Borne in Silence

Depression,  psychological trauma, low self-esteem, self-loathing, somatization, low self-efficacy, pervasive interpersonal difficulties, feelings of contamination, worthlessness, shame, helplessness… these are my fathers legacy and my daughter’s burden.

My mother sent me this text months ago, when this was still fresh and we still had some contact.

“When you think of your dad you don’t see his face, the face of a man who has loved his children and his grandchildren…”

I do see my fathers face…almost every night, and I see myself grabbing it, ripping it to shreds, and tearing flesh from bone with my bare hands.

I know that sounds dark and disturbing to say that about your own father…but it is a reoccurring dream I have. The only thing that changes, is the location or how I do it, but the result is always the same..I reduce my father to a broken pile of flesh and bone, and I wake from it at 3:30 in the morning, my heart racing, not from fear, because it is not a nightmare, but from the adrenaline.

“Who has lived an exemplary life for 75 years and 1/2 years only to find himself in a situation has cost him almost everything.”

An exemplary life…I do not know about that, but by all accounts, to everyone who knew my father, before all of this came to light, he was a good man, a man I loved and honored since I was a child, a man I held in the absolute highest regard for my entire life.

He built a business from nothing but sweat and gave much to everyone. He was a deacon in his church and a member of the choir. I remember getting ready for church on Sundays and he would be practicing for some solo, he would be singing later that morning. He taught me about the value of hard work, of self-reliance, that I could build anything and he taught me how to stand up… in every way.

When I, as the oldest son, chose a different path, instead of becoming part of the business he had built, I never felt any sort of resentment from him, only pride.

Just writing this breaks my heart for the loss of the father I knew.

“…only to find himself in a situation…”

“..a situation”….?

Words, just like actions, are chosen by the writers, and my mothers reference to my daughter, as “a situation” my father finds himself in, tears at me deeply, every time I read it.

She is my only daughter, my first born child and she was your granddaughter.

She is not a situation!

The “situation” your husband, my father, finds himself in, is one of his own making, of his own design, built by his own hands, over years of hard work and effort in an attempt to take something beautiful and pure, and twist it, into some lechers plaything!

“…he has been majorly affected by his health issues…”

I have heard from my brother and my sister, that my father is claiming brain damage due to a stroke.

Brain damage is actually quite a common defense for rapist, pedophiles and child abusers.

…but brain damage or not my father knew right from wrong…and I know that to be true.

Otherwise, why would he threaten my daughter, why would he threaten suicide if she went to the police, or told me.

People who don’t know right from wrong…don’t try to hide their actions…criminals who know right from wrong, do.

“…this husband father grandfather could potentially die in prison..”

I have thought long and hard on this, and I believe that for someone to be judged on the single worse action in their life, would truly be beyond tragic.

Imagine, doing good and great things your entire life, only to be judged by your worse single action or mistake…what if you could erase just that one, …tabula rasa.

Unfortunately,  nothing would change and we would still be in this situation, because my father committed many acts against my daughter, not one but over thirty-five physical acts….we would have to erase the last 6 years of his life.

No…there is only one “single action” that could ever be erased, that would solve the “situation” my father finds himself in… my daughter would have to be silenced, my daughter would have to live or die with this, in silence.

My daughter has many regrets for speaking up. She sees the pain we are all in, she feels the shame, as we know and discover what she has been through, what has been done to her and what she was forced to do. She feels the pain of the relationships that are in ruins, and the sides that have been chosen.

Sometimes, as horrible as it sounds I believe some of them wouldn’t care what my daughter was going through, as long as she just kept it a secret and didn’t put my father and my family in this “situation”.

The pain, loss, grief and guilt, I have felt since this started, is well beyond anything I have ever experienced in my life. So I understand when she has regrets about all of this.

But I would gladly take on a hundred times what I have been through and carry it alone if I have to. There is nothing I would not willingly endure to see my daughter whole again, to know that when she looks in the mirror, she sees herself through my eyes..

…to know that she sees beauty, strength, talent, hope and kindness.

Child abusers, do not look like what you would expect.

They are not sketchy, half shaven, strangers moving through the shadows of back alleys, in bad parts of town.

They are your fathers, your uncles, your coaches, your clergy, they are family friends, and trusted teachers, they are usually the people you least expect, and that is why you never see it coming.

As parents, my wife and I were always cognizant of the dangers that children face. My wife herself was molested when she was young, so she was especially on guard in regards to my daughter and who had access to her.

We had a standard set of rules..No sleepovers with friends unless we know the family, no sleepovers with friends if there are teenage boys in the house., etc..etc. our friends referred to me as “Daddy Gestapo”.

