

The upstairs apartment’s claim to fame was the in-ground pool past the fence in the neighbor’s back yard. On hot evenings we’d scale the fence for a swim in the dark, the risk of possibly getting caught only adding more excitement to our nightly escapades. The homeowners either were heavy sleepers or away on vacation. We never did get caught and the cool water on hot, inebriated skin felt luxurious. It took more than a few beers to get up the courage, along with the stupidity of youth, to hoist ourselves up over the tall slated wooden fence to the adventures beyond.

Another pleasure, falling asleep listening to bells on the buoys in the harbor softly dinging in the distance through the petite old Victorian bay windows next to the bed, the curtains wafting slightly from the gentle breeze. Coke lay next to me, lightly snoring while I listened to the rhythm simulating a vista of waves I couldn’t see but imagined, eventually lulling me into deep slumber.

Though we were upstairs and the ocean close-by, it wasn’t in view from the apartment. A favorite hike was along Newport Drive in front of mansions mostly owned now by the historical society. Tours were memorable. The Vanderbilt children’s playhouse looms larger than most single-family homes. Gold dripped over everything and red-carpeted heart staircases cascaded down both sides of the foyer in the main house. You could walk along the cliffs in front of the mansions with waves crashing against rocks while high up away from danger, safely on the path.

My roommate Michael and I had long talks sitting upon the stone wall along the cliffs on sultry evenings. The rush of sea water hitting the rocky shoreline cooled us, the mysterious shadows of the tide exciting in the dark smoky colors of night.

Summer meant splashing in the ocean on the sandy beaches. Coke came along to the shore, but didn’t go into the water, or even near it, choosing instead to lie on the sand in the sun. I had loved the water since childhood and summer camp days when I learned to swim very well, especially in deep water. The opening of “Jaws” accentuated the thrill of swimming out into the endless blue surf.

We were hanging out one day in our small living room, furnished sparsely with a ratty couch, nicked coffee table, high-quality stereo and an old chair, the music playing at a fairly high decibel. Still morning, we were surprised to hear a knock at the door.

Coke opened it. A police officer stood uniformed in full gear, stiffly starched hat under his arm over baton and weapon.

“I’m looking for Patricia Wilkinson,” he stated calmly, “I’ve been asked by the family to locate her.”

“That’s me,” I answered warily.

“You need to call home,” he responded more firmly.

“Okay, thank you,” I mumbled. I hadn’t kept in contact with anyone from home, so it couldn’t be good news.

We had no phone, so I grabbed my purse and headed out to the pay phone at the end of the block, but without enough change, had to call collect. As it rang, I felt restless and worried. Mom said “hello” to the operator, confirming she would take the call.

My voice timid with apprehension, I peeped, “Hi, Mom?”

“Patty,” she was crying, almost hysterical. “Danny died. Come home.”

The call ended in a haze. Buying tickets, getting to the airport, flying home, all blurred, my body and mind numb, on hold. Snapshots of Dan’s tattered life fell through my thoughts like a hateful letter ripped up into shreds: his failed previous attempts at killing himself, how he had totally rejected counseling or therapy. I didn’t understand because I had readily sought help. Sitting by his hospital bedside after an earlier botched attempt, I had pressed the idea of therapy.

Protesting adamantly, shaking his head with conviction, he exclaimed, “Shrinks don’t know anything. They need help more than me.”

Bewildered, I gave up trying, but asked Don, “Why would he resist help when he needs it so much?”

Don, sad from repeatedly trying to help, shook his head as if spent. “The ones who need it most won’t take it.”

Don had left Dan behind in the VA, a memory he will probably carry a lifetime.

Don said to me at the time, “Patty, he held onto the bars of the door with his face up close, begging me, ““Don’t leave me here, don’t leave!””

Don carried the burden of trying to help Dan for Mom and for all of us. He did the most to help his twin, yet Don’s very existence may have been what haunted Dan to suicide. One so seemingly pure, the other pure evil, or so Dan must have thought. Why else would he murder himself?

