The sweetest boy!

I know that I usual focus on my Maddie because she is a girl...and I am a girl, but I feel compelled to open my heart up with my little boy. I loved the first time someone couldn't remember my name and said "You are Eli's mom!". It set off little butterflies in my heart. I am Eli's mom! I was scared to death..seriously, when I was told I would be having a boy. What do I do with a boy? I read as many books as I could find and I was opened up to a world of love and a bond that could never be duplicated...being the mother of a little boy like Eli. It has not been your "normal" child raising with Eli. He has a speech delay and that has made numerous things more difficult than they would be otherwise. I am often around children his age and I get a deep ache in my heart. Other 3 year olds are talking about baby Jesus, and their friends, and telling their mother's that they love them. Eli can't or doesn't do those things. I felt like a heathen when I realized that Evan and I had not told Eli about baby Jesus. We realized that there are a lot of things we haven't taught Eli because we are unsure of how much he understands. I get very little feedback when I talk to him or read to him. He doesn't show a mental delay. We are beginning the process to get him into speech therapy. It breaks my heart into pieces to think he might have a struggle like this when he begins school. I search back over his life to find what I did wrong...did I cause this huge problem in his development?

Sometimes I sit back and just watch him. Trying not to let my mind be crowded in what he can't do. He has the most excitable and expressive face. His eyes brighten when he smiles. He laughs more than he cries...most days! I have been most blessed when I watch him with his sister. When she first came he wanted to hold her all the time. He would take the bottle from my hand and go and feed her. I would often here or see him walk over to where she was laying and he would say, "Hey girl"...that is her nickname now, because of the "name" he gave her. he loves babies and loves to kiss them on the head just like he had done with Madeline. When she could move around and touch his toys he became less affectionate...as to be expected. Every now and then I will catch him giving her her pacifier or getting a tissue to wipe her nose...even giving her a bite of his snack. I see a heart in my boy...a heart that I had prayed so hard. I pray that he is just like his daddy. I pray that he is more generous than the world would expect. I often feel a little hand around my arm and he will be looking up at me and all he'll want is a kiss. Perhaps my favorite task is the boo-boo kisser. He doesn't get hurt a lot...not for lack of falling, he has a hard head, but sometimes he will come up to me crying and I'll ask where his owie is, he will point, and I will lay a gentle kiss...and the tears dry up immediately. What a powerful message to my heart...I am his mommy.

I have often been intimidated when I hear or read of people thanking their mother's for their sacrifices and their hard work in raising them...just general deep love of mothers. I have even read books where people suffer a huge gap in their lives and in their personalities because they didn't have a mother. How can I ever live up to such expectations? How can I mean so much to these two people? I couldn't possibly ever mean that much to someone. What if I mess up? What if I am not the best? What if I can not teach them to be kind, loving, and fair? I am none of those things...how can I teach them? We went into Wal-mart on Saturday and passed the veterans collecting for Toys for Tots. Evan said that he would look for toys to donate. I agreed but was chastising myself because if it had been me alone with the children...I probably wouldn't have donated. I am not giving. I know I am living by the horrid example I was given but that is no longer an excuse...a fact...but the time has come to overcome. We found some toys and gave them to Eli to drop in the box. He wasn't sure what to do and wasn't too sure he wanted to give the box of cars away. I was hoping that that was the beginning of my son learning to be a giving man. To be so thankful for what he has that he would want others to "have" as well. I have learned that giving from feeling guilty is not selfless...it is selfish in a way. Wanting to give so that you don't have to feel bad just doesn't sit well in me. I want to teach myself and my children to give because of the joy we have in receiving. Giving so someone else can feel the joy of receiving is what I want to be their motivator. That is selfless. Isn't that why we buy and wrap up gifts for our kids or family? Not because it is expected but because we searched for something that we knew would excite them. The look on their faces is thanks enough...you have communicated your love this time in a gift.

Been a while

It has been like a month and a half since my last post...but you knew that already. I certainly get caught up in this season of holidays. My agenda reads like a road map! Needless to say that these 2 months have not been without incident. Both of my children have had birthdays!!! Eli turned 3 and Madeline turned one! I simply can't believe it!!

