Going Home Again

I’ve written before about the house I consider my childhood home after my parents divorced, but there is another house that holds many memories for me. We lived in a few houses during the years Mom and Dad were married. I only vaguely remember the home we lived in when I was three years old. I do remember the homes we lived in when I was four and five, but the last home we lived in before the divorce holds feelings of ambiguity for me. I feel drawn to it, but unable to approach it.

The house was beautiful. Next door was another house that was nearly identical – only the porch steps and the shade of bricks were different. The house had a beautiful marble fireplace, built in appliances in the kitchen – along with a sweet little breakfast nook. An additional kitchen was located in the basement. The yard was large and the patio was glassed in. I can still remember sitting under the dining room table while Dad played Malaguena on the piano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiAxwFdPZg0&feature=related

Listening to this song now makes me feel things I can not describe. I feel teary, stressed, and fearful,  and a strange sort of normalcy.

For years, I have wanted to stop by the house and walk around it and maybe (if I dared) asked the owners if I could step inside. My mind has run through this scenario many times over the years. I would drive by often; for several years, I even lived a few short miles away, but I could never get myself to stop my car and approach the house. I was a big chicken. I thought about the possible outcome. The people may feel afraid to have a stranger come into their home, or they may be nice, but what if I had a flashback inside the house and had to rush out? Parts of me (real actual parts – alters) have a desire to see the house and put things in our minds to rest. Other real parts of me are scared to death to ever go back inside. But still, the desire remained. I wanted to walk into that house and prove that it was no more than a house. A lovely house that holds haunted memories, but still just a house.

This week, I had my two daughters with me. They asked, “What do you want to go do?”

I said, “I want to go see the house. I want to go knock on the door and talk to the people who live there. Will you go with me?”

They both said, “Yes.” One daughter said she would go to the door with me. I was scared but really excited. Forty years is a long time to wait to go back home. The house has been changed. At first I wondered if the one on the right or the one on the left was the correct house because my childhood home had changed so much. My father’s beloved rose garden was torn out to make room for a small road. Houses were built behind the house and a new garage filled the driveway. The shades were drawn, so I walked to the house next door to look into the vacant windows. The house on the left now looked more like my childhood home than my childhood home did.

I was sure it was the house on the right though, so I walked back over and my daughter and I bravely knocked on the door. We waited. I knocked again. No answer. I stood there thinking that the steps seemed much smaller than they did forty years ago. The current owners had swept out all the spider webs from the cat-faced spiders that dwelled near the front door when we were small. Dad wouldn’t move them – they were his friends. We were scared to death of them. The stone burro and cart no longer graced the front yard. I was sad that no one had answered, but proud that I had dared climb the steps and knock. We walked over to the vacant left house and peeked through the bare windows.

I had forgotten that both houses had leaded glass with pretty colored glass pieces strategically placed. I pointed out to my girls where my bedroom would have been and the front closet where I spent many hours hidden from dad and his friends– the floor plans were the same. While we were there a woman drove up and asked if she could help us. Her family owned the homes – both of them. She didn’t have time that day, but she gave me her number. She said if I could come back, she would let me walk through the left house. She said it was probably more like what I remembered than the other house. She said my house had been completely gutted and remodeled, but that she would see if she could still take me through it.

During the drive back to my present day home, I felt very happy and strong. I was thankful my girls were willing to indulge their mother and be my armor that day.

I wonder how long I should wait to call. I think I will call next week. I need the house to just be a house. I need it to lose its power over me. I need to be unafraid - or if there is something I need to remember, I need go back inside and remember and work through and process it.

Pavlova

This is one of my family's favorite dessert recipes. It tastes as good as it looks.

Pavlova
3 egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons water
3 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a cookie sheet or pizza pan with parchment paper. Make sure you use parchment paper. Oil will destroy the Pavlova.

In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually add sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. Beat in water, then mix in cornstarch, vanilla, vinegar, and salt.