So, in June of 2012, when our son was taken into the ICU at a local children’s hospital,  and we were told he would be there for quite a while, we had no hesitation when we sent our daughter to stay with my parents for several weeks..after all, we knew with what our son was going through, we would not be able to take care of our her at the same time…and she loved her grandmommy and grandaddy…and we trusted them.

That 3 1/2 week visit with my parents would change my daughter forever, but I had no idea, that for a year prior, the foundation for something horrible had already been lain.

…and it started with a whisper.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“If I was younger, I could be your boyfriend?”

“If you were older we could get married.”

“It will be our secret.”

That’s how it started when my daughter was 11,  a “harmless” whisper from her loving grandfather.

I remember sitting on opposite couches, as my father whispered into my daughter’s ear smiling… I remember thinking how nice it was that he spent time with her and that he talked to her….how he made her feel special.

I know now what he was whispering…I know now why he was making her feel special.

So in the summer of 2012, as my son lay in a hospital bed fighting for his life, and while my wife and I were at our lowest,  my father had unfettered access to my daughter, and he spent every moment with her…whispering…and caressing..and pushing the boundaries with my daughter.

My son would eventually recover enough that we would finally go home from the hospital, but it was a slow recovery. He required around the clock care, it was almost like having an infant again.

My daughter too would return home, but she was not the same little girl, that she once was, and we were so caught up in my sons health and saving his eye sight, that we did not realize how different she was.

At first, we thought it was because she had spent so much time away from us, that she felt abandoned and alone.

When school started back up, my daughter started dressing and acting different. My son was placed in Homebound, a special program for kids who for medical reasons are unable to attend school, for long periods of time. My daughter continued to pull away from us in the weirdest ways, not coming out of her room for long periods of time.

Within a year we were pulling her out of public school due to behavior issues.

We had a difficult couple of years that we blamed on our selves for neglecting our daughter, while our son was sick, it is only now that we know the truth, only now we know what my father was doing all those years.

The guilt I feel, as the father who failed to protect his daughter, is as immeasurable, as the rage and anger I feel towards my father for the damage he has done.

Parents, talk to your kids . Make sure they understand what abuse looks like, make them understand, that if anyone asks them to keep a secret, even a small one, it is a bad thing. When they come home from someone’s house, talk to them and make sure they felt safe there,  ask them if they want to go back or if it was weird or strange.

I missed something somewhere, and my daughter, my son, my wife…we are all paying for it.

Tonight I learned, that for my father, the man who molested my daughter over 30 times, life goes on.

Sure he has an ankle bracelet and his travel is limited to legal matters, but at least he is surrounded by loved ones.

To think that my nieces, my nephews, their girlfriends, and my sisters are spending Easter with my father, knowing what he has done, is beyond me.

To know they are celebrating Easter with him, while we are trying to pull our lives back together after all the damage he has caused, is infuriating.

To see them smiling for the camera, in bunny ears, him standing in the background,  then to have the audacity, the nerve, to post the photos on Facebook, and social media, all the while, knowing that he has molested and sodomized my daughter for years,  is insane to me.

How can anyone live in such denial?

What can they believe that would make this possible?

Or maybe they are are just hiding the truth, for as long as they can, waiting for my fathers trial.

Will they ever tell the truth, or will it just be another family secret, my daughter, my son, my wife, myself, completely ostracized like pariah, to hide the horrible truth?

Think again, because I will never let that happen.

This is not our shame to bear.

This is not your truth to bury.

There isn’t a carpet big enough to sweep this under.

Sooner or later, we will be standing face to face, in court…and I will remember how each and every one of you, hurt my daughter again and again, piling on insult after insult, injury after injury, all because you chose to stand by the man who molested and sodomized her.

You chose poorly,…very, very poorly.

I have this reoccurring dream, where I can hear my father screaming and begging to be let out of this extremely dark room, that he is being kept in.

The room is pitch black just inside the threshold of the open door, and no light from the hallway I am standing in, penetrates that dark place.

I do not doubt that my father is in that dark place now, and I do not doubt that my mother and siblings hold me responsible for the place that he is in emotionally, as well as the place that he will soon be in reality.

But I am not the architect of any of this.

I did not choose what my father did to my daughter, any more than she chose it.

On the day this whole thing blew up, I flew to confront my father. I sent him a text just before the plane took off, hoping he would have killed himself before I got there, saving me the trouble, saving us all the trouble. Instead, he was taken into custody and placed on suicide watch for several weeks.

A few weeks after he was released, I received a text from my mother’s phone.