The holidays bring a small amount of bitterness or maybe a better word would be "longing". We always make plans to go here and there...but always with Evan's family. I long for things to be different. I wish my mother was the opposite of who she is now. I wish that my children had a safe "Quinn" family place to go to for holidays. I wish I could give them a bigger legacy instead of a one sided one. It simply isn't possible but the holidays still bring with them a certain, small loneliness. I am excited and grateful to have my children and my husband. We have our own special plans for Christmas and will celebrate as a little family. I guess it would just be nice to finally have my own family gatherings to look forward to. We have been blessed this month and our children have been and will be spoiled with love and even a few gifts. I hate that it always sounds like I am complaining or wanting more. Well, the truth is that I do want more. My in-laws were here recently. They stayed with Evan's sister an hour away. She had had a baby and Diane came to help. We made the trip several times to see them but they only made the trip to us once...for Madeline's birthday party. Diane did get sick but had only planned to come to be with us for less than a day and ended up canceling. When they were here, both of them were literally by the door ready to leave and go back to be with Evan's sister. It was bizarre, to say the least. I understand that it is different when your own daughter has a baby. I understand that your relationship with your daughter is just closer than your daughter-in-law...but that is what I am talking about. My mother will never look on my with "awe" at being pregnant. My children will never have the same kind of relationship with their grandma as I had with mine. Their grandmother is not affectionate and does not pursue them. She lives 16,000 miles away and does not pursue her grandchildren when she is 16 inches away. That breaks my heart. I wish she were different too. Evan's parents are my kids' only shot at grandparents and they are failing miserably. I am soooo tired of my kids missing out. They are most definatley loved but I want those bonds for them as well.

In the last 6 months my role in Evan's family has changed. Diane and I decided...well I suggested and never heard a reply, that we have a shift in the relationship. She was getting frustrated that my progress to healing was not...faster. I was frustrated and hurt by her seemingly cold feelings towards my pain. I told her that I would no longer be expressing my pain or my fear, or anything of the like. I would allow her to be our mother and our grandmother. Long story short, I started this blog and found a freedom I hadn't ever experienced. Those who read this are fellow survivors. People who understand deep loss and pain. I am not sure the new role I gave myself is a good one or a bad. I keep my real self away from all of them. Meaning the relationships are civil but they are surface. They are all about the kids and nothing more. It sounds bad but seems to keep everyone happy. Evan's sister even said to me that (since she and I had a small falling out in May) the families seem to be closer after "what happened". I had to laugh out loud when she wrote that to me in an email. She and I never spoke to each other about "what happened". I know that Diane filled her in on what happened between us...another reason to cut the heart stings I had attached to Diane. I simply stopped hoping or wanting someone to understand. I expect nothing from them. I give them nothing to gossip about. If they still decide to talk about me...may they realize how destructive that is before it is too late. I have wondered if everyone has to put on this sort of "face" or "mask" inside a family. It doesn't feel right but still seems to work. I got tired of that family making me feel like who I was was not good enough or wrong. Was I looking to receive something from Evan's family that they could not give? Was I being unfair? Was that as good as it would get? I don't feel like I am who I am with them but again...everyone is happy with the "new" me. It is a shame but life is a little more peaceful. I wish they loved me for what I have overcome but they will never know....that has to be enough for me.