Spoon meringue mixture into a circle on the parchment lined baking sheet. Form it into a nest with the edges about 1 1/2 inches high. It will bake into the exact shape you form it into - so make it pretty. I forgot to take a picture of the completed circle until after I baked it. Sorry.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes. Turn oven off and leave Pavlova in the oven until cold. Place on a serving plate.

Topping
You can top it with pudding, or whipped cream, or anything you like. I top it with:

A combination of:

8 ounces of extra creamy Cool Whip

8 ounces of vanilla yogurt

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

Stir together:

Spread over Pavlova and decorate with fresh fruit.

Cut into slices and enjoy. The Pavlova melts in your mouth. My husband says it reminds him of cotton candy - only better.

Rewarded with Lilies

Do you remember back in April when I planted three lily bulbs? Only two of the bulbs came up, and here is a picture of the one that has bloomed.

I hope the other one will be pink as well. I love bulbs because they reward me year after year.

Bats in the Attic

In the future, I will write more about how we dealt with my daughter’s situation because I think it is important for people to see how we processed everything. I feel we handled things as well as could be expected, but today I think we need something a little lighter.

In my childhood home that I’ve posted about before, there was an attic. Although, I dared to traverse the tunnels underneath the house, I never dared go into the attic. We knew the attic housed bats and while I am very afraid of mice, bats are even scarier to me – mice with wings – yikes! The entrance to the attic was located in the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom. I dared to look into the attic from the opening, but I never entered it. Now as an adult, I wish I had. We could see an old typewriter that some previous owner had left and the remnants of old wall paper on the walls when we poked our head through the square hole in the ceiling. The hole was covered with a board – much like you would see in homes today.

One day a bat flew down from the attic and landed in the bathtub. We were a house of full of girls – all of us deathly afraid of anything creepy, crawly, or that flew in the night. The bat just sat in the tub in a stupor of sorts. Mom closed the door and stuffed a towel under the door to keep the bat in the bathroom until our stepfather came home in the morning from his other wife’s house. Sometime in the middle of the night, the bat got out of the bathroom and flew around inside the house. I don’t know if a child got up to use the bathroom and forgot about the bat in the tub or if the bat somehow squeezed through under the door – but anyway the bat was loose and was no longer in a stupor.

The bat flew around making a clicking noise that all bats make. Mom called to us to get up and help her catch this bat. Of course Ann being the obedient oldest child got right up to help her. I am not ashamed to say that not only did I not get up, but I pulled the covers up over my head and tucked them neatly around my head and body and held them tightly so that the bat could not get into bed with me. The thought of a bat anywhere near my hair of skin made my fear far outweigh Mom’s need for help.

I listened to Mom and Ann fight the bat from the safety of my cocoon. They chased the bat with brooms trying to get it to leave the house. At one point the bat landed on Ann’s back. I was cringing in my bed for her, but there was no way in hell those covers were coming off me until the bat was out of the house. Mom took her broom and hit the bat off Ann’s back knocking it into the wall where it fell senseless to the floor. She put it into a bucket and put a heavy object over the top of the bucket. It soon regained its senses and tried to fly in the small bucket. It was about 4 a.m. or so.

Although the story was incredibly creepy, it was funny to hear Mom and Ann tell about frantically chasing the bat through the house, Mom hitting it off her back, and it dropping like a rock – knocked out from hitting the wall. I know some you may be bat lovers and think they were awful for hurting the poor little creature, but their fear was pretty intense that night. Yes, it was probably just as afraid as they were, but at least it didn’t have to worry about catching rabies from them.

When my step-dad arrived home, he let the poor creature go. It flew off into the dark of the early morning. We had no idea that medical professionals recommend getting the bat tested for rabies if it has been in the same room with sleeping children. We had no idea that we may have unknowingly been bitten by the bat and probably should have undergone the rabies vaccine, but we were lucky once again. No one contracted rabies from the bat that evening, but we will all remember the clicking as it flew and the creepy feeling of knowing a bat was loose in the house.

Telling Jay - Elizabeth's Independence Day Continued

The next day we went to see my mother. We told her what happened to Elizabeth, and she wept with us. She cried, “I never wanted my children or grandchildren to go through what I went through.” We sat and held each other on bed - three generations of little girls shattered by child sexual abuse.


