the Closets
My Mother's Visit and Cleansing
as I sat in my bed, talking to my mother,
who had come to visit me for the very first time
since I left home 22 years ago.
She came because I'd been so ill, and a
friend was coming in this general direction,
so she felt this was a good time to finally make a visit.
WE TALKED.....WE HEALED.....WE CRIED.......AND WE LOVED!!
My mother was well aware of the sexual abuse I'd been
subjected to by my father, and of her own physical
and mental contributions during my childhood,
but she had no idea about the other secrets
I held from her and everyone else all my life,
and I never came out and told her about the
one time I truly hated her, until now.
That being the time she let my father, my abuser,
come back into the house to live with us again, after she'd
kicked him out when I told what had been happening.
Sometimes, when we've worked through the
roughest part of our healing through therapy,
it becomes easier to open up all those other little closet doors.
It was also a bit easier telling her some of the painful
details of my father's sick ways,
such as making me go get a certain brand of Sandwich Bag from
the cabinet for him to use in place of a condom.
I get sick to my stomach every time I see a box of those to this day.
I can't even touch them. Mom never knew about that.
That came out when we were talking
about the brands of peanut butter we preferred.
When she told me one she prefers,
it was the same as what my father had eaten
while I was growing up.
He never used it in any perverted way, but,
anything he used or consumed on a daily basis and was
only HIS to have, I've had a complete aversion to,
such as a certain brand of soda pop, or a certain brand of canned hash.
She laughed about the Sandwich Bags until
I felt it necessary to tell her exactly what he used them for.
Then she asked me how he could possibly have
used them and not got them stuck up inside of me.
With that, she commented on how small he was, anyway.
I didn't laugh. She just looked into the distance,
trying to imagine, and I was wishing I'd
not given her the image to dwell upon.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
All of this took place the day after we opened all the closets,
but it was easier then to tell her the small details like that than
it would have been if we hadn't talked the night before.
That night, she sat playing a card game on the computer,
while I sat in my bed, working on a shawl.
We were talking, but I don't recall how the subject even came up.
All I do recall is knowing that this was
the time to finally tell her something I never could
get the nerve up to tell her before.
I think the time had presented itself when she had been
telling me how evil my father's family had always been,
and how she found out that her own father had been
a dirty part of my dad's family secrets.
She was airing some really dirty linen, so to speak,
and shaking all the moths out, letting out her anger and hatred.
This was good.
Although I sat in sheer horror at the thought that my grandparents,
my father's parents, had been having constant
sex with their children all along, and that my other grandfather,
my mother's father, was in on it, as well, with their two girls.
They told her that's why he was always so good
to them and they got to sit at his feet,
while she was forced to do their bidding.
She said that one night he had come to her.
She awoke to him hugging and kissing her
and it scared her so badly, as he'd
never shown any affection like that to her before.
So, he left her and never came back again.
Nor had he ever again tried to hug her
or show any affection toward her.
Instead, his tyranny over her had worsened.
With this, I decided to open up about a secret I'd kept,
but it was so difficult to say it out loud.
It took me a while to muster up the courage
to say the exact words, so she ended up trying
to guess who else had victimized me.
She, of course, went through all the obvious names
and I kept telling her, "No.", and still wrestled with myself to
get the words out, which finally came, "It was Uncle ***!"
I sat there waiting for her to show signs of disbelief,
and maybe even accuse me of lying or making it up,
because they still speak. But, she didn't.
She sat there staring at the computer monitor, nodding her head,
as if to say, "I wondered. It doesn't surprise me.".
I told her I was only 10 then and he'd just come home from Viet Nam,
and I wondered if that's what made him do it.
Certainly only a trauma of that severity could have
caused anyone in HER family to do such a thing.
She sort of agreed with that, but said she honestly believed that
the sickness was rampant throughout both families.
All these years she'd been telling me how
vile and disgusting my father's family was,
and all along she knew or suspected that hers was just as bad.
I had just confirmed it for her.
It didn't really seem to take much of a personal toll on her,
as she told me she and he have never been that close
and he has blamed her for several things.
My poor mother, all her life has been alone,
keeping secrets and anger pent up inside of her, too.
I went on to tell her about HER step-father,
who had also molested me in his basement once,
then about the stranger who used to come around,
he was retarded, I think. But when I was 8, he
used to come around bringing me ice cream and candy,
and dragging me off into our garage and forcing me to have sex with him.
It got to be such a ritual by this time between my
relatives and him, that it didn't even seem like a bad thing.
I just lay there, eating my treats,
while he did what he wanted with my body.
When he was finished, or if my mom came
out calling for me to come into the house, he'd always
remind me that this was our little secret.
No problem! What else was new?