I was even suggested that someone in the family did not like my choice for Madeline's birthday theme...Disney Princess. I have heard a common distaste for the color "pink" and all that it stereotypically means to a female. That is dangerous ground with me. Pink is a color....just like yellow, purple, or blue for crying out loud! Some would let themselves believe that a "girly-girl" with her ruffles and necklaces in pink is a sign of weakness. DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!!! Why would you ever tell your daughter that something she might like now or in the future is weak...or shameful? Women wear ruffles...women wear jewelry...women can wear pink!!! I will teach my daughter that she can be whatever kind of girl/woman that she wants. Why not? She is a girl, right? Is it not in her to be maternal? Is it not in her to pick up a doll and hug it instead of throw it to the ground and begin to wrestle with it like a boy? Boys and girls are different...plain and simple! She has plenty of time to decide what she will like and dislike. It is my job, and my pleasure to lay a foundation that she can be...whatever! My mother hated her own womanhood. She strives to be strong and independent. Femininity was a total loss on her and that was passed on to me. My Maddie will never struggle with knowing what a real woman looks like. It should be said that Maddie was dressed in a tutu and pink sneakers for her birthday party! A little of both worlds! A complete picture of the beauty that makes up my daughter. It has also been said that mothers should not let their daughters' live in a fairy tale. Letting them think that people fall in love at first sight and live happily ever after is destructive when they face reality. I think you all know how I feel about this one! People do fall in love at first sight...well, I loved my children before I ever laid eyes on them...but that is basically the same thing. My daughter will never believe that life is perfect with me for a mother. I mean that in a good way. I don't pretend. Evan and I have words and I am a load person. Why thrust my daughter into the "hard knocks" of life when she can still enjoy her childhood. Kids don't leave the house thinking life is like living inside of "Cinderella" unless you make them think that! I don't have all this figured out right now...I guess I don't really have to. My Maddie is a princess. She has a better life because her mother lets her be a child...a little girl dressed in pink frilly dresses until she tells me otherwise! Let it be!

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." -Washington Irving ---This quote makes me think back to 3 and 1 year ago when my babies first drew breath. I have cried many tears in my life...until I could cry no more. My grief was, in fact, overwhelming. My pain no longer controls my life. The love I feel now can often not be measured in words. To be the mother of Eli and Madeline is my greatest...deepest joy.

It all ends in Heaven

I am having a hard time getting my feelings out into words. The burden I have felt this week is suffocating my creative output. When you realize that you weren't the only one...when the body you passed in the hallways of that house was burdened just like you...it cuts deep and you just want to bleed out. I thought I had done better. I thought I was a shield but it turns out...I never saved anyone. All I tried to do and I couldn't save them.

My brother, C, told me this past week...that he was gay.

A flood of other painful and stinging truth followed. In addition to my mother's beatings he was molested by my oldest brother. GOD, WHERE WERE YOU?!?!?! Where was I? God put me there to save him... Where is the hope you promise? I never saved anyone! All that time I thought I was keeping them safe from my mother and all the while the predator was my own blood. I have to wonder and I have to ask...is that why he is gay now? Is his desire now for men after a male first stirred "feelings" in him? A helpless boy...helpless with no where to go. What a mockery of love that is...when someone steals your innocence. Innocence being the freedom from adult thoughts and adult "desires". God you PROMISE never to give us more than we can handle...you promised. That seems like you are expecting too much of a young child. Most adults can't handle their hormones...how can such a thing be expected of a child who isn't ready? God where were you? I know choices were made and a victim emerged...but why? Where are all those lightening bolts people always talk about? Where is God our defender??? This is why I want to slap anyone who tells me I need to forgive that witch!! It isn't over! She was meant to protect us all! Her life is almost over and we are left with a life time of pain to overcome. Till the day we die we will be fighting for our very lives.

I have tasted the bitterness of life. I have been hated to the point my own mother was inches from taking my life. I have been so overcome by pain that I have held a knife to my own flesh...ready to press hard and watch life drain out of me. I have screamed out to God "WHY!?". Why me? Why are so many others carried through childhood so that they have every ability to walk through life in freedom? Why, why, why us? Why those six kids on Allentown Road? Why were we so unlovable? Why couldn't my own mother embrace me? Why couldn't my own father stay with me?

Can I say that I have never been more aware of the deep love I have for my brother, C, than I have this past week. His dignity as a human being and the respect he deserves as such was never wavered. I mourned for his past and the torment he feels now. I mourn for his choice though I don't see there was another way. I have to believe God is guiding him to an amazing healing. May it take my breath away when I see the man my brother was always meant to be. Some will tell me that God could not possibly "be" with a man caught in homosexuality. Liar! God was with me and guiding me long before I came to Him October 18, 2005! In God's eyes we are all equal to the murderer, the thief, the homosexual, the rapist, the liar. As hard as it is to understand how God can love us all the same when our sins are not the same...He does. My brother is wounded.