One of the good things that came from Elizabeth’s bravery was that several family members who had been abused in their youth (some of them a half century or more earlier) now felt courageous enough to tell their own stories. One person said, “I’ve never told anyone about this before, but . . .” and she disclosed how an adult cousin had abused her over sixty years earlier. There were three cases very similar to this. Her telling gave them the freedom to tell. Unlike those earlier generations it didn’t have to stay a secret. They saw her innocence, and now knew that they too were as innocent of this as she was – no longer did they have to bury their shame. They now saw that the only guilty parties were the people who did the abusing.

I talked to the neighbor and had her ask her children if Dewayne had abused them because he spent a lot of time with them as well. The Stake President called me that Sunday and said that Dewayne was on his way home. Elizabeth told on Friday and they had him home by Sunday night. He lawyered up and went into hiding, so the police were not able to talk to him for at least a week while they worked out a process for him to turn himself in. That part was frustrating. In the meantime, I had to call my son.

The Sunday after she told, President S talked to me. I was still trying to figure out a way to let Jay continue his mission unaware of the horror we were going through. I didn’t think I could form my mouth around the words I would have to say to him and not be with him in person to help hold him up. I called his mission president Monday morning and pleaded with him to help me figure out a way to keep this a secret from my son. He was right there with the Stake President in feeling I needed to tell him - now - so I made the phone call.

For those who do not know how phone calls on missions work, let me explain. Missionaries are allowed to call home twice a year – once on Mother’s day and once on Christmas. Parents do not have phone numbers for their missionary children. We write every week, but missionaries need to keep their minds on their missions. That can be hard to do if mommy is calling everyday because she misses him so much. So, if a missionary gets a phone call from home, he knows it is bad news.

Monday evening I called my son. One of his companions answered the phone. I asked for Elder Jay. I tried to keep my voice light – that lasted through me saying, “Happy Birthday, Jay. What did you do for your birthday?” His birthday had been two days before this phone call. He said his companions had made him a cake from the cake mix I had sent, and they were going to sing to him. He said the cake looked pretty sad. Usually a missionary has one companion, but he was in Nauvoo just before the temple was rebuilt, so he had seven companions. With the exception of being home to hear this news, he couldn’t have been in a better situation.

He said, “Let me go into the other room.” When he got into the other room, he said, “What’s up Ma. I know you wouldn’t call unless something happened.”

My voice shook, “I don’t know how to tell you this. First of all, we will all be okay, but Dewayne molested Elizabeth before he left on his mission. I didn’t want you to hear about this from the news or from another source.” I don’t remember much else of the conversation – only the sounds of his painful sobs as he processed what his best friend had done to his baby sister and our family. The feelings of betrayal cut deeply into his soul. His best friend, who he had trusted, who he was exchanging letters with as they served in different parts of the country, had done this horrible thing.

I was thankful he had supportive people around him, but I wished I could be there with him. He wanted to stay and finish his mission. He had only been in the mission field for a little over three months. He felt the was just getting started.

He and his companions were clearing brush at the temple site. The physical labor was good for him. He said he took his rage out on the trees and brush. He, like his brother, found a tree branch and carved it into a club. A few months later he sent it home. He said he didn’t need a club while he was on a mission for the Lord.

I still cry when I think about that telephone conversation. I longed to put my arms around him, hold him, and comfort him. Even though he was a man of twenty years, in those awful moments, he was my little boy – my first born child. I called his mission president and said, “I am trusting you with my son’s mental health. Please keep an eye on him. Don’t hesitate to get him into a counselor.” The President promised me that he would watch over my son. He assured me that Jay’s companions would also watch over him. It would have to be enough.

We had survived one more hard thing in this process. This was only day four – we had a long, long way to go.