Understand, that my mother has had very little to say to me since this whole thing started, a couple of words in a text, in response to me pouring my heart out, is about all I have received. I suspect she is still in shock. So to see a text of this length from my mother was surprising, but I wasn’t more than a line or two in, before I realized it wasn’t from my mother at all, it was from my father.

 

Upon reading this, my adrenaline immediately spiked, my heart rate went up, my hands were shaking. I began going through my phone, blocking any way that he could contact me or my family..I blocked everyone and everything…my mom, my sisters, my brother, email, the Xbox.  I had my wife do the same.

He seems desperate to communicate, but I have nothing to say to him, there is nothing I want to hear from him, and I definitely don’t want to risk him reaching out to my wife or my children… as far as I am concerned my father is dead.

Regardless..I would like to break down several quotes from this text, in an attempt to give its content, some context, but notice one thing…there is no mention in this “apology” of my daughter.

“I could not stay away any longer, I miss your voice in the mornings”

My father and I have spoken at least 5 days a week since I purchased my first cell phone 15 years ago, and because of that, I was closer to him than anyone else in my family. While he works with my brother, sister, and mom, I spoke to him just to hear his voice, to ask him about his day, tell him about mine. I shared more with him than any other person outside of my marriage. That came to an end the instant I knew what he had done. The last contact I had with my father before I knew, was on Friday, Dec 7. I spoke to him that morning, then sent a text that evening, reminding him and my mom to watch “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” on Netflix. Then there was the last text I sent him from the airplane:

 

We have not spoken since, but for weeks after this started, I still had this overwhelming urge to call him when I got into my car, and to say that the loss of him, has created a huge hole in my heart and soul, would be an understatement. I do not doubt he misses my voice and our talks about nothing in particular, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t as well. However, I also regularly dream of hacking his arms and legs off, while he is still alive, or beating him to death with anything within reach.

“I know the whole family is hurting because of me, most of all you and your family and your mom.”

This is the first admission of guilt that I’ve seen from my father for molesting my daughter. I am told that he said as much, if not more, in front of the police that first night that he was taken into custody under suicide watch.

“My family has always been everything to me and never in my life have wanted to do anything that would hurt my family but I have and am sorry more than you could ever know.”

At one time I would have believed this statement, but I have been forced to reevaluate and second guess my entire life, even the smallest of things. 

“..am sorry more than you could ever know.”

How does someone sneak into a room in the middle of the night and molest my daughter over 30 times then say “I’m sorry.”?

How can someone commit the ultimate betrayal, then say “I’m sorry.”?

How does someone destroy so many lives, then say “I’m sorry.”?

“I am trying to understand how this happened.”

So many people are trying to figure out why this happened.

Was it brain damage? The heart medication? The Percocet abuse?

They are trying so hard to find the reason because they just can’t face the truth.

And the truth is my father, had been patiently and methodically grooming my daughter for several years. I didn’t see it, my wife didn’t see it. But looking back now the pieces are much clearer.

He knew what he was doing was wrong and he was planning on doing it the entire week we were there for Christmas.

He had no plans other than to escalate what he had been doing, no plans but to drug and rape my daughter.

“It is my prayer and hope that someday I will be able to make it up to all of you”

How?!!!

You deliberately hurt my little girl!!!

You broke her into pieces, then did it again and again and again!

You told her you would kill yourself if she told!

You told her I would never believe her!

You tried to buy her silence like she was a common whore!

She will carry this pain with her for the rest of her life!

She will have self-esteem issues!

She will have trust issues!

She will have intimacy issues!

She is 4 times more likely to commit suicide because of what you’ve done!

You have betrayed me… more than I have ever been betrayed by anyone in my life!

You have taken my daughter’s innocence, her sense of self-worth!

You have taken my mother from me!

You have taken my siblings from me!

You have taken my father from me!

In the single moment, it took for me to hear the truth of what you have done, you took every bit of love, honor, and respect I ever held for you and turned it into rage and anger and hatred.

You have destroyed relationships built on a lifetime, and have changed our family forever.

There are not enough lifetimes to undo the damage you have done!

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do, to make it up to me, my daughter or my family.

There are days when I question what I am doing, the right thing is not always the easy thing, and the costs will be high, and I know I will pay them, but I also know what I must do…for my daughter, my self, my wife and my son.

….and whenever I question my path or feel like I may waiver from my course, I look at this portrait of my father that my daughter drew. …and I rest in the truth of my purpose.

There is one path and I am on it, till the end.

What does justice look like?

On December 8^th, when all of this started,  justice looked much different to me than it does now.

Today, justice looks like this slow-moving machine, with missing gears, lumbering along on its last leg, leaving a mess of parts and greasy gunk in its wake.

If you have ever seen any of the popular TV crime dramas, you will be very disappointed. Nothing is neat, and nothing gets wrapped up in 45 minutes, without commercials.