That lead me to the truth about my great-uncle,
my father's uncle, who had come to visit quite often and
when he did, he would always come and take me from my bed
at night and have me sleep with him on the sofa bed in the den,
and he would tell me to do things to him and sometimes,
if I told him I was too tired, he would tell me to just
go ahead and sleep and let him play with me.
I would, of course. No problem!
For the first 15 years of my life I was the concubine to someone
in my family or that guy who came with the treats.
I never questioned any of it for the first 12 years of my life,
because as they all said, "This is how I love you!".
I grew up believing that sex was love and love was sex!
I spent the rest of my young adult life giving sex,
thinking that if this guy was having sex with me, he must LOVE me!
I was always looking for LOVE,
but I never knew what that really was, until recent years,
in which I've become quite stingy with sex.
It must now be a benefit of the love in my life and not THE love.
Of course, in the greater part of a man's world,
sex is sex and fun, and has NOTHING to do with love at all.
No matter how pompous and pious they may be,
no matter what thrones they sit on in society or in the church,
sex is sex, and we victims, female or male,
are here for their sexual pleasure.
Love is something else that few people seem to even know.
**(I will make an apology here,
as I know it is not only MEN who victimize sexually,
many women do, too.
Please understand that I've only been a victim of men,
so I'm speaking from that point of view.
Yes, I have HATED men. Am I to blame for this? No.
So, please, if you are a man, or if you are a victim
of a woman's sick mind, as well, understand that I can only write
from my own personal experiences and am relating from those, alone.)**
Going back to "Pompous and Pious",
I make this remark,
not only because I have I seen so many news articles in recent years
of priests and coaches molesting children under their supervision and tutelage,
and of our government officials and those all-powerful
television evangelists recounting their many sordid affairs,
but my own grandfather was a "Pentecostal preacher", a Holy Roller,
a Holier-than-thou Hitler-type! The Patriarch or Godfather of our family.
We all trembled in fear of his wrath and he preached.
Boy, did he ever preach, every time he came to visit.
He would sit there at our kitchen table, with his bible
before him and start spouting off all these scriptures and twisting
them to mean what he wanted them to mean, which generally was that
we were all damned and going to hell for one thing or another.
My Uncle *** is also a preacher in a southern church.
Funny, these men are never happy when they are supposedly serving the Lord.
This tells me that they serve only themselves, and the Lord has little to
do with their hearts. I serve my Lord and he loves me,
and I love and forgive everyone. I don't twist His love and make it
something to serve my needs physically here on earth.
It's horrible how these people, creatures, come to this earth,
and intimidate and brainwash us, their families and other people,
just to get what they want out of them. This usually being money and sex.
It has caused me to ask God on numerous occasions,
"If man was created in YOUR image, then why are most men so sick
and demented? And what does this say about YOU?"
Oh, I know, I'm going to hell for that one, too
. Guess what, people? We all already live in hell right now!
This is Satan's domain, didn't you know that?
We will only be in God's domain when we die and go on to Heaven.
But, when I told my mother I had questioned God in this way,
she, as always, had a tender way of making me see
the truth about God and His relationship with us.
She said, "God didn't make men the way they are.
Remember that we are all born into this world that is full of sin and iniquity.
We are born with "Free will". We choose to be the way we are,
even if we are raised a certain way, we don't have to become
what we were raised with. Look at yourself.
With all the abuse and all the pain and evil you were raised in,
you still chose not to carry it on and be a part of it.
God sent us here pure and clean. We choose to be who and what we are.
Men don't have to be the way most of them are, they chose to be.
I don't know why. I don't know why they find evil ways to be
easier and more pleasurable than the ways of our Lord."
I can't figure that one out, either, except that we are weak in the flesh.
Satan rules this world, and he makes it look
and seem so good, and so much better, because
we can have it all NOW, and not have
to wait until we die to obtain our rewards.
After all, as I've heard from non-believers before,
"What if there is no God and there is no Heaven when we die,
then we are wasting our lives?"
Oh, no...don't believe that one!!!
I've been there. I know. God does exist. Jesus does exist,
and even the sound of their voice gives us complete rest and peace and joy.
I don't know what my rewards will be when I get to the other side,
I didn't get that far, and I really don't care,
because what I did experience was enough for me to know I'll be happy.
But we do get to go farther, when it's the right time,
and we will be rewarded for our love and faith in Him.
Also for enduring the evils and pain here, and for trying to
comfort those who are suffering.
When I cried, telling my mom I didn't ever have a real father,
and I don't know what a real father is because of MY father,
she replied with, "You do have a father, only ONE Father,
and He is in Heaven. He created you. He loves you.
What was called your father here on this earth was no more than
a biological contributor to your physical existence."
I love my mother.
I wish she really knew just how special she truly is.
She won't believe me when I tell her, so I hope God will let her
know my heart when she gets up there with Him.
