A few years after I remarried a problem surfaced. Kayle ( my oldest daughter) hated going over to her Dad's house every other weekend. She never quite felt like part of that family. My ex husband had married his 4th affair after she got divorced. She had three children one boy and twin girls older than Kayle. Kayle wasn't given a bed when she visited she was made to share with the twins or sleep on the couch or floor. She felt like she wasn't there visiting her father, she was there to entertain the kids. She would come home and cry and complain every weekend she was there.
So one day I suggested that maybe if we could find the kids father (we will call him Tom) that we could have the kids over to our house to swim one weekend so she could share her life with them. She thought that was a great idea. She tried to ask for Tom's phone number but was not allowed to have it. So we decided to start praying every night that we would find Tom.
So it went, every night she would close her eyes and ask the Lord to help us find Tom.
At that time I worked for a wonderful company called Orthologic. I can honestly say it was one of the best places to work I have ever experienced and I still have a very close relationship with many of the people I worked with. The only draw back to this wonderful place was that it was in Tempe on Priest and Washington and I lived at the time at 35th Ave and Bell. It was a long drive to say the least. One day I was sitting in my cubical outside the IT director's office and I heard him talking on the speaker phone to the receptionist down stairs. She was telling him that Tom so and so was down stairs in the lobby for him. I can honestly say my heart felt like it stopped cold in my chest. Surely I heard her wrong she didn't say my Tom's name the one that Kayle and I had been praying for!
I got up and ran into the IT directors office and ask what the receptionist had just said. He looked at me puzzled and ask if I were OK. Apparently I was white as a sheet. He confirmed the name that I thought I heard was indeed in the lobby and that he was about to offer him a job. I was stunned. I had ask that God help me find Tom not plop him in my lap! I shared with the director who and what Tom was to me and he felt like Tom should know that I was here before he offered him the job. Because you see, not only was Tom to work here at Orthologic but his desk would be right behind mine.
So I went down stairs and it took him a second or two to recognize me because we hadn't seen each other for a few years Tom had moved to Scottsdale after the divorce. We were neighbors when our respective spouses had an affair. I explained to him that I worked here and that the director was going to offer him a job but thought if best he knew what he was getting into. Needless to say he was just as shaken as I was.
Much to my surprise Tom accepted the position and even though he never did feel comfortable bringing his kids to my house his presence right behind me made a big difference in the quality of life for our children at the other household. You see our ex's could no longer use each other as excuses for not allowing something to happen. We could just ask the other if the truth was being told. The manipulation stopped from the other house and it was glorious.
To top things off Tom is an atheist and I got to witness to him and I told him that Kayle and I prayed to find him so to me he was a gift from God. He didn't like it very much being my gift from God but you can't deny....
The Lord really does have a sense of humor.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
A Mothers worst nightmare
There have been a few things I've been putting off writing about because of how deep these emotions and memories run and because I don't want to hurt my family in anyway. This story is told with permission from my oldest daughter Kayle.
I was married at age 18 to a man I loved very much. At the time we were each others best friend. We met at the place we worked together and he was not a Christian when we met and I couldn't stand him at first. He was a very obnoxious person that followed me around and ask me for a kiss every few minutes. He ask me out daily and finally I told him that the only place I would take him was to church because I wouldn't date him.
He started coming to church with me and after a few times he gave his life to the Lord. He changed in such way that I fell in love with him. Looking back on it now I saw him as my saviour. A way out of a life that had become toxic to me and dangerous.
We were married for 11 years. Some of them were wonderful some were very hard. I will share more of those times later. Let's skip to the the end of those very hard years. The last three years of our marriage was torturous for me. My husband had an affair(it was really his third) and we had tried to make it work after that. Even though I felt like he didn't choose me the woman he had an affair with chose to stay with her husband so mine stayed with me. He wouldn't go to counseling and he wouldn't find a job. So he ended up staying home and taking care of our three year old while I held down two jobs. It was very hard but I didn't know what else to do.
One thing I learned from this is that you never leave a man who cheats home during the day. They get themselves in trouble. In this case with the married neighbor. I have heard it said the wife always knows and I can tell you from experience it's true. I knew the moment it started I just couldn't prove it. This married neighbor had three children, one boy age 5 and twin girls age 4. Their father worked days like I did and the mother worked nights. This made it very convenient to carry on an affair. Accept what to do with the kids? The horrific solution was to lock the children out of the apartment in the grass area of the apartment complex we lived in while they did whatever they wanted in privacy. Four children five years of age and under unsupervised alone. CPS would have a field day with that and with good reason.
