Birth the story of Love

     What story were you told about how you came to the planet? Did the story mean anything to you?  The story I was told about my coming to the family has been important to me. It was a difficulty to over come. I was often the confidant of my parents. My mother would talk to me about the troubled relationship she maintained with my father. He would confide in me when he need someone to talk to. It was during these therapy sessions for my parents that I learned the circumstances of my birth.

      I pieced it all together the best I could from the scattered conversations over the years. My parents were at best infatuated with each other. When they decided to get married it was based on the lure that they would have a great sex life. This would later prove very disappointing for them both. They began to have serious doubts about the wisdom of marrying each other. They got engaged and disengaged several times feeling that there was something wrong about the union. Finally after announcements had been sent out and they were about to change their minds again when my mothers father stepped in. He was German and had disciplined his children with a belt. He was a commanding man. He sat them down and demanded to know what my fathers intentions were. After that they married. Their honeymoon was terrible. My father raped my mother and she left claw marks down his back. He left her to go on a 4 day hunting trip. They were off to create the marriage from Hell. The communication and the intrigue of sex that had deceived them both were illusive. He was busy with law school and she was not busy with anything other than her dark pursuits. She was bored and left alone. She grew tired of her situation that she viewed as restricted and limiting. She decided having a baby would give her someone to keep her company. She did not understand how difficult it is to take care of a baby. When she figured it out it was too late. She made it clear that the reason why she brought me into the world was to please her. She also let me know that because I was a needy infant and I did not fill that purpose. To make things worse my father had aspired to being a lawyer. He was in the process of pursuing his dreams when my mother without his permission quit taking the pill. When he found out not only was he angry, but his parents expectations were also upset and they were sad that I was to interrupt the plan.

     What this all meant to me was that I was brought into a hostile environment. The love that usually is associated with marriage and family was missing. I viewed their marriage as wrong in God's eyes and in their view also. I blamed my grandfather for insisting they marry. I blamed them for being weak and following through with something so destructive. Then I questioned a million times why they stayed together. They loved to fight. It was what they did best. Maybe that is why they stayed together. I learned how to argue and felt ill at ease with peace for the longest time. Now it is the only acceptable state of relationship for me.

     My husband was also brought into the world in a difficult way. His father was separated from his first wife who he had 4 children with. He met my husbands mother (who would become wife number 2 )in a bar. She got pregnant with my husband and then he divorced the first wife and married the second after the baby. Did they get married because they loved each other or because they got pregnant? Either way the marriage eventually ended in divorce.

     Life is not clean and neat. The ideal of a man and a woman loving each other deeply and then getting married is an ideal that I see less and less as people fail to love and commit to each other. The beauty of that loving couple who wait and prepare for a baby anticipating and then enjoy providing a stable secure foundation of love is so sweet. In Heaven perhaps it is so. Here is falls like shards of broken mirrors to pierce the earth.

     The story told to me was that I was the result of an act of selfish rebellion. I was born to a legacy of lack of love. My parents who lacked an understanding of love could not pass it on. I came into life with detachment issues. My mother could not bond with me because she could not afford to love when at any time she might be called upon to sacrifice me to one of her evil Gods. Because of the secrecy we always had to live by I grew up ashamed of who they were, ashamed of who I was.
It has been a long road to recovery. Now I can accept that they were in a trap that neither felt they could escape. There will was lost to to dark force that drove them. My fate and theirs was beyond what they believed they could control.

     It was a grand illusion. When you want out God will make a way. It may look impossible but it is not.
The point I am trying to make is I was told that I was not loved from the start. They may not have even purposely set out to do this. But the truth came through. There was a famine of love.
 I now believe that love is the biggest factor to well being. I had just enough love from others to survive. But it was frightening, miserable and depriving at best.

     With more time spent in marriage than in my childhood I now feel loved. My children have all loved me to health. When I married it was because I loved my husband as much as I knew how to at the time. We both believe with all our hearts that God intended, smiled and blessed our union. Now my love for him and my children has grown and is a richer, deeper variety. I also am able to trust after being with a trustworthy man for so long. This one relationship has been the foundation for me in  being able to love the rest of the world. He gave me security and strength. All of my children were prayed for wanted and loved the best we could. It is my sincerest hope that they feel loved. It is essential.