Dan left home at sixteen, not long after he raped me. He ran from himself, unable to escape. If only someone could have intervened for us both. I know the feelings; at least how I assume he felt: a fucked up failure not wanting to be.

We had other things in common. He joined the Army; I later did too, though his discharge may not have stated “Honorable” on it like mine. I don’t have all the facts, as us younger siblings weren’t told much. I know he married during the same summer Don did. Did he do so to keep up with his twin? Sadly, his marriage dissolved and he wandered, though a daughter came from it. He should have stuck around; Don eventually divorced too. Only the three youngest of us eight siblings stayed married to original spouses, which luckily included me.

I remembered how before the repeated hospitalizations at the VA psych center and subsequent death, he had joined the Children of God, a religious group that seemed more like a cult.

He looked like an emaciated ghost when his wanderings brought him home. Mom had looked to me depleted, and implored me, “Maybe you can help him.”

I went down to the basement. He stood in the corner by the washer under the dim yellow glow of the dusty bare light bulb above him. Just standing in his underwear with no shirt, he seemed bewildered as to why. He had a little plastic baggie in his hand.

“What do you have?” I asked, approaching slowly, gently taking the bag he offered willingly, a slight crooked smile on his lips, eyes dark, his mind gone.

White powder residue lined the bottom of the baggie. I stood beside my brother, more lost than ever before. I took the bag upstairs and handed it to Mom.

“I don’t know, Mom. Speed? Coke?”

Whatever it was, it was not good and we both knew it.

On another visit home before his death, Dan and I were alone in the living room at Mom’s. I needed to know what I already knew. Events long ago pointed to one thing, that he raped me, but I could not remember the actual event. I needed to hear it from him.

“What did you do to me as a child?” I asked, our knees almost touching between the two chairs pulled close.

As if struck by a bullet, he paused, then answered slowly, almost in a whisper, his head and eyes lowered, “It’s better you don’t know.”

The conversation ended as he rose, moving away, suddenly aged way beyond his twenty-eight years. He’d made suicide attempts before but it was the next one that succeeded. I sometimes wondered if my question killed him.

I felt shocked by his death, but not surprised; he had succeeded at one thing anyway. How could he ever compete with Don, whose father seemed to have loved more than him, who us younger siblings turned to as a replacement father after Dad died, who hadn’t raped his younger sister…and the many other countless comparatives he surely failed at when inevitably measuring his worth against his good twin brother?

They found him curled up on the park bench across from where Dad had once owned a law office with two other partners, dead from an overdose.

Sadness would have been the norm, yet other feelings, unbidden, swam under the surface like sharks or piranhas, prickling insistently but not wanting to be felt or voiced.

I made it home in time to attend the service in the little country church where Dad was buried. It was a pretty church tucked under wide, aged trees, surrounded by rolling hills, the oldest Methodist church in the area, the one I attended from childhood through adolescence.

Happy memories flooded back as my hand glided over the silken honey-gold wood atop the pews: Grandma feeding Ginger Snaps to Stevie and me to keep us quiet through long sermons, later joining the choir with strong sopranos blasting over my timid voice, and happy evenings in the back room with other adolescents during weekly youth group meetings. I sat with a rustle on the long soft maroon cushions, too frozen to cry.

Danny’s wife Cara eventually remarried and neither Cara nor their beautiful daughter, Shasta, were much of a presence in our lives anymore. The sad thought runs through my mind every time I see this young woman, Danny’s daughter, now in her thirties, “You needed to live, Danny, even if only to see this miracle you created grow into an amazingly smart, talented woman.”

And I cannot tell her the truth; none of us can. He was labeled by some doctor along the way as schizophrenic, but what’s in a word? If you don’t feel loved and cherished by parents as a child, how do you grow to love and cherish yourself? His brilliance, talents, creativity…wasted and never realized. His IQ testing far exceeded the rest of us. But demons chased him, the demons of feeling unloved, unworthy, and not good enough. I know these demons well.