During one of these unsupervised times something horrible happened. An older child probably 11 or 12 coaxed my daughter away from the other kids into a storage shed and proceeded to shove rocks up inside her tiny body. I don't know the details I just know the end result my daughter was to young to make much sense. Her father never noticed anything was wrong. I came home from work and she told me that it hurt to sit down. We went to the bathroom and rocks were in her underwear and were falling in the toilet. She told me about the what the other child had done to her and that she was afraid. I was horrified and distraught. I had told myself that nothing like that would ever happen to my daughter if I could prevent it because of what had happened to me. I felt like a failure as a mom because I was unable to protector her.
I went to our pastor for help because I was stuck in the lie the church had told me growing up. That I was to be totally submissive to my husband and take whatever he dished out. My pastor at the time told me that I could not leave the child with my husband anymore and I needed to stand up to him and tell him so. He was being irresponsible. So I did that and it didn't go well. Shortly there after I found out some other things that had happened to my precious child in his care and within a week he was gone. Thus started a long long journey to healing for myself and for my daughter and it started what seemed like an constant up hill battle against the Devil.
Being a single mom for a while helped us heal. Then the Lord gave us a man that fell in love with the two of us. While life hasn't always been easy we have always seen the hand of God in it. It's his strength that has held me up and pulled me through during those times I didn't feel like I could stand.
There at the beginning I remember sitting next to Kayle as she slept and praying and crying over her small body asking the Lord to guide me to always do there right thing to help protect her from furthor harm.
God was faithful.
I was married at age 18 to a man I loved very much. At the time we were each others best friend. We met at the place we worked together and he was not a Christian when we met and I couldn't stand him at first. He was a very obnoxious person that followed me around and ask me for a kiss every few minutes. He ask me out daily and finally I told him that the only place I would take him was to church because I wouldn't date him.
He started coming to church with me and after a few times he gave his life to the Lord. He changed in such way that I fell in love with him. Looking back on it now I saw him as my saviour. A way out of a life that had become toxic to me and dangerous.
We were married for 11 years. Some of them were wonderful some were very hard. I will share more of those times later. Let's skip to the the end of those very hard years. The last three years of our marriage was torturous for me. My husband had an affair(it was really his third) and we had tried to make it work after that. Even though I felt like he didn't choose me the woman he had an affair with chose to stay with her husband so mine stayed with me. He wouldn't go to counseling and he wouldn't find a job. So he ended up staying home and taking care of our three year old while I held down two jobs. It was very hard but I didn't know what else to do.
One thing I learned from this is that you never leave a man who cheats home during the day. They get themselves in trouble. In this case with the married neighbor. I have heard it said the wife always knows and I can tell you from experience it's true. I knew the moment it started I just couldn't prove it. This married neighbor had three children, one boy age 5 and twin girls age 4. Their father worked days like I did and the mother worked nights. This made it very convenient to carry on an affair. Accept what to do with the kids? The horrific solution was to lock the children out of the apartment in the grass area of the apartment complex we lived in while they did whatever they wanted in privacy. Four children five years of age and under unsupervised alone. CPS would have a field day with that and with good reason.
During one of these unsupervised times something horrible happened. An older child probably 11 or 12 coaxed my daughter away from the other kids into a storage shed and proceeded to shove rocks up inside her tiny body. I don't know the details I just know the end result my daughter was to young to make much sense. Her father never noticed anything was wrong. I came home from work and she told me that it hurt to sit down. We went to the bathroom and rocks were in her underwear and were falling in the toilet. She told me about the what the other child had done to her and that she was afraid. I was horrified and distraught. I had told myself that nothing like that would ever happen to my daughter if I could prevent it because of what had happened to me. I felt like a failure as a mom because I was unable to protector her.
I went to our pastor for help because I was stuck in the lie the church had told me growing up. That I was to be totally submissive to my husband and take whatever he dished out. My pastor at the time told me that I could not leave the child with my husband anymore and I needed to stand up to him and tell him so. He was being irresponsible. So I did that and it didn't go well. Shortly there after I found out some other things that had happened to my precious child in his care and within a week he was gone. Thus started a long long journey to healing for myself and for my daughter and it started what seemed like an constant up hill battle against the Devil.
Being a single mom for a while helped us heal. Then the Lord gave us a man that fell in love with the two of us. While life hasn't always been easy we have always seen the hand of God in it. It's his strength that has held me up and pulled me through during those times I didn't feel like I could stand.
There at the beginning I remember sitting next to Kayle as she slept and praying and crying over her small body asking the Lord to guide me to always do there right thing to help protect her from furthor harm.
God was faithful.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Screaming Silently
When I was nine or ten we went to visit my Grandmother in Arkansas. My mother is from Arkansas and is the youngest girl of 7 kids. Her brothers and sisters all have stayed there and raised families. We visited once every couple of years that I remember until my Grandmother died.