      I now know that my identity is not based on who my parents were or on their stories. I am worthy of love. I know this because I can see that God loved me all along. He provided ways for me to feel his  care and to be loved by many others.  He made it so I can love and serve my family and friends.

We had to move

    It had not been a month yet from the day I discovered that I was not whole. I was adjusting to the new “part” of me. Getting used to the idea that I could carry on a conversation with myself was interesting. Slowly I had accepted that I had memory  repressed. It was a very emotional time for me. I felt the extreme sorrow for what innocence I thought I had. Now that illusion was shattered. I felt so angry at the hurt I had to endure.  I hated and felt anger towards my enemy. I also had a myriad of emotions towards my family to deal with. The family I grew up in did not protect me from this perceived tragedy. The family I had created with marriage and childbirth was so demanding. I wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out until I felt better. I loved my husband and children but I felt so shaken up and upset. 

     There were other things happening then that added to the general upset. My husband was employed by a company my father owned and operated. The family business was not going well. My husband had been working for months with receiving a pay check. Back then we were surviving on a small income well below the poverty level. I was not working and with three small mouths to feed money was important. We looked at the time he had worked without pay and estimated that the company owed us 5000$. This was in 1990 and it seemed like a lot of money. Things at work had grown increasingly tense. By the end of that week the company filed chapter 11 and we knew we would not ever be recompensed. Between the unhappiness at work and the disturbance at home with me, Jim could not find peace. 

   On a Wednesday he came home and announced that his job was terminated. In some ways it was a relief . He had been working hard without pay. Not only that but the politics and pressure in the workplace were taking a toll on both of us. Now he would need to look for another job and had already started that difficult task. There was pressure to pay bills. It seemed like another bad thing happening to us. 

     At that time in my spiritual outlook I believed that God loved me based my ability to live His commandments. I was not so sure I deserved His love or favor. I fearfully lived waiting for the next bad thing to come along. My childhood had been a soap opera full of “bad things”. The loss of the imagined security I thought I had with an employed husband was the next expected punishment from God. 

   I blew up after an argument with my husband and dramatically said I had to get away. I wanted to get out the city. I was hurting and felt out of control. I could not sort my thoughts and be real rational. I was going to get in the car and just drive. Without money or means to really go anywhere I told my husband I was going to the mountains. I did not plan on taking anyone with me. He could tell that I had flipped out and that he could not talk me out of going. He lovingly and firmly told me that he and the babies were all going with me. 

   He threw our small tent and a flashlight, our sleeping bags and some snacks into the back of our small car. Soon we were driving away from it all. Even though I had been angry at him and at the circumstances we faced, I was relieved to not be alone and crazy.  I did not trust myself. I had never threatened to leave or had even really thought of it. This was not leaving but getting away. It was something as a mother of a baby and two toddlers I did not do. 

  I do not remember much about the details of the trip. It was early may in the middle of the week. We did not go to a formal campground. We just found a pretty place in mountains to set up a tent. The only tent we owned was a one man pup tent my husband had leftover from his scouting days. I slept with my youngest baby on my chest all night in the tent along with my eldest daughter who was 3. . Jim slept outside under the stars with our  2yr old son on his chest. We woke early before the sun came up with a light dusting of snow. It was too cold to get and leave but also too cold to stay and sleep more.  Just like in out real lives we had to move. 

   By morning we had packed up and driven home to our warm safe house. It was like we had passed some sort of test. I had lost my mind and headed off who know where in a moment of rage. He had carefully insisted on going with me. There was no time to make responsible arrangements. We had both done the best we could under the circumstances. It had been risky and foolish, but we survived and remembered it as a good time. The extreme of emotion mixed with the spontaneous excursion together with the cold, the hunger and heights of the mountain made it something to remember. Now that I am past feeling guilty for doing it I can remember my husbands protection and care with fondness. 