This is not how it should have been. This is not how it was meant to be. How can I ever believe that God was always in control? When will I finally see why this all happened? Will my pain...will there pain be given reason? Was there a purpose? Will I just have to wait? I recently read a book written by Miep Gies. She was one of the 6 people who helped hide Anne Frank and 7 other Jews during the Holocaust. She is now 100 years old. All her friends and even her husband have long since passed away. She spoke of her pain at not being able to keep her friends, those 8 Jews, safe. She spoke of the moment when she will finally pass on and be reunited with those she misses so dearly. She spoke specifically of walking back into the hiding place and everyone would be there safe and sound. Her husband would even be sitting in his typical position awaiting her arrival. This stuck with me. I wondered what my heaven would look like. For that matter, would heaven be the same for us all? God created us with free will so that we would CHOOSE to love Him. Forcing us to worship and love Him is empty. Is that in itself a clue to what awaits us after we have traveled through this life? So then, what will my heaven look like? I imagine it covered in snow...the good kind. Not too soft but not too hard! I turn around to six smiling faces. My two brothers and my two sisters sit amongst my children on a sled. They ask me to pull them faster and faster. We'll come to a hill, what good is snow without hills? I'll sit behind and somehow wrap my arms around all six of them and off we'll go down the hill...my ears will flood with laughter...and joy! Everyone is safe...thank you God, everyone is safe. God smiles and His heart leaps at our laughter and our love. All of us will know what it is like to be carefree. We will be loved till it hurts...a good hurt. All of us will understand what it is like to be full of a Father's love...to be his only child among billions of His children. I will know what it is like to be the bride given away by her Father. I will know what it is like to hold my Father's hand. I will know what it is like to be taken care of. My siblings will be restored in front on me..all of this life will be forgotten. No more bruises and no more tears. This is my Heaven. I am sure there is more to heaven than this but for now this is where I want to be. I was a mother long before I gave birth to Eli. Every mother wants to protect her babies. This is my Heaven...where every abused child runs and laughs and plays...for eternity.

taking a breather..

I am working on a post now...but I had to stop and take a break. I guess some things can be a little too raw...or something. I found comfort in the words of Mary Beth Chapman who lost her youngest daughter a year and a half ago. I so love someone else in pain telling me they are not always cheering on God when they just don't understand. The lines of abuse seem to go on forever and my heart is breaking. I am mourning and I am angry at the wide wake my mother has left in my life and the life of my brothers and sisters. We are left to clean up the mess and make a life from the ashes...

http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/marybeth/2009/09/no-matter-whatits-just-plain-hard.html

Home

I think for those who have been abused...it is hard to find a place where you are comfortable...a place where you belong. Well, at least it has been for me. When I left home I found myself in an unfamiliar world. Granted, I had moved 800 miles away from home to go to college, but this new world offered acceptance and even love at times. It was as if I had landed in some dark corner in Africa and the people who surrounded me spoke a different language and practiced a different culture. I had never been free. I had never been asked what I "wanted". I had never not been responsible for only myself. It was not easy for me to settle down. In fact, I realized that I had never learned how to study. I was never given the time in my mother's house to sit down and do homework. Yet, she still found it odd that I made poor grades. That was often the her reason for beating me. I was stupid and lazy and I would spend my life flipping burgers. No one would marry me because I was a stupid b***h! Now I found myself without that ever present dictator and I had no idea what to do. I failed two classes in my first year of college. Not so ironically, they were both Bible classes. I went back the next year. My new life was better than the one I had left behind. My mother constantly whispered promises of failure and defeat in my ear...but I stayed. Somehow I had come to love freedom even if it ended in failure. I could come and go as I pleased. I had never been allowed to do that...I liked it.

After I was married, those feelings changed. I once again found myself in unfamiliar territory. I knew Evan was in love with me before we were married (obviously). But he always had to go home at the end of the night. He still had his own life and I had my own life both in our own dorm rooms. I don't know for sure but I wonder if I took our having to be apart as a small version of abandonment. Evan never left me and would have been outside my window if I had ever needed him. But every night I had to watch him drive away. It was heart wrenching. I am sure I behaved angrily so that his leaving wouldn't feel so bad. (I still don't have much of a clue as to why he married me!) After we were married and the literal honeymoon was over...I went into an odd depression. I was sad and angry most of the time. I had a very strong desire to go home...back home to Pennsylvania to be with my mother (choke!). I'd even cry myself to sleep most nights and I actually slept with a stuffed pig my mother had given me. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. I couldn't really make sense of anything. Evan was good to me but I was still unhappy. I loved him but I didn't know how to show it. I'd hold his hand as we fell asleep together. It was all that I could think of to show him I loved him and didn't want him to leave. We almost moved back to my hometown the next summer. I wanted to be rid of that college town but I could never feel settled or peaceful about moving back home. We never did.