Maybe he felt compelled to destroy the only thing our parents seemed to love and cherish besides Dad’s law practice and Mom’s flowers: me, the only girl-child. I can only guess at why my brothers attacked rather than loved me. Mom popped out babies like a rabbit, one after the other, cute when little, not so cute later. And maybe the fawning that likely occurred when a girl came along after six boys, children who already didn’t receive the attention they needed, maybe that made them hate the little girl baby; not all, but some.

Don once opened up, relaying a story. During a poker game with Dad and sons—except Stevie, too young to play —Danny vied for attention, as all of us did out of necessity. In a family of eight, there weren’t enough of the non-material necessities to go around, like attention, nurturing, and protection—as essential to survival as air.

But Dad laughed callously at Dan’s antics, belittling him sarcastically. “You fat buffoon.” Don repeated the words from his memory as if wrenching them from a bad dream, all too real.

Don looked into my eyes, the deep brown irises almost black, like mine, and tormented. His voice was anguished.  “I had to look it up, buffoon means fool. Dad called him a fat fool.”

At Mom’s after the funeral, the table became laden with food that seems to appear out of nowhere when someone dies. An appetite that had nothing to do with hunger for food increased under duress. I ran from feelings, all impossible, scary, and overwhelming, and moved toward the table. “Might as well not waste all this food,” I thought, sitting down to eat alone.

No one else seemed to have much of an appetite. The array of an enormous ham with a variety of many side dishes erased pain. Filling up quickly, I hardly tasted anything. The holes, caverns of feelings I dared not explore, burst instead with food and self-hate.

A minister visited, brave enough to enter this house of skeptics, futilely trying to say things that made my lip curl in a sneer. Mom’s bitterness over losing Dad twelve years prior had washed over me, tainting my view of religion and religious people.

Driving by a church on Sunday mornings, Mom often said, “There go all the good people.”

Hearing it enough times, I believed her, they were the “good” people, loved and protected by God. We were not “good” and I was not protected. The minister’s presence, boldness, and empty words repelled me. When he tried to offer comfort with some religious bullshit, I smiled politely, moving away, secretly scorning and condemning him, “You jerk. God? Where is God in all of this? God is not in this family, does not help this family, is not here. Go away. Save somebody else. Save it for those God loves and that’s no one you’ll find here.”

Don sat outside, his head in his hands, and I just couldn’t go to him. Floating near others without reaching any destination, I wandered among many alone, no connection with anyone deep inside. A sarcastic remark was murmured now and then, followed by a dry laugh. The important part where everything matters, where feelings reside, remained untouched, a third dimension as far away as Pluto, maybe farther. It’s like that with a family that does not bind; something’s lacking, like a recipe without eggs. It just won’t stick. We are courteous but not close.

I didn’t return to Rhode Island.

I told Coke it was time to move on over the phone. “Please pack my stuff in the trunk and ship it,” I said, ending the relationship boxed neatly.

He didn’t put up much of a fuss; he had his constant quart of Miller’s to keep him company. Mom hadn’t yet quit drinking, but I had quit buying it for her. Without realizing the effects, my refusal to drive into town to the only liquor store to once again purchase a quart of her favorite whiskey, Barton’s Reserve, was one of the pivotal moments that shocked her into beginning the long journey of sobriety. But that was yet to come, over the next few years. Her drinking continued in fervor with the sudden death of her son. It was a precarious position for me.

I had quit college, and moving home without a job, unable to support myself, meant living with Mom who was lost in grief and drink. Don invited me to move in with him, his wife Pam, and young daughter, Krista. I accepted readily. If he had not made such a terrific gesture, raising a family of his own with a new baby on the way, I’m not sure where I’d be today…or if I’d be.

SHATTERED- CHAPTER 2: EIGHT

A memoir by Patricia Grace, available on AMAZON

Dad died and chaos ruled.