Who did it?

     It is wonderful how people are blessed with just the right book or person at the right time. Shortly after began my journey of self discovery I was able to obtain a book that helped me to heal. It was written by an author who had gone through some of the same things I had. I did not know this fully when I went to hear her speak. Her name was Lynne Finney and she wrote “Reach for the Rainbow”. It was an excellent book but, hearing her speak was even more impactful. She was educated and seemed so sure of herself. She had the courage to be open about her abuse and her perpetrator. She had become a lawyer and married. She went on to write more books and to become a therapist. Her success and presence inspired me. I felt so afraid and alone at the lecture. I knew that there were other survivors there and comforted as well as scared me. Coming out with the truth in any way was like coming out against the cult. I knew that it was a rare opportunity to be there. I also felt very dissociative.
     Now 22 years later I want to share my story openly in public the way Lynne did. There are some big differences between her and I. She could write and share because if I remember correctly her father was a perpetrator and he was deceased. There was not a whole group of people that would sue her or pursue her if she told their secrets. I have yet to see what I can do as far as the truth goes.
     I had learned that I had a five year old part broken off and had been dealing with the memory of a rape. It was Easter four days after the discovery of the part I named Elle. Myself, my husband and our three young children were gathered at my grandmothers house to celebrate Easter with my mom, dad and brothers. I was very distraught. All though my grandmothers house was always a place of safety, I was feeling terrible. I am sure why I allowed myself to remember something that day was because it was a safe place for me.
     Whenever I would remember something important I would get physically ill before it came back. I would start feeling tense and the the tension would build until it reached the spilling point. This would often be accompanied by a bad headache or throwing up. I remember being at the dinner table and feeling quite ill. I got up to go outside to take a breath. I left the formal table and was outside near some rosebushes that lined the driveway. My brother had come after me to see if I was all right. I grabbed his arm and we began to walk which eased my anxiety. All that came back to me was a name. I repeated the name over and over again. My brother looked into my red tear streaked face and asked if I was OK. All I could say was I know who it was...It came like an earth shattering revelation.
      When I had told my parents that I had a disassociated part that came about because of a rape they were worried about who the unknown perpetrator was.  That is likely because they were also perpetrators of other crimes and so it was troublesome. Once I named a fellow cult member (that they were actually on the outs with at the time) a sigh of relief was heard. This mans name became synonymous with poison to me.  I labeled him the enemy and all his partners in crime remained undercover at that time.  My family and friends who were associated with the man came crawling out of the woodwork to throw in their evidence that I was in fact remembering something likely.  He was in jail and could not protect himself. I am sure I was able to remember because he was safely a state away.    
       Later after some dust settled over the matter, his wife and his step daughter who was also my cousin from a previous marriage came over to ask what I intended to do about what I remembered. I watched them all get sick when I told them I intended on writing a book and telling the whole world about the injustice there. Was it their reputation or my life they could see endangered. Little did I know about how complicated it was. I had one little memory about one man and myself. He was obviously an out of control sex maniac as my mom had come forth to report about the time he made passes at her.
      My cousin told me about the improper torture she endured as she was forced to go with her mom on their honeymoon and sleep in the same bed with them. I also heard about many other dishonest and evil things the man did. I did not understand how all the evidence was being provided to me so I could sweep the issue under the rug and move on. It took the heat off of others for awhile.  I was aware at some level that I was being watched to see how leaky I was. I knew if I caused too much trouble I could end up missing. I was so very worried about my children and their safety. At the same time I my anger was a powerful driving force and I felt in so much pain I had a hard time not just letting it all hang out.