I know now what was going on. After we were married, I was privy to 24/7 unconditional love and I COULD NOT handle it. Nothing I did would chase this man away. I couldn't put Evan in a box like I had with every other man/boy in my life. Every man or boyfriend in my past had hurt me or left me in some way. Every one of them had betrayed me. Here was this man standing before me who wouldn't move! I felt the need to run. Run where I didn't know, but I had to run. If I went back home...things would have made sense. My mother no longer hit me but her words still cut like a knife. That pain felt good next to the uncertainty I now found myself. I needed familiarity...I needed to live back inside my survival mode because my new life...in my new life I needed none of the old tricks. No one hit me and no one called me names. It almost felt like standing in front of a crowded room completely naked. All my defenses were completely useless. I was in a panic mode scrambling for something to make sense. I think I spent the next three years keeping my head above the water. So close to drowning in a world I couldn't understand. Our marriage was not bullet proof and was suffering. Evan went 75% of the way but I could not and would not meet him the rest of the way. I searched everywhere else for peace but couldn't find it anywhere. The rest was the long road that lead me to where I am sitting right now.

Still I feel a little restless. I don't like the town where we live now. I don't like the house we bought although it was a convenient and practical purchase. This is not my home. I don't feel like I belong here. With every change of the seasons something will remind my of my hometown in Pennsylvania. The smells of spring...that fresh gust of wind that somehow fills me with energy. The smells and sounds of Fall...my favorite time of year...makes my heart beat faster. I can recall Friday nights under the lights of the football field in my color guard uniform. Performing on Alumni Field...I had the time of my life. I remember the comfort that town brought me. I had my own special places to go and hide. My mother hated the place but I ALWAYS loved it. The cold winter days when my nose would freeze the moment I stepped outside. the snow...I loved the snow. Sledding down the steepest hill we could find and then regretting the climb back up. I never learned to ski. I have told Evan that is something I REALLY want to do. I want my children to grow up with snow. I want to be able to pass on the only happy pieces of my childhood onto them. I want to go home. Fall is here again. My heart it tugging to be brought back to the place that always made me happy. I miss is so so so so desperately. I have never been able to express this desperation in Evan's family. It has always been met with "Your family is here and that should make you happy" and things like that. I usually end up feeling guilty for wanting something so much. I feel like pieces are missing. The past is crushed and I want to put some pieces back together. I still have family there. People that have been through a hellish ordeal...couldn't we heal together? I won't sacrifice my children but we could certainly build a life. Who is to say living around Evan's family is so healthy? The people I have to hide this blog from in order to continue to write with freedom. I want to scream to them that it is my turn! I want back what was taken from me. I live in exile down here from a woman who no longer scares me. I am kept from the siblings I love simply because that woman still breathes? Are you kidding me? God knows I don't want to go away from where He will have me. Why then do I have such a longing? Sometimes it hurts to be so far away. I want to go home. God, I don't know.

Addiction

I started really digging through some of the first journals I ever wrote. Jeez, talk about darkness. There is an abundance of pages. Page after page of anger and sorrow...pleading for release from whatever was wrong with me. I decided to go back to the beginning in case there was one soul out there who would see this blog. One person who still thinks no one could ever feel as bad as they do.

I actually have forgotten a lot of what I went through. Dirty diapers and 3 am feedings will do that to a woman! I tried to remember what brought me through childhood, especially, my teen years, without some kind of addiction. I mean, people with daily horror need some kind of outlet or they will explode. I couldn't remember what mine was. I know in adulthood I was addicted to being a victim and to being angry all the time. Those addictions ruin you from the inside out. Had I never had a more physical way of rebelling against my situation?