Criminal justice is slow. It does not exist to serve the victim, it exists to serve the state. It is always more concerned with the well being and rights of the criminal…or at least that is how it feels.

Yes, there are all sorts of programs and assigned advocates for victims, and I have been thankful for what they have done for my daughter, but real information as to what is happening, is scarce. There are weeks without a word, months go by without any visible changes in status. In our case, it took nearly 6 weeks from the initial police report, before my father was even arrested.

For victims and their families, it is an unbearable waiting game.

And then you finally hear the charges…

To know, that 5 years of grooming, psychological abuse, control, manipulation, fondling, molestation, threats, extortion, coercion, and forced sodomy, can be reduced to 3 charges, is the definition of insanity to me.

To know, that over 30 physical acts of abuse against my daughter, in two different states, can be reduced to 3 charges, is an insult to my daughter and my family.

I know the 3 charges are severe, I know that each one carries a 5-40 year sentence, and my father will most likely die in prison.

But to me, my father is getting off easy.

Justice would be my father being charged with every thought, every spoken word and every act against my daughter.

Justice would be my father having to stand in front of my daughter and I, as every charge is read.

Justice would be having every one of my father’s family member in the courtroom, to hear the charges against him and my daughter’s testimony.

Justice looks very different to me today than it did 6 months ago, and even though I know what it looks like to me, it looks very different to my daughter, and it looks very different to my wife.

Eventually, I know we will have to reset our expectations, lower them, to match the reality of our criminal justice system.

A system that has been a slow and disappointing experience, a system that has a lot less to do with justice for victims, than you would think.

The first moment you learn your child has been the victim of abuse is like a hand grenade being thrown into the room, your ears ringing from a horrible truth, voices trail off into the distance. You are struck, with an epiphany as hindsight takes hold, you see the pieces and clues of behavior, falling into place…pieces that never made any sense before, or meant nothing at all, or just seemed odd.

For me, my feelings toward my father, the man who abused my daughter, went from immense love, honor, and respect…. to rage, justice, and vengeance…in seconds.

In those first few moments, there is a massive amount of destruction, and then you spend months sifting through the rubble of your life, trying to piece together what has happened and how.

As the facts and timetables unfold so do your worst nightmares because no matter how shocking the initial blast was, you were never able to conceive the whole truth.

Had I been hit by the whole truth in those first few moments, it is unlikely my father would have survived the day and it is unlikely that I would be walking around free.

But as it usually does, it unfolded slowly, as criminal investigations started in two separate states and my daughter was seeing multiple therapists on a weekly basis.

Timelines fall into place, and you realize how deep the wounds are and how difficult they will be to heal. Details emerge slowly, through forensic interviews and exams, each one more shocking and disturbing than the next.

One of the more surprising revelations for us, was that there was an eye witness to the abuse. When the police told me who it was and relayed the story my daughter told them, I was shocked that the witness had not come forward…after all, it was my own sister. How could my own sister, know the truth, be a witness to the abuse of my daughter and hide the fact? It explains why she refuses to speak to the police.

As you sift through the rubble you realize there is loose and dangerous debri everywhere and at any time a lot more damage can be done…and your constantly hoping that all of the pieces have finally come to rest.

Yesterday, I heard from the lead detective, in the case against my father, for molesting my daughter.

It was sad to hear that none of my siblings will speak to the police.

I expected it from my sisters, and definitely from my mother, but it was truly disappointing to hear, that even my brother, who has daughters, would not cooperate with them.

As disappointing and as sad as it was to learn, how uncooperative they have been, it was not a surprise.

My older sister had already told my daughter that she could not support her this way because she had to support my mom. I am positive that my sister has not told her adult children, that their grandfather, molested and sodomized my daughter over 35 times, and had been fondling and grooming her since she was 11.

My younger sister made her feelings clear in a text she sent me after she heard the horrible charges against my father.

I have not heard from her or her family since and I do not expect to.

Maybe if my sisters had a daughter that was molested and sodomized over 35 times by their own father, they would feel differently.

My brother is a completely different story. I assumed he had some understanding of what I was going through. He has two daughters of his own, surely he would be empathetic if anyone would. But I assume since he has taken over my fathers business he has other concerns and more to lose.

I know now, that I have finally lost my entire family…my father through his actions and betrayal, my mother because she stood beside my father, my sisters because they had to support my mother and now my brother.

I lost them all because my father had been abusing my daughter since she was 11.

I lost them all because we will never share the same feelings about what my father has done.

I lost them all because for them to move on with their lives, my daughter must be forgotten, my father must be the victim and I must be the monster that destroyed him.