Happy Mothers Day

     It is almost Mothers day, a day that I have struggled with for years. Other than Halloween it is the most avoided day of the year for me. I want to share with my children some positive things about the grandmother they never knew. I broke off communication with my mother 20 years ago. It was a drastic thing to do that I knew was necessary to my survival. Leaving was a hard thing to do. I know I have missed having a mother many a time and that my children have missed having a grandmother.
     Back in 1990 things were different. I was beginning to remember my past in bad dreams and flashbacks. While I was in the city I grew up in, close to where my parents lived I did not deal or remember anything pertaining to my parents. It all came back piece by piece slowly as I could handle it. We were in contact often and I felt close to her in some ways.
     The following is a poem I wrote for her. It makes me laugh because she did not appreciate poetry or sentiment much. I think I wrote because I wanted her to be someplace else emotionally. At the time I could not understand why she was the way she was and I fantasized that she was the way I wanted her.

Sometimes....

Sometimes my eyes close, I drift back

to the start of a journey

God gave me your description,

and sent me off into space

I paused, confused and dazzled

By a constellation of your face

These stars are only ornaments

hung up to celebrate

the spirit said “Go on

End her wait

Cradled in you caring arms,

I inhaled your sweet familiar fragrance

I listened as you sang

tender sweet lullabys

innocent childhood, soft

and brief as a warm breeze

Impressions and experiences

Time moves like water

tumbling in a brook

My life is played like

 a melody on a flute

Sometimes your are a part of a fountain and sometimes you are a bridge

You are a banister I hold as I climb 

Sometimes to my delight your light and color gleam through a prism

your candor and humor surround me. 

Sometimes in your absence I long for your kindling to light

a comforting needed flame

from candle to bonfire.

Sometimes my eyes close I miss you

     The positive things I remember about my mother are often overshadowed my the horror of abuse and neglect. I want to share the good I do remember with a warning that I must keep ever vigilant in my mind to protect myself and my children.
     She was a physically beautiful woman. She had a very pretty face with high cheek bones, full lips and perfectly arched eyebrows. She had green eyes that were quite stunning. She maintained her shape for as long as I knew her and enjoyed aerobic work outs. She had some health problems but looking back they were minor. Her biggest lack of health was mentally. She was able to project a functional person to the outside world.
Most people would have thought of her as someone with manners and class. She was not shy or reclusive and maintained friendships with other women.  She came from a family of five children and she went on to have five children also. In the family she grew up if there was only one boy. She had one girl (me) and four boys.
     From the outside it would have appeared she took motherhood in stride. She would have come across easy going and friendly. If I could remember only the good she did I would remember that she was like a fellow child. She was lonely and wanted playmates and friends to share her scary isolated existence. She had children to grasp at love. She did love me and I did love her too. She played at being an artist mostly copying other peoples work. She enjoyed painting and drawing and she gave me an introduction to art.
     My favorite times to remember were times we shared with her family. Her parents bought some property to vacation in. It was located in a small town  far away from all out problems. We would all go there to vacation together. Those were some good times with all the cousins and aunts and uncles. We were closed to functional there.
     My mother took us to church all by herself during the time we grew up. My father was an alcoholic and did not go to church. She held different jobs at church and served others. She did not like to clean house. She did do it some though. Sometimes my father hired a maid. She attempted to get us kids to do housework and those times were better.
She also was not real fond of cooking. Looking back it must have been hard to cook just for kids. My dad was not around much. She fixed the same meals every week. One summer she got creative and checked out a book from the library of salad recipes. To this day salad is one of my favorite meals. It was stand out from the spaghetti, taco, chicken routine.  She loved holidays and went all out for them. She made every excuse for a holiday a big deal. There was at least one a month. For my ninth birthday she threw me a big party. Halloween was as celebrated as Christmas with house decorations and yard decor. She even painted our big picture window and the neighbors windows with Halloween scenes. It was like coming out day for the witches. She was into magic and in our day of Harry Potter and vampires she could have been a star.
      It is hard to remember the good without choking on the bad. I wish I could remember more. I know I looked on her with compassion many times while I was growing up. I wanted to somehow rescue her from herself and from her life.
Together my parents created an unbelievable Hell. I always told her if she wanted to get  out of the cult she could come to me and I would help her. I did not hold out much hope for her.  I do love her and feel sorry for her having experienced her pain and confusion first hand many years. It is weird not knowing how the soap opera life she led is rolling.  It is strange but a lot more peaceful.
      I promised myself that I would never hear her or see her again on earth so I could feel safe and not put myself anywhere near her. So far it has not been a promise hard to keep.
It has been a challenge to think about her and our relationship. I hope it has been interesting to someone.  

prep school miracle

     I have not updated this blog in a while. Going through the past is not my favorite thing to do. I have realized I am still healing and gain from this process of going back and telling “my story”. Recently I have been doing some deep pondering about what is really worth writing and communicating. Someone pointed out to me that we are all communicating something every moment we are alive. Some communication is just more lasting like what is recorded or viewed as a piece of art.