"The abused man or woman often handles the confusion of the soul by drowning his or her wounds in addictive activities. Addictive behavior is the use of any object or repetitive mode of functioning to handle stress, struggle, or sorrow that both impairs personal functioning and relationships and cannot be stopped without extensive outside intervention" (The Wounded Heart Workbook, page 27). Underneath, the author asks if I had any addictions or compulsions. Among the ones mentioned above, I wrote that I wanted to hurt myself. It all came flooding back. Taking the blade of a knife and pulling it across my skin and tearing my flesh. I remember the flood of release as the blood ran down my arm. Control! I had control of who hurt my body! I had control...for that instant...I had control. It was almost like having a good cry. My stress would evaporate and I could usually sleep soundly. My body was my own for a little while. It gave me proof. A reason to be sad or upset...I had a physical and visual wound to mourn over. It never hurt. I could feel it but it never hurt. I liked pain. I liked cuts and bruises...if I gave them to myself. They made me feel strong and in control. Maybe like I had beat my mother to the "punch". If I was already bruised than she couldn't make her mark. I hid them well. In the summer, I cut my legs and feet...no one looked there. In the winter, my wrists and my arms. I even used to bite the skin off my lips until they bled. I can actually recall a few times when I would pull my own hair. Do it to myself and it won't hurt so much when she did it to me. I fought back...unfortunately, I only hurt myself. I'd fight against this deep into my marriage. About seven months into my first group I had the second of two miscarriages. I think that was the absolute lowest I had ever been with God. I let go of all restraints when I found out we were finally having a baby. We'd lost one seven months before but I had been only 3 weeks along. This was different. Being a mother was so...warm. I gave up feeling my body was my own. I stopped punishing my body for what other people had done to me. I was a mother. I even felt different. I could feel the glow everyone else could see. Right before the ens of the first trimester we found out I had never been pregnant with an actual baby. The sac developed and the baby didn't. The world fell from under me. God had slapped me in the face. There was no one else to blame for that than Him. How could he? I hated myself for believing! I felt like such a fool. I had felt things and embraced life only to find out it was all a joke. I went back to punishing my body for the pain inside of me. I starved myself for months. Why nourish a barren body? The only thing I wouldn't do was devour the pain of miscarriage. The doctor told me I could wait to let things "end" naturally or I could have a short surgery and then it would be over. I wanted the pain. I wanted the labor. I couldn't do it. I had perverted everything else in my life but I could not let motherhood be tainted that way. I opted for the surgery. I was in love with a baby that never was...I just couldn't ruin it. That was the closest I ever got to becoming dependant on pain killers. The days that followed are a haze of percocet and sleep. I was in complete sorrow and I had to dull the pain in my heart. My husband watched over me and we cried together. He seemed the only one who could even get close to knowing how I felt. My mother-in-law responded to my decision to have the surgery in a numb way. She had had that same type of procedure before and said, "It isn't that bad". That added to my feeling defeated...like a fool.

I would lose 30 pounds in the next 8 months. I struggles with food...food would keep me alive and keep my heart beating. It all felt so hopeless. Slowly, the wound healed. I got pregnant again in less than 10 months. I was never again able to embrace pregnancy. I never trusted my body to do what it was meant to do. My body and I have never been on good terms. I often sit and realize that I am walking around in the same skin that my mother abused. I am in the same body that my father left behind. I am living inside the same body that other men have touched and I sometimes feel like their finger prints are all over me.

The pain and the memories don't have their hold on me so much anymore. But that is my reality. I will always be the Ashley who was abused by myself and others. The scars are still here and will be proof FOREVER. I can't change them. But how many years are ahead of me? I have a lifetime to make more, BIGGER memories with my kids, my husband, and my grandchildren. How many scars are from good things? Kind of like the wrinkles we get from smiling so much. Like my c-section scars...proof my babies are part of me. I still long for my body in heaven though. What a relief that will be. Nothing will sag or be disproportionate...scars are gone.

Dreams

The other day I was reminded of the expanding wake my mother has left in the lives of the children that lived under her. I wonder if this is why forgiveness still eludes me. The effects are still fresh, maybe not for me, for those other little ones I left behind. It makes me angry and I feel helpless.