One night I woke in the dark, scared. A shadow at the end of the bed moved towards me. Breathing halted. I had night terrors before, but Daddy wasn’t there anymore to carry me around in his warm arms, calming me as I slept. Was I dreaming or awake? The specter slunk around the bed, creeping closer silently. It was black, quiet, crouched and coming for me. Iced with fear and still half-asleep, I couldn’t even scream for my mother.

When it slipped gently onto the edge of the bed, my terror immediately abated; air once again filled my lungs. I knew who it was: not a phantom but Danny, a brother I loved and trusted. He sat lightly next to me, his face hidden in the dark. I had known his voice for my entire young life: familiar, soothing, very kind, and the last thing I remember.

Softly, so tenderly, the words dripped out of his mouth like warm syrup and melted butter, “We’re going to play house,” he whispered. “You’re the mommy, I’m the daddy.”

During my next bath I began screaming as if stabbed and dying; that’s how much it hurt. The soap seared my vagina as if a sharp hot blade pierced me, though I didn’t know the name of that part of me yet. Danny’s twin Don, the ‘good one,’ came running, his eyes wild with fright for what he might find. When I told him through my tears that the soap hurt, he seemed disgusted and left the bathroom as quickly as he had arrived.

Though the pain ebbed along with the suds trailing down the drain, the terror of living in that house did not. The next day, Seth walked by my bedroom.

“Danny fucked me,” I said.

Seth said nothing, but his eyes glazed through me as if I were stabbed with an arrow. His nonchalance quickly disappeared, immediately replaced by a laser of revulsion. My bravado and confidence in telling big brother, who I knew would save me from the nighttime monster, vanished in an instant.

The look in his eyes became etched on the slate of who I was to become. Those eyes emptied me, devastated me. That moment shaped my core, shame the bedrock I grew from. I don’t know how I knew the word “fuck.” I don’t remember Danny saying it, but I know that he did. The memory of the attack still hasn’t surfaced. I am not ready for it, and may never be.

Once I had been a child who spoke the truth; it was part of the canvas that was me. I was born with it. I am not that woman today, though I look for her. Seth told Mom what I said. That was the first time she became aware of my vulnerability, but not the last. I didn’t go to a doctor. I was left on my own after attacks to my body, like a dinghy cut loose from the main ship. I have felt alone ever since.

The fat that accumulated immediately after Danny’s attack became a permanent addition to my skinny kid frame. Mom loved to cook. She fed me, I ate. She didn’t keep him off me, nor her other sons, but she loved me with food. Once a slim child who ate only when hungry, I transformed into an eating machine who devoured food for other reasons. Waking in the night, sick from the day’s eating, I went to Mommy for help.

As she lay there sleeping, I laid my hand tentatively on the cool sheet over her shoulder. “Mommy,” I whispered. I’m going to throw up.”

Half-asleep, she rasped, “What do you want me to do, spit straw?”

I went to the toilet and threw up. I kept eating and throwing up, my little tummy unable to contain all the food needed to numb out the nightly attacks, to feel loved, to survive. Some part of me believed a fat body was an ugly body, so safer, anything that would keep him away. It didn’t work. And maybe, as who I was slipped away, growing a bigger body kept me from disappearing altogether.

CHAPTER 19: SUGAR PLUMS by Patricia Grace

Tom’s memorial service was last night. Now, over ten later after writing this chapter, there is no longing for those in that group called family, just a longing for peace internally. Beneath the hate for things Tom did, there is hurt as tears trail down my cheek while meditating.

The freeze inside of me melted like a snowman under sunshine. Holding back some feelings holds back all of them. To reach warm love both for myself and those I do love, the hurt must also be felt. Memories of him, waking with his head between my legs, the sexual pleasure evoked in a child too young to experience it, but far more treacherous was the day after.

His hate towards me then and all the days after…. the eldest that I adored, trusted, loved, looked up to the most. Leaving for college he said, “Who ever writes first gets a college sticker.”

