I saw your picture today

My life has been more hectic than usual lately. I find myself constantly muttering reminders and walking into rooms with no idea why I'm there.
Everything is so busy.
I have one daughter getting married, another moving away, and my son starting his junior year of high school. I try not to worry, I do. But it comes anyway, in waves and gulps and mist. Sometimes I can breathe through it, pray, unhinge my shoulders from my ears.
But the past few weeks, my mind is a hamster wheel with a cat stuck inside.
And I'm the hamster.
running running running
glancing back occasionally to see how close that cat is to me.

A few days ago I was cleaning off my desk of the zillion little things that accumulate all week with no purpose whatsoever and yet I can't throw any of it away. Paper clips, receipts, mail, ribbon.
I had a few pictures, pictures that I needed to PUT AWAY IN THE BOX ALREADY.
I don't know why I do this but I see them and instead of putting them away, I just move them over 5 inches.
Maybe stack them neater .. and then move over 5 inches. It's so dumb and completely breaks some rule about clutter and touching one's things more than once without putting them in their proper home.
I don't know.
But this day, this day I was making progress.
Up I scooped them and to the closet I went. I keep a plastic bin in there that holds an attempt to organize all my pictures.
A very sloppy attempt.
I can't ever find what I am looking for without going through them all a thousand times. Today though, instead of dumping the handful in, I pulled the box out, sat down, scooched my back up against the wall, and took off the lid.
I smiled.
There they were. All my babies.
Small. Laughing. Safe.
I lifted a stack out and started rummaging through them; remembering what it was like to have Breann run up to me and give me a hug around my legs, laughing at the look of mischief on Sammi's face as she eyeballed her sister, smiling at the seriousness of Jacob on my wedding day when he was just five. I always get a little misty when I look at these.
Our life.
How fast it goes by.
I continued to filter through them and then, random, I found an old one of me.
Me. Kendra. Tracy.
I blinked.
This was Kelly St.
All the houses in the group home were named by the street they sat on.
Kelly St. was for newbies.
Tracy was my roommate. She stood on the far right.
Tracy.
So obviously hard in her leopard print pants and football jersey. Eyes like steel. Eyes that screamed, STAY AWAY FROM ME.
Kendra. She doesn't look loud here but I remember. Her voice carried like a mega-phone was attached to it. It was like she sucked all the oxygen in from the room and then it came roaring out every time she spoke or laughed or yelled. And she did all three. Frequently.

And then there's me. I look so ... so...
small.
A child. Face partially hidden in my hair. Hand clenched inside my shirt. A jean skirt and black high-topped converse.

It's the shoes that got me.
The shoes that grabbed a hold of my eyes and my memory and then slammed my heart against a concrete wall painted baby diarrhea green.

Leaning against the wall in my hallway while I sat on the floor. Nobody home. No one to hear me. I leaned my head back and bawled.

You ever see those car commercials where the city is dark and yet you can see lights zipping through the city, the freeway, and it's just a blur this way, a blur that way?
fasterfasterfaster

That was my brain. Zipping and blurring and skidding along, trying hard to grasp what I was supposed to see here, what I was supposed to get.

This picture.
Taken in the group home.
Which was after juvenile hall.
which was after I was arrested,
and when I was arrested I wasn't wearing any shoes.
Shoe-less
Calloused
Hard.
Exposed.
Going in barefoot. Well, that was no big deal.
Walking in toes out, in the middle of the night, doesn't compare to the humiliation of being stripped, searched, squatting, coughing, jeered at by coaches and detainees alike.
But going out, in brightness of midday, with a complete stranger, to a waiting van...
well... I kind of think it's how Adam and Eve must have felt.
Naked.
Exposed.

Seen for who they had become.

I relate to how they must have frantically searched for leaves, brush, anything anything to cover themselves, because I would have given anything for at least a pair of shower shoes.
but juvie.
They don't give anything away.
Your vulnerability is on full display.
Remember this moment, child.... and don't come back.

This picture.

I'm thirteen.
Smiling. In a group home. With shoes they bought me.
You would never guess by looking at this that just months before I had started smoking cigarettes,
and then weed,
and then snorting lines of meth,
and drinking more alcohol than I could puke out,
and giving my virginity away to a greasy boy I didn't like and didn't like me,
and then swallowing a bottle of pills the next day because I was so disgusted and wanted to float,
and then taking a car that wasn't mine,
and then putting my hands up with a gun pointed at me.
You wouldn't guess that for the first two weeks in juvie I ate with a dixie cup cut in half and couldn't have a blanket with corners and they peeked in the window every half hour to make sure I was still breathing..
You wouldn't guess that I would jump up, fists swinging at
anyone anyone anyone
who looked at me crazy or uttered a word about me being white or young or a princess.
You wouldn't guess that I had stopped caring a long time ago and
nothing nothing nothing
would make me flinch in fear.
I knew