On this particular trip my cousin Richard was there. I'm not sure exactly how much older Richard was but I think he was at least 17 or 18 years at this time.
Richard was the son of my mothers oldest brother. He had a bit of a reputation among the cousins. Or at least that is what I found out years later. On this trip several of my female cousins came to visit too. They were children of my various aunts many of them older than I.
On one particular day I was out back with Richard and another female cousin and Richard started making comments about my other cousins body. They were crude comments I hadn't really heard before. He called her breasts weird names and tried to touch them. She slapped at him and told him to quit but he didn't. It seemed to escalate and he got more and more bold. The next thing I knew he had pushed her down and was on top of her. She was in a skirt and I saw him put his hand up her dress. While she screamed. I turned and ran toward the house and hid. The adults heard the commotion and came out but I don't remember them doing anything. I don't think she told them what Richard had done to her. I was afraid and I felt dirty for having seen it.
Later in our stay I was sleeping in my Grandmothers room at night on a big bed. One morning I woke up to people talking in the kitchen. I yelled out Mom not wanting to leave the warmth of the bed yet. My mother did not hear me but my cousin Richard did. He opened the door to my grandmothers room and looked around. He got a weird grin on his face and said good morning and closed the door behind him. I watched as he started to unbuckle his pants and walk around the bed. He ask if the bed was comfortable and if he could join me. I began to be very afraid but I couldn't make myself move. He dropped his pants and slid into bed next to me. I told him to get out and he just laughed and told me to be quiet and not scream like my other cousin had. He started touching me and I started to cry. I told him if he didn't get out of my bed I was going to scream. He didn't believe me but that is just what I did. Loud, hard and long. He responded by jumping out of bed and grabbing his pants. He managed to pull them on just in time for my parents and my grandmother to run in. All I could tell them is he touched me I was to ashamed of what he did to tell them how or where.
Nothing was ever done. His parents never told no one ever punished him. As I got older I found out that he had done something to each of the female cousins and there were a lot of them. The result of which was a lot of self loathing and self esteem issues. One cousin the one I witnessed has never mentally been the same.
I have always wondered who abused him to make him an abuser. He has a wife and daughters now and It makes me ill to think about what he might be doing to his own flesh and blood.
Will the silence go on that is the family legacy?
Probably for them. Not for me.
On this particular trip my cousin Richard was there. I'm not sure exactly how much older Richard was but I think he was at least 17 or 18 years at this time.
Richard was the son of my mothers oldest brother. He had a bit of a reputation among the cousins. Or at least that is what I found out years later. On this trip several of my female cousins came to visit too. They were children of my various aunts many of them older than I.
On one particular day I was out back with Richard and another female cousin and Richard started making comments about my other cousins body. They were crude comments I hadn't really heard before. He called her breasts weird names and tried to touch them. She slapped at him and told him to quit but he didn't. It seemed to escalate and he got more and more bold. The next thing I knew he had pushed her down and was on top of her. She was in a skirt and I saw him put his hand up her dress. While she screamed. I turned and ran toward the house and hid. The adults heard the commotion and came out but I don't remember them doing anything. I don't think she told them what Richard had done to her. I was afraid and I felt dirty for having seen it.
Later in our stay I was sleeping in my Grandmothers room at night on a big bed. One morning I woke up to people talking in the kitchen. I yelled out Mom not wanting to leave the warmth of the bed yet. My mother did not hear me but my cousin Richard did. He opened the door to my grandmothers room and looked around. He got a weird grin on his face and said good morning and closed the door behind him. I watched as he started to unbuckle his pants and walk around the bed. He ask if the bed was comfortable and if he could join me. I began to be very afraid but I couldn't make myself move. He dropped his pants and slid into bed next to me. I told him to get out and he just laughed and told me to be quiet and not scream like my other cousin had. He started touching me and I started to cry. I told him if he didn't get out of my bed I was going to scream. He didn't believe me but that is just what I did. Loud, hard and long. He responded by jumping out of bed and grabbing his pants. He managed to pull them on just in time for my parents and my grandmother to run in. All I could tell them is he touched me I was to ashamed of what he did to tell them how or where.
Nothing was ever done. His parents never told no one ever punished him. As I got older I found out that he had done something to each of the female cousins and there were a lot of them. The result of which was a lot of self loathing and self esteem issues. One cousin the one I witnessed has never mentally been the same.
I have always wondered who abused him to make him an abuser. He has a wife and daughters now and It makes me ill to think about what he might be doing to his own flesh and blood.
Will the silence go on that is the family legacy?
Probably for them. Not for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)