I wrote, and the sticker proudly went on my bedroom mirror. How could you hurt me like that? You were 20, me only 9. Denying my life is denying me. I open the door to all of it accepting that it happened, allowing for all feelings, and in doing so generate peace.

____________________________________________________________________

Stevie and I were excited; a mammoth understatement. I was nine and Stevie, only six. Though Dad had died the year before, kids recoup, and Mom agreed to our usual tradition. We were allowed to sleep on the couch, end to end, one night before Christmas watching the tree lights with “visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads.” 

In the sunken living room, called that because it took two steps down to get into it from the dining room, the Christmas tree stood in all its splendor, smack dab in the middle of the gigantic picture window that looked out over the flower garden and driveway. The thick, floor-length curtains were closed, keeping out the dark chill, but the room sparkled with glowing colors from the fat bulbs twirled round and round the tree. Tinsel sprinkling from branches swayed lightly against the tops of presents.

 We knew there’d be more. Santa hadn’t come yet, Christmas was a week away, but we were thrilled as each day brought us closer. And now, to our delight, we were to sleep right by the tree, Stevie curled up at the other end with the pillow he brought from his bed and me at my end, both with our own blankets. The long couch cradled us comfortably; I didn’t even feel his feet. And the tree! So pretty! How could sleep arrive when I was so full of excitement over the coming holiday, thinking of each gift I’d made for every brother and my mother?

 After inspecting the pretty packages one more time under the tree—we’d already memorized to whom, from whom—we hopped back under our covers. Nothing new, we knew them by heart, heavy, light, shakes or not. The only thing left to discover was when they were opened, the culmination of all the weeks leading up to the big day. It’s no wonder we didn’t drift off to sleep till well after the rest of the household.

 Stevie fell asleep before I did. Except for the tree lights, all the other lights were off and everyone had gone to bed: Mom, Tommy, Don, Danny, Seth, Chet, and Paul. “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” Tommy, the eldest at twenty, and the brother I looked up to most, was home from college on Christmas break. We were all together! Somehow, finally, my mind fell into happy Toyland slumber.

 Something woke me. It was dark, the tree lights were off, but something wasn’t right. Something was very wrong, but felt so good, confusion anesthetizing all ability to speak or move. My child’s mind couldn’t make sense of what felt so dreamy tingly down there but seemed so abhorrent. Was that my adored, eldest, most loved brother’s head between my legs, sucking and licking my peeing spot? Not a sound was heard. Santa spoke not a word either, but this wasn’t Santa. It was so quiet, and though bewildered, I didn’t cry out; my body became mesmerized by the very pleasing sensations yet disoriented into petrified stiffness. Then his head just disappeared. Up the chimney he arose? He must have crawled off.

 Stevie and I awoke the next morning, hungry for cereal as if nothing had happened, full of kid energy for the day. But something had happened. Something had permanently altered within me, dimmed, unsure of myself or the world around me, my mother and the brothers I loved so dearly. They were my world, but it all shattered. I shattered. A cataclysmic shift, an avalanche had occurred with the nighttime brother, inside my belly where the edges no longer met, couldn’t meet, there would be no more crossing, no making sense of it and no telling. He made sure of that. 

Tommy changed. With the morning light, I lost my brother. Malice and anger filled the eyes where love had once been. I knew not to tell from the frightful mix of menace and hate, and I didn’t. What could I say? What words would I use to describe what my little girl brain couldn’t comprehend anyway? And maybe what I perceived to be as hate was fear, apprehension of my telling, not that it made any difference. 

Being the oldest carried weight in the family. We looked up to him, the only one besides me to have his own room, the first to do things like dating, working, then going away to college. I only wanted to please him, to make him love me still, though he didn’t anymore, or didn’t seem to.

I tiptoed around “it,” afraid of waking the beast because Tommy could get very angry. He had snapped at me before just for tugging at his sleeve during a phone call. Though in his defense, the phone call had been of utmost importance for a student home on holiday. It had been to his new love at college who later became his wife. But the sinister being in the house that morning was not Tommy, the brother I would do anything for. He had become something else.