My brother told me a few days ago that he has nightmares where she is still hurting him. He hasn't lived with her for years. He hasn't spoken to her for months and still she can sneak into his dreams. The place where we should feel the safest. I used to be a protector of my siblings. When I lived at home they were "mine". A distraction, if you will. I would never be able to say it was a selfless thing for me to "take the blows" for them. I imagine it is a lot like the men and women who serve in the army. No one wants to run out on the battle field without knowing what they are fighting for. It was what needed to be done. I couldn't stand watching her beat my baby brother and sister...the oldest being only 9 when I left for college. I did it so that I never had to feel helpless over them. I couldn't do anything to save myself and it gave me some kind of peace to protect someone else. When I left for college they all took me to the airport. We sat and waited for the call to board the plane. As it grew near, my little brother's grip got tighter and tighter around my arm. We'd had a special bond. He was 8 years old then. He had always been a child that you really couldn't "read". A bit unemotional if you will. I don't know if that was personality or his environment. He smiled for me though. I have a picture of him now, my favorite of him, sitting on the counter stirring a jug of homemade tea...with the biggest smile. At the airport...it was time to go and he just broke down in sobs!!! I knew something was wrong and I knew he'd miss me. I knew I had to go but I wanted to stay at the same time. He cried and cried. We hugged and I had to walk away. I cried much of the 2 hour plane ride. His instincts were right. He knew he was walking back into his own personal hell and there was no one left to save him. Now he is haunted. I can remember having those same kind of dreams. They began when I started my first group "counseling". When I stopped speaking to my mother they came on with a vengeance. I'd wake up screaming or crying. Evan would have to soothe me back to sleep. I could actually feel the fists hitting me. When I woke up I would have to sort reality from what had happened in my dream. They were so real. When I was pregnant with Eli, my dreams were horrendous. I would dream that she had kidnapped me and tied me to a pole in the cellar. She kept me there until I went into labor and then would steal my son. I can remember, in real life, people accidentally bumping my stomach and I would immediately become defensive and grab my stomach with both hands. The fear was that real!!! But slowly the dreams changed. I was working, in real life, at overcoming a lot of my fear. I was beginning to realize how powerless she was. In my dreams she still kidnapped me, or beat me...but someone would come and rescue me. Sometimes it was Evan and other times it was his mother. They would come and find me. Being locked in my mother's basement did not mean I disappeared from the thoughts of everyone that loved me. She couldn't steal me away because they could not forget me. I had a place in life...in there lives. I had a place where I belonged and it was not in her basement!! In fact a few months would pass ans soon my dreams were changing again. I was the one beating her! When she hit me I would hit back!! I could actually feel the victorious feeling I might have had if I had ever been able to fight back as a child. In my dreams, I was even able to rescue my brothers and sisters. I got them out of the house and they came home with me...they were safe. I could stand up to her in my dreams and IT FELT GOOD!!! I know now if I were ever to come face to face with her she would wither. I am not afraid of the monster who used to haunt me. It is probably best that we don't see each other though...all I want to do is punch her in the face. I can also promise you that I would go "mother bear" on her if she ever ever EVER laid half a finger on one of my babies!!!

To my brother I say I am here, sweet little boy!

Then my youngest sister had a question for me. She is 12 and will be 13 in April. She will never be sent back home and is young enough to be considered for adoption. I know that the people who take care of her have told her that this is coming. She has asked me twice to adopt her. Believe me, I couldn't make this up! There is no precedent for something like that. It makes me so angry to be put in a situation like this! I can't adopt her. There are the monetary reasons and the fact that all the rooms in our home are occupied. The main reason is that I have never raised a teenager. I don't know what to do with the emotional needs of a teenager especially one with her damaging past. I am not what is best for her. I think she is scared and I would be too. I hate having to tell her that she can't come live with me. It weighs heavy on me. I feel like I am abandoning her...throwing her to the wolves. The worst part is my final reason for saying no to her. I don't know the details but the caseworkers who are in charge of the case against my mother have eluded to my youngest sister being a victim of sexual abuse. I believe that they have gotten her some help after finding this out but how can I bring her into my home? How could I put my own children at risk? Even if it is a small risk it is a risk just the same. I am not willing to sacrifice my children. What happened in that home is not my fault and therefore, not my responsibility. Now, if only I could really be at peace with that bit of truth.