     Within the parameters of this blog I have been wondering what is really meaningful to me or to anyone else. What do I write that has value or merit? I believe in love as the first principle of life. So does my blog communicate that somehow?

     Recently I experienced what I view as a miracle, the love of God. I home schooled all of my children on and off for years. After the first three graduated from high school and left home one by one our family shrunk. When we made it to middle school it was just me and my youngest daughter. We came to a stand still in our homeschooling. It was more like a stand off. She was having a difficulty focusing and I was determined to force her to do her work. Force does not work and it took us years to deal with ADD and focus. We were loosing time and relationship. God intervened in our behalf after prayers for help.

At the time we were worried about social opportunities, because being home without siblings was much more lonely. Even with a co-op once a week and an intense basket-ball team experience and church activities it felt like not enough socially. My youngest was shy and it pained her and us to watch her suffer. We needed more practice and less one on one time with mom.

     One day we went to a sporting event for her basket-ball team at a prep school nearby. We enjoyed the game and the feeling at the school. While we were there, my husband felt impressed that we would send our daughter there for school. He told me about this and after we set up a tour of the school.

     Almost four years ago we went on the tour. It was one of those moments in life when all the stars align and the angels sing. It all felt so right and perfect. The price was more than I could ever justify and it was truly miraculous that both my husband and I who tend to be fearfully frugal would agree to this transition. We had checked this school out many years prior to that as an option for all our children. With four kids the cost was out of our reach. Later, the timing and the funds were available.

     It was a huge step for us all in a positive direction. She has in the time she's attended school, learned so many things. She is not so shy and has friends everywhere. Her confidence has grown and she has been able to transition to an institution gracefully. It is hard to go from the sheltering of homeschooling into the violence and regulations of public school. My older children went to high school at the local school. There were many things that were hard to take that we did not have to deal with in the private school experience. This was a blessing as it offset the other challenges we did have that were uniquely ours.

     Last week my daughter gave an oral presentation in front of a large group. She was reporting on a project required of all seniors at the school. They are encouraged to seek and opportunity to explore either something that they want to do in adulthood as a career or to do some kind of long term service. My daughter did both. She volunteered at a rape crisis / safe home for domestic violence. She could not do much until she was 18 as she was not allowed in the home . She went in and taught art classes. She wants to become an art therapist and she could have explained that as the sole reason for her project. Instead she asked if it would be all right with me if she talked a little about the real reason she chose to serve center she did.
     She said her reason was that my life had been an example and an inspiration for reaching out to others. In order to explain this she would need to let people know things I normally keep to myself.

I have a dream that I will make enough friends and people that love me to support me that I can be honest about my past and be who I am now without feeling threatened. I believe if I have a strong enough core of love then I will be able to not concern myself with anyone who does not believe or appreciate me. I know that my family or origin does not understand or support me. They oppose me.This has always led me to be very careful about who I tell what.

     Having my daughter stand and express her emotions to me and the audience in a composed self assured manner was wonderful. I felt a little uncovered when she (with permission) said that I had been through some of the same experiences as the women in the shelter. In some way it made me feel even more secure, because I was able to still look people in the eye and not feel ashamed. I used to feel so ashamed for being a victim. I knew it made other people uncomfortable and was better a secret. There I was with everyone in the room hearing something private and yet I did not feel embarrassed.

What I did feel was gratitude. I was thankful that my child had the confidence to volunteer all by herself and that she was had grown through going way out of her comfort zone. I was thankful she had compassion and understanding for others, especially me.