 The earth split; his eyes pierced me with a spear of hatred, but only me. I fell through the crack, falling, falling, then steadied when his voice softened with apparent kindness, sweetly toned toward Stevie, until Stevie left to get dressed. Then the thing, posing as Tommy, turned again towards me, reeking of malevolence which shed off his body like dried snake skin. The hissing, threatening eyes never matched the syrupy smooth words.

This dissonance of tone and action became a pattern, a way of life; the beast changed colors like a chameleon, but also changed shape depending on people and circumstance. I never got a hold of the real Tom again. Others did, but not me, and no one else noticed the schism or the way he played it to perfection.

 A child grows though, and the sister he had power over and controlled by the use of psychological force found a partner outside of the so called “family.” His sweetness became so thick it couldn’t be stirred and sat in my stomach like cold hard stone. Samuel came with me to Tom’s house in the city for fancy dinners he and Tara cooked, elaborate and expensive. But it was too late. No longer a child, in my early twenties, I watched him. I observed it all, sensing the phoniness, feeling it, seeing it, yet never knowing how to make it real between us again. 

Being the eldest, starting college when Dad was still alive, he received a solid start financially. He passed each hurdle, every year in college, one after the next. The entire family flew to New York City to see him graduate cum laude at the Waldorf Astoria, a huge undertaking for Mom. The expense of flight tickets and hotel costs for all eight of us must have been substantial for a woman recently widowed. But he was her firstborn and Dad would have been proud too. Tom followed Dad’s footsteps into the legal arena. 

He continued on to law school, graduated, then passed the Bar and was invited into a prestigious law firm where he later became partner. The rest of us struggled with college and several didn’t make it, some only through a semester or two, one not managing life at all. But Tom succeeded with honors and aplomb.

 A person could go insane with these thoughts, secrets, and memories. I try to imagine myself at twenty going after a younger sister sexually, or any child. I just can’t. Is it possible males aren’t accountable because they have such irresistible urges? Or because our double standard doesn’t hold them accountable?

 Tom and I attempted to talk about the past on the phone in my late thirties. To explain, he said, “I was so young then.”

 Not ready for excuses and a long way from forgiveness, I screamed into the phone, “You were twenty, home from college, you could have been prosecuted!” 

Crushing the receiver down so hard it rattled the wall, I rushed outside for air and release, whacking at a tree with a bat till some calm returned and the red blackness of rage lifted. We didn’t discuss it again.

 Years passed and we attended some of the same functions, a funeral, a wedding, but I wouldn’t talk to him, I couldn’t. The fight for my life continued. And there was no winning against an intelligent person slyly looking out for himself, only the loss of my own dignity and worth. Tom belittled me with comments interspersed so cagily that no one else in the family noticed, but the effects of his disguised put-downs on me were disastrous. His method reduced his crime to less than nothing; if I’m looked down upon as inconsequential, a sister unworthy of love or respect, then what he had done was no big deal.

 And in my family system, it seemed to work. His diabolical, unrelenting manipulations hurt more than all else endured. I was stomped upon so repeatedly I couldn’t get up, yet did anyway, bruised but persistent. I felt trapped alive in a coffin with nails hammered down, scraping and clawing for a way out, fighting for a life with my head up and heart full.

 He garnered sympathy from other family members because of the way I treated him, ignoring him, stepping away from his attempts to hug me as if he were dangerous. In the reception area at Shasta’s wedding, we gathered, sipping drinks, several siblings and their wives. He moved back from the group so I felt comfortable. It may have been the first time I allowed for the possibility that he possessed genuine empathy, not selfishness, but hope springs eternal. The deferential movement made him look magnanimous, more likely the goal.

 There was a point, as I approached fifty, when we tried again to reconcile. We met at the old building where I took pottery courses.

 He helped move my stuff that needed glazing to the back room and told me, “I used to teach a class here,” paused, then added as if with humility, “Just one though.” 