St. Patrick’s/Elizabeth’s Independence Day Continued

Our Bishop was true to his word – he called back at the ten minute mark. By this time, I had stopped trying to keep the tears at bay. I didn’t know a person could cry so much. Bishop P told me to call and make an appointment with a counselor. He said that by law they would then contact the police, but it was important that before the police were called, that Elizabeth had a support system in place. He asked if I had insurance because if not, he would help me with the cost. I did have insurance and a process for calling for mental health assistance.

“But what about Dewayne? What if he hurts someone while he is in the mission field?” I asked. I had been abused, but never in the name of God. I worried that he could destroy a child’s personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ. It is hard enough to deal with the emotional damage that comes from being molested without having to deal with a shattered relationship with God.

“President S is calling the Mission President now. They will have him pulled immediately.”

“What about Jay? What do I tell him? Do I have to tell him? This is so awful. Jay and Dewayne have been writing each other. How do I tell my son that his best friend has violated our family in this way?”

“You do need to call him. He needs to know why the letters have stopped from Dewayne. He also needs to hear it from you and not from another source. I’ll have President S call you with the number for Jay’s Mission President. Call me if you need anything.”

The thought of calling Jay was almost too much to bear. He was serving a mission, doing the work of the Lord – how would this affect him. Would he get so depressed that he would need to come home? Would he have support in place in the mission field to deal the emotional mess this would create in him? My mind kept trying to think of a way to not have to tell him, but I knew Bishop P was right. He had to know and it had to come from me.

It was now 8:30 a.m. It was going to be a long, long day. I called the number for the counselor, but they didn’t open until 10:00 a.m. I called my fiancé of one week to tell him that we probably wouldn’t be going to the movies with him and his children that evening. Of course he could immediately tell that I was an emotional mess. I told him what had happened. He said, “Do you need me to come over?”

“Would you?”

“I don’t know what I can do, but I can be with you,” he answered.

By the time he arrived, I had contacted the counselor. Each phone call brought a new rush of tears as I brought the horrible words to life once more. We snuggled on the couch – him holding me – me holding her - watching Mr. Roger’s and Barney and Sesame Street. She was ten years old, but I can’t express to you how comforting Mr. Roger’s was that day. Thank your Fred Rogers. Our appointment was scheduled for 4:30 – the earliest they could get us in. We spent the entire day just holding each other – bearing one another up. I didn’t realize the human body contained so many tears.

Andrew left to pick up his children from school. My two other children arrived home from school. I don’t remember eating that day – food is such a big part of my life, but I am unsure if we even ate. We must have, but I have no memory of food. My Daughter, Rose, arrived first. We sat her down and told her what had happened. She cried and felt enormous guilt – guilt that didn’t belong to her, but she still felt it. She had been in the house when Dewayne had abused her baby sister. At this point we still didn’t know the extent of the abuse and we wouldn’t for some time, but she was brokenhearted. Michael arrived home next. He was so angry. He cried angry tears of rage and betrayal, went outside, found a tree limb, and made a club to kill Dewayne with if he ever tried to step foot through our door again.

I don’t remember if I called Elizabeth’s dad before or after our appointment. He was mad. He wanted to kill Dewayne. He blamed me. He said, “If you hadn’t divorced me this wouldn’t have happened. If I were still in the home, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I felt guilty. I felt it was my fault. I felt I should have protected her. His words hurt and in my anger I responded, “Even if we were still married, would you have even been here – were you ever here?” The anger didn’t ease my guilt or make me feel better.

I drove our broken family to see the counselor. She interviewed each of us and then called the police. We were on our way into the next phase of the process. We had survived the first day – the telling. Elizabeth was free of the horrible secret, but it was still horrible. Our pain was raw and as fresh as all the days he had abused her. Now I found my abuse and her abuse getting all tangled up inside my head. I was unsure where mine ended and hers began.

To be continued

St. Patricks Day - Independence Day for My Daughter

The following may be triggering for some. Proceed with caution.