     There were other teens who chose senior projects and research papers in order to work out something deep in their life. One boy had been questioning his faith and belief in God. He spent time searching and studied world religions to find his place spiritually. There was a girl who had survived a terrible auto accident with her father. She was a composer and wrote a beautiful piece of music in his honor. As she played it my daughter and I sat side by side weeping as silently as we could. I do not think there was a dry eye in the place. There were two other seniors from the school who had lost a parent to cancer that either volunteered or learned more about the disease that took their parent. So in her very small graduating class (because it is a small school) were courageous stories worked out with senior projects.

     I could not help but feel God's hand in the presentations in the meeting and in the school in general. I hope that I may have the chance to continue to volunteer at the school as it has left us with a belonging and love for a school that we did not have prior to this experience. It has been a healing miracle.

I know I will have a chance to speak in public for the rape crisis center. I also volunteered to teach art classes. My daughter will come with me during the summer before she goes away to school. She said I gave her the inspiration and courage for doing the project, but really it is the other way around. Because of what she did I made the call to volunteer. I love my children for often leading me by the hand.

Gratitude

     I named this blog beauty for ashes because of a sermon I heard that had a huge impact on me. The man speaking was addressing those who were suffering pain either from their own mistakes or from the harmful choices of others. He was saying that even though there are some situations beyond repair that Jesus could cover it for me. I felt like I had suffered some devastation. It is humorous looking back because it was only the tip of an iceberg. Yet I felt like I had been burned to a heap of ashes and there was not a way to resolve it.
      In those moments I listened I heard that healing was not an event like the one I blamed for the need to heal. It was a process. It was not an answer to a yes or no question, but rather answering with the Lord over and over again. Because of remembering what happened to me when I five I felt betrayed  by God. How could He have let this happen to me? I also questioned where my parents were and why they did not protect me.
   My parents seemed genuinely concerned and upset by the remembering. My mother got sick to her stomach and seemed very nervous. Once I remembered exactly who the perpetrator was she calmed down and felt better.
      The idea that everything could be O.K. again all though this terrible thing happened was comforting. It was sweating to a bitter pill to be swallowed. I was reminded that even though it was important to remember that I was on God's side, that it was also important to remember that God was on my side too. It helped me very much at a time I needed it desperately.
      These things were difficult for my marriage.  We had been married for less than five years. It was easier to blame the external things happening around us then to accept the truth. Sexual abuse is frightening and a huge sexual turnoff. For months before and after I remembered I wished I was a Nun in a convent. My spouse wrote me a note. He apologized blaming himself. He said sorry for not being a better provider, being inadequate spiritually, and for not meeting my expectations. I wrote him notes saying I had been feeling increasingly tense. I felt I was causing the muscle pain because I could not control my subconscious mind from punishing me. I felt unclean and impure. I felt so guilty for I did not know what. Then I felt guilty for doctor bills, complaining, wasting time, and burdening him. I even felt guilty for being guilty.
      That is why the promise of Jesus taking it all away is so wonderful. I could feel that God was with me. I was able to still be close to my dear husband from time to time. I knew how important sex was, but wow was I struggling.
  It was during this hard time that people I went to church with came to my rescue. There was a woman who came in and helped me with housework. She would listen and help take care of the babies. She brought in food for us.
     There was another woman who became my friend. She was at least 10 years my senior. She had a busy life of her own, but she made time to be there for me. I do not know how much harder it would have been without her caring and friendship. She also showed love with food. With the meals and cookies from other people at church I felt supported and loved.
     It has made the choice to do the same for others at church easier. Belonging to a close knit church group throughout my life has made it so much better. I lamented once to one of the dear ladies from church how I felt so bad that she was standing at my sink washing my dishes when I knew she had her own housework to do. She humbly told me that in our church we just took turns. Right now it was my turn to be needy. Someday it would be her turn. She helped me out because she could. She assured me some day I would serve others and that the debt that I felt I owed her would be repaid. I seek to serve others and remember her with a smile on my face.