And I thought, So you surpass me once again, here at a place where I found joy, my hands happy in the wet earth with women who laugh and play with me.

 Our plan was to go have coffee together. I hopped into his little sports car and we zipped off to a coffee shop closer to his neighborhood. Though he owned a snazzy, expensive car, it was messy, with paper coffee cups strewn about, food wrappers, and books he moved so I could sit. We were lucky to have made it alive. I didn’t realize how nervous he was and we almost creamed into another car. Shaky, questioning doing this, we got out and he helped me negotiate our way into the place he frequented.

 He seemed generous and expansive in his willingness to buy our coffee. “Want a pastry?” he asked, a little too eagerly.

 “No, coffee will do,” I replied. We sat and chatted for half an hour or so before running out of banter.  At my request, we didn’t talk about the past. I had wanted to begin where we were now, yet what he did seemed like it had happened yesterday. Why? I want to know why? There’s no hope for a connected, close relationship. 

The ride back was calmer and without incident. He dropped me off. I watched him go, but felt empty.

 Sometimes I feel pity. I replayed what he said once when we tried to reconnect, something about having the sister he wanted. I immediately thought, That’s not your choice, it’s mine. You lost that right to choose; it’s my choice now, under my control and you’re not ready, you may never be ready. Remorse means true sorrow, not concern over what your law partners, friends, and family would think if they knew what you did. You worry about you and your reputation, not me. And family members do know and don’t seem to care.

 I don’t see him anymore since Mom’s gone. There were occasional get-togethers for brunch at her apartment and then times during her decline when we’d be together, sometimes for long periods in the hospital and that last night of her life. It seemed okay, like no rift existed, and during these emergencies, when life or death decisions had to be made, Tom was the steady voice of reason while my anxiety over losing her made me frantic. And though my biggest fights with her were about Tom and her wish for our reconciliation, there’s sadness in the loss of hope for closure for us both. 

She was right all along, and not just for his sake. A victim as a child, I then became a victim of rage. I have luckily lived long enough to quell the fires and know what a peaceful moment is. And through meditation, my broken brain mends. Life is for giving, yet some things are unforgivable. Still I try. I forgave Tom for using my child’s body for lustful sexual pleasure. Harder is what came after. Dismissing me like I no longer mattered or existed killed something in me, or quieted it for a very long time. She, the essence of me I barely know, slowly comes out, showing her face in small doses to those I love and trust, a select few. 

During my sessions with Raymond, I relayed my perceptions of Tom’s treatment towards me. 

Raymond said, “If it’s true, that’s psychological abuse.”

 If? 

Though I’ve thought of ways to torture and dismember Tom, and more him than anyone else, it’s in the past. I do not wish revenge, just peace. Though rage sputtered into ash, it reignites. I dance with her ghost shells, blowing away the swirling smoke, tamping it down, remembering its unwanted vapory clutches.

I impulsively sent a Christmas card to Tom the year after Mom’s death, the first in over thirty years, and a birthday card the summer after. And the very last communication since was a phone call where I apologized for ostracizing him, for not letting go sooner. I felt peace, felt all ties, even unholy ones, unravel, dissolve, evaporate. After fifty years, I have myself back again. I did what I had to do, what he does is up to him. The craving for a family will never go away, but lessens with time and the acceptance of what is and was. I long for a family, any family, just not mine. 

ROT IN PEACE

The eldest, and the last of the 4 siblings who sexually attacked me as a child, died 2 weeks ago. His service is today, and all the ‘family’ will gather in remembrance except me.

And that is how it has been since age 8, those that attacked, the rest colluding by their silence and allegiance to Tom.

My lip hardens in hate for him, how he turned others against me. How he cut me down throughout life, his treatment of me worse than the others who sexually attacked me because of his methodical, diabolical, psychological abuse afterwards.

My intent has not been vengeance. If it were, I would have pursued criminal charges legally because time limits were removed recent years for those abused as children. What I needed was an apology with true remorse, not the excuse of how young you were. I was young too, ten years younger, just a child. You were an adult old enough to be arrested and jailed.

