Anything Doesn't Mean Everything

Dear Mama,

You wanted me to feel comfortable to share anything with you. But the first anything I shared, you shut me out. The first time, the second time, the thousandth time… and I give up, it’s been too many times.

You tell me IF you had known sooner, you would have done something about it. But because I told you too late, there was nothing you could do but accept it.

But that’s not true, as we both know now. I told you many times, at least, I tried. I couldn’t remember through childhood, because of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I knew something happened but couldn’t remember the details. So, I chose not to burden you with it, rather, to protect you from it. But I’ve tried to share what I’ve remembered with you now for most of my adulthood.

But until another girl told someone, it didn’t seem to matter. Now that girl will get justice. Now that girl is highly praised. Now that girl is deemed strong. Now that girl gets the help, I’ve cried out to you for.

Twenty-three years is a long time to suffer in silence.

It started when I was six and he was twenty-nine.

How strange, to think he was exactly the age I am now, when it all started.

He was supposed to be your boyfriend. He chose us because you were a single mother with two beautiful, unprotected daughters. He chose me because I was the ‘quiet one.’ My sister never could keep a thing to herself. But me, I would never speak aloud. He knew this. He even said as much.

To me, he would say, “You will always be my favorite. You’re not like the other girls. Because you're so quiet.”

And when you gave birth to his son, my brother, it only complicated things further. Because I would grow to love that brother more than myself and do anything to protect him from this hell.

The same way I protected you. I buried it for so long, you have a heart like mine, compassionate to a fault. I knew this. I knew you would blame yourself. I never did blame you for it happening. I still don’t. I only hurt from how you have responded to my choice to tell you the truth.

But now it is out in the community. What he did. To the other girls, at least. And what fine timing. He was arrested a year ago now, summer of 2021, while I was on my way to becoming a mother. A mother to a daughter, another innocent soul I was terrified to bring into this world.

What if the charges are dropped? What if he is set free? What if he is provoked? What if he comes for me?

But you tell me, he won’t. The charges will place him in prison and inside the prison he won’t survive. The other prisoners will kill him. That is what happens to men like him. So now I am faced with guilt for my attacker.

I don’t want him to die.

Why does my heart care when all he has done is hurt me? Why did you tell me this, Mama? I lived in fear OF him so long. Why must I live with fear FOR him now? Why did you teach me compassion? I am so confused by this feeling, this contradiction. It is my favorite of all the qualities you possess, that I possess. But now, it feels like my curse.

And Mama, why are you still silent? Why do you keep hidden everything you know?

When anyone has come asking, if you think he is capable of something like this? You lived with him eight years, surely you could know. You raised two daughters in his home. Or rather, you let him raise us. You were gone most nights. You left us with him. You left me defenseless to him.

When he was arrested you acted like it was the first you ever heard of his pedophilic nature.

But Mama, I have been crying out to you for your help for years!

You only confused me, telling me it didn’t make sense. Or maybe I misunderstood his actions.

Truthfully, I did, but only because you never taught me about child molestation or rape. I knew nothing of it, until I became its victim. You didn’t prepare me for the moment I would become nothing more than another statistic.

It took growing up, learning through the growing pains and onslaught of information from sex ed classes and internet searches that was inappropriate for my age. You punished me for my hunt to learn about the truth. Because if I learned it then someday you would too.

You can find my name posted alongside his, as possible associates. But it will never be beside his mugshot as established victims. I am not like the other girls. While the state fights to bring them justice. I am simply forgotten. It doesn’t matter that I was the youngest to endure his crimes. It doesn’t matter if I waded through them the longest.

I am told to forget. To somehow move on. And I thought I had. But new information keeps surfacing. Like the fact that there is a twenty-one-year-old cold case with my name on it.

In February things were different, Mama. You finally came forward with me. I convinced you to share the truth with the police station. I thought it would help the case. I thought it would become my case too. But the investigators listened as I cried, they wrote it all down. Even had me draw the locations. Get on the ground and show the positions I was in as he performed the actions. They told me they were proud of me. Nearly 90% of victims never come forward. But given my age —the years gone by— they believe me—my story corroborates with the other girls. But they must help them now, because it is current, unlike mine.

But if there’s a case with my name on it, collecting dust deep in their archives, how can this be true Mama? Doesn't that mean I did tell you? Doesn't that mean it wasn’t too late? Doesn’t that mean they could have done something?

You are one of the strongest women I know, Mama. I guess I can’t understand why you didn’t use your strength then.

You used it when they overmedicated me to numbness from my feelings when I was fourteen and placed in that mental institution.

You used it so many sleepless nights, to comfort and coach my breathing through too many anxiety spells.

You used it to stand up for what you believe in, you do not conform when the world pressures you.

You used it for my brother when he learned what his father is capable of.

You used it to be a mother to my sister’s son because the brain injury she suffered from her car accident left her incapable.

You have used it so many times now when grief has threatened to overcome you, facing the loss of your mother, your father, and now your brother.

So why is it Mama, you haven’t been able to use it for me?

Why is it that even in the moments we have hurt one another that we still love each other more than anything?

I have hurt you by forcing you to live with this pain, like you’ve hurt me when you seemed to put it out of your mind, because it’s the only way you know to move forward.

But still, I know your heart. I know how deeply you love. I know your spirit. Because they are much like my own.

So, I love you, because even when it’s hard, I love me. The same way I love her.

You are a part of me.

Just like my daughter.

We are a part of you.

Through generations we are connected.

Not loving one feels like not loving the other.

Becoming a mother has made me realize what a contradiction everything is.

It is both the most beautiful of all things as well as the most frightening. So excited to watch her grow. Yet so terrified to share with her all that she does not yet know. I know you already know this, Mama; being a daughter is one thing; but having a daughter is something else entirely.

I wish I knew what a contradiction it was to maintain this role before I grew to resent you for the mistakes you have made as my mother. Though I can say it has taught me what mistakes I will not make, I also can say, I am afraid I will in time make my own.

I love you Mama,

But to save my daughter from the history we have grown to know, I must do the opposite of all that you have.

Anything that threatens to hurt her, I must be stronger than.

Anything that turns her sweet smile down, will not be allowed in her presence.

Anything that hopes to ruin everything she is, will wish it never tried.

Because for me, when my daughter comes to me vulnerable and bleeding from life's wounds, regardless of the pain I feel watching her endure anything, I will take that pain upon myself to rescue her from EVERYTHING.

Thank you, Mama, for teaching me what it is to endure the hardships in life alone, because of it I know to try harder to make sure my child never does.

With all my Love,

Your no longer innocent daughter