Devastating family news rattles the skeletons

I have received some really bad family news this weekend. I am not sure how to process it yet.

Some of it is not surprising, but the source is. It has dug up some skeletons in my closet that I have kept locked up for awhile. Now I need to deal with my demons and come to a solution of what to do.

I am going to start with my own skeletons. Maybe talking about them will help.

First off my family. My mom is the second child of 6. There were 5 girls and then the boy came last, he is 7 years older than me.

My mom met my dad when she was about 15. She turned 16 in October, they married in November, and I was born in June. They divorced a few months before I turned 5.

My earliest memory of the abuse was from when I was about 5. My uncle was probably 11 or 12, just hitting puberty. I spent a bunch of time at grandma's house. My mom was a single mom and my aunts helped take care of me so she could work.

My uncle's room was in the basement. I remember wearing a swimsuit and him trying to clean me up afterwards. From this point it went on until I was at LEAST 12 or 13. My last memory was of him sunbathing in the nude. This was after he had gone off to college and he had come home for the summer. He came in the house after he was done tanning and was rubbing all up against me (I was well developed for my age). I remember telling him to go away and leave me alone. He did and that was the end of that one.

At the age of 7, I was living in Oklahoma with my mom and her druggie boyfriend. That meant I spent 8 weeks every summer with my dad. He worked odd hours at a truck stop. I remember having several really cool babysitters over the years. I also remember Joe.

Joe was dad's roommate. He "taught" me way more than I EVER needed to know. Like my uncle who started before him, this continued on for several years. I know I wasn't his only victim. He also abused my dad's best friend's, David (God rest his soul), little girl. She was just a few years younger than myself. I will also admit that we had a pseudo-lesbian experience when we were WAY TOO YOUNG to be experimenting with crap like that.

I never told anybody about Joe. Especially not my dad. I was young and didn't know better. What's funny is all of this happened at the time Webster was on TV doing commercials on this very subject matter.

Believe it or not, I actually have one more incident. My grandfather. My dearly departed, beloved grandfather. I was a young teen. I lived with my grandparents. My grandfather and I were wrestling around on the floor, when something just "happened". He caught himself. It was an awkward moment. He referred to himself as a "dirty old man" and cried. I felt horrible and strange all at the same time. He never did anything like that again. And up to now, I have never mentioned it to anyone.

So you may ask, did I ever tell anybody? Or why didn't I tell anybody?

I loved my uncle to death. He was really cool. He was good looking. He was fun to hang out with. You get the picture.

When I was about 15, I finally got brave enough and I talked to my mom about my uncle. Her solution was to just forget about it and pretend it didn't happen. Sweep it under the rug, they say.

You know I might have been able to do just that, until recently. Him and his wfe JUST had a baby girl a few months ago. I am so torn. I feel like I need to tell his wife, but I am afraid to tell her. I know if I find out sometime in the future that he ever laid a hand on her in that way and I was able to help prevent it, I will be sick to my stomach. DANG I don't know what to do. Was it just a "kid" thing? Is he over whatever made him do it to start with? Do I talk to him? Do I talk to his wife? GEEZ!!!

My darling husband thinks the deal with my uncle was a fluke thing. I am sorry, dear, but a fluke thing doesn't happen for almost a decade. There are things that it took me several years to become comfortable with between my husband and I because of my past. I know my experience was no where near as bad as others, but it was still there. It still makes me leary of any man that even glances at one of my 2 daughters. It still brings on a feeling of uneasiness when I leave my girls with their own father for a little while. Do I think he would hurt them in that way? NOT ON MY LIFE, but there is still a doubt, you know? I don't know that I will ever get past that.


This now brings this all to the present.

One of my oldest and dearest friends has had to go through this recently with her daughter. To this day her little girl has not named her abuser. Everyone has their suspicions, but since she won't actually name them, they can't do anything. I so feel for that girl and her mother. Her mother and I suspected something was up a long time before it became known. I so wish he could have acted on our instincts to save her more pain and humiliation.

This past weekend, I find out that my cousin's little girl is now in the same boat. She is 6 now. She told her paternal grandma about what was going on last summer. She was 5. That grandmother filed the complaint. The abuser was her maternal grandfather.

I'm just sick! I find this information out on Saturday and not direct from the source. I spend several hours online trying to verify since it seems so preposterous. I finally have to call a friend who is an attorney in the same state, although a different county to help me. She located the info and then helped me decipher the legal mumbo jumbo. My cousin's dad is serving 2 25-year sentences concurrently. He is in his 50's.

After I have all this info verified, I wanted to call my cousin. I don't talk to her very often, but had a sudden feeling of needing to call her a few weeks ago. I shrugged it off, but wish now I hadn't. It was right around the time her dad was sentenced. I did ge over my nervousness and called her last night and we got to chat for a bit. I told her I was there for her if she needed someone to talk to. Well imagine my surprise when she admitted her dad had abused her as well. She told me she thought she was doing well to keep her daughter safe. She still doens't know all that happened with her little girl and I honestly think she really doesn't want to know the details. When my cousin told her mom all those many years ago about what happened (or rather WAS happening), her mom did the same as my mom. Surprise, surprise!!

I am so sorry her daughter had to go through that from someone that she loved and trusted. I am glad that little girl had someone she trusted enough to believe her story so she could get it out in the open and not have to suffer in silence for years like her mother did. I am also glad that it is over and that my other 2 cousin's future daughter's will not be exposed to it.

How refreshing

The kids and I had a playdate today.

My friend J, who I have mentioned before, invited us over to play. It was so incredible to sit and have an adult conversation. We talked about all kinds of things and I feel so ......... refreshed.......energized ........ HUMAN!!!!

Wow it has been so long, I didn't realize how much I needed that. My younger kids played with her younger kids and there were relatively few tears shed among the 6 of them.

She is inspiring, witty, and funny.

Thank you, J, for inviting us into your home and sharing your hospitality with us. We will have to do it again sometime.