On St. Patrick’s Day morning, in the year 2000, my little daughter came into my bedroom and said, “Mom, I need to talk to you.” Something about her tone and body language told me that this wasn’t a conversation that could take place with me putting my make-up on while I listened to the news. I walked over and turned off the television and sat down next to her. She said, “We watched a video at school about a girl whose uncle touched her in special ways, and our teacher said we should tell our parents if that ever happened to us. You told me I could tell you if anyone touched me in my private places and someone did, so I wanted to tell you.”


I felt at that moment like my brain was a tablecloth that had been shaken out and folded back up. The first words out of my mouth were, “Grandpa got to you.”

“No, not Grandpa; it was Dwayne. I didn’t want to tell you, but I knew I needed to. Can I still go to school today?”

I put my arms around her and pulled her close to me, pulled her into my lap and held her while I tried to wrap my brain around this information. I was both relieved and saddened that it wasn’t my dad that had done this awful thing - relieved that she had been safe from dad but saddened that another person had thrown his life away. I knew it was important for me to not ask too many questions and to refrain completely from leading questions. She didn’t need anymore junk in her head than what was there. I asked, “Where did he touch you?” She put her hand on her groin. “Over or under your clothing?” I asked.

“Under.”

I hugged her closer. I had to engage my brain. I couldn’t think clearly. I knew I couldn’t go to work and that until I figured this out, she would not be going to school. As I struggled to maintain a hysteria free demeanor, I called our friend and told her that Elizabeth would not be over that morning. She asked, “Is she sick?”

“No, but I can’t really talk about right now. Something has happened. I’ll call you and let you know when I can.” I answered.

I called work and told my co-worker that I wouldn’t be in. She asked, “Is everything okay?”

“No,” I said as my surface cracked and a ragged sob came out.

“What happened?”

“Someone hurt Elizabeth. I don’t know what to do.”

“Call your Bishop,” she replied. “Don’t worry about anything here. Call us if you need anything. We will keep you both in our prayers.”

I had to pull it back together. I felt like I could cry for a million years and the pain would still be there. I was shaking so badly. I called the Bishop. His sweet wife answered the phone and informed me that he was at work. “Do you know if he has any openings this Tuesday (I knew Tuesdays were the days he met with people from our ward)?” As I said this I wondered how we would survive until Tuesday.

“Let me give you his work number,” she said. I think she could hear the distress in my voice. I will always be thankful for her discreet handling of our trauma that day. She didn’t ask any questions, but somehow she knew that I needed to speak to her husband right then.

“Are you sure it’s okay if I call him at work?”

“Yes,” she answered.

When our Bishop answered his phone, he was greeted by a mother in full despair and near hysteria. I told him what Elizabeth had told me. He was a new Bishop and hadn’t dealt with this type of situation yet. He said, “Give me ten minutes. I will find out exactly what you need to do. Will you be okay for ten minutes?”

“Yes,” I sobbed.

Elizabeth and I cuddled and cried on the couch while we waited for his call. I made sure she knew that I loved her and that none of this was her fault. I also told her that I would never let him hurt her again. I still didn’t ask her any questions. I didn’t know what the extent of the abuse had been - I just knew from my own experience that I would do everything in my power to handle this situation the right way. I wanted her well. I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes I had made because of what had happened to her. Before this morning, I thought that living through my own abuse was the worst thing, but I was wrong. Knowing my daughter had been molested was the worst thing. I thought back to the night when I had come from seeing Grandma at the hospital. I had walked into Elizabeth’s room and felt thankful she was untouched by this horror, but I was wrong – even then she had already been abused, and I felt sick to the depths of my soul. I felt sorrow for her and sorrow for the young man whose choices had put us in this situation. He was my son’s best friend. He had eaten dinner more often at my house than at his own house. We had trusted him. He had kept my son safe when our home was burglarized. He was the same age as my son – even born during the same month. He had just turned twenty years old. Both he and my son were serving missions for our church. We had to get Dewayne out of the mission field before he hurt anyone else.

There may be some that say, “You shouldn’t have gotten so upset. You should have kept it together. I would have been less traumatic for her if you had stayed calm.”

To those I say, “You try looking into the face of your beautiful child who has just revealed to you that she has been molested and not weep. Even Jesus wept.”

To be continued.