But I was the one jailed, locked in a world of not good enough and still struggling with it. You and your nasty snickers, your put-downs, that sneer slimy with sly comments dripping past your fangs others heard but did nothing about.

The family gathers around you today just as they always have, but I am alone, and have been since the age of 8. That is far better than continuing to live a lie around those that pretend and silence me for who I am.

The Beauty That Surrounds Me

PHOTOS BY PATRICIA

Nine year’s of writing out pain has helped so much. Trauma kept in festers, and mine has been bubbling since age 8. Mom’s death, though grievous, also began my healing in that it felt possible to tell the truth of what happened.

Her death, my healing.

Feelings of peace and self-assurance have taken hold and rooted internally. Chaos still descends periodically, but with it a knowing, a wisdom, that whatever answers are needed can be found within.  

THE PRESENT

So easily a soul becomes lost though nothing seemed to have changed externally to cause it. The mind can be a terrible place, full of things to sway one back to the past, not a good place for my mind to be or stay.

And the critic? The critic is so used to being the boss, she also hogs the stage beating at me until nothing is left of the person created who is liked and feels full with self-esteem.

Coming back to center takes a bit of work, but mostly time. Grass by the creek moves gently with the breeze relaxing me with birdsongs pacifying my spirit while remembrances of all the times Mother Nature held me when my real mother didn’t have the time or willingness.

Thinking of her, my real mother, gone now for 12 years. And why now? Perhaps it is that a friend from childhood has died, one of two friends who loved me so thoroughly that my own mother’s love paled in comparison.

To know a dear loved one is gone from this world leaves a hole. To look at origin family members to fill it is like drinking poison. Only because they are no longer on pedestals, but are real humans with as many foibles as me or more.

At least so many years of therapy helped with my sanity. Thinking that duty calls for me to help if possible, it is much more feasible that each of them seek their own therapy. It is not my responsibility, nor is it healthy. Keeping my own sanity when falling into the pit of depression is enough of a job.

And it does call, and too often. A movie, a dream, anything brings back the past and sometimes with a boom, whacking me down, a machete of memories that takes much will to pull out of. A thicket of the past too easily tangling me to become mired in.

Mucking out of that quicksand to the present, to the moment, to the beauty around me that yesterday looked so bleak. All in one’s mind, a tricky place that takes will to direct and adjust the direction as to how I want to live— in the present with gratitude, peace, and love.

Find ‘her’, the person you’ve worked so hard to build, give ‘her’ all the love, care, and gentleness you never were able to give ‘her’ before. It is OK to love you. Only then can you truly love others.

Live to Love?

Reading this on another site gave me pause as late at night in the dark when trying to sleep a great sorrow descends, and I feel like an empty cave. Years were lost between me and my little brother.

We had a disagreement that caused a rift, the sorrow reawakened as we begin to tentatively get to know each other again. The same sorrow felt when the rift first happened, a sorrow so deep it felt like an open bleeding wound.

“It hurts so bad,” I said to my therapist at the time.

“Don’t feel it,” he said.

I pay for this? His advice did not take away the pain. And that same pain revisits. It was easier when not trying to spend time with Stevie again, the door kept shut. But is that living? Not loving because it hurts too much?

And my harsh self kicks my butt over and over for allowing a rift in the first place. Maybe it’s time to let go of what could have been, and be here now with what is. Not to disavow a feeling, just not allow it to consume me.

That hollow sorrow remains for many reason, not all having to do with blaming myself. There was no way at that time to do better. Just living took everything in me, not much left for the nuances of close relationships.

And that is still true. Though effort is put forth to understand others, understanding my own feelings and actions takes time alone and is confusing enough. The sorrow running so deeply in me has to do with what was lost, gone forever.

Perhaps it is simply that we each must struggle on our paths alone, with help sometimes, but every road is singular, and figured out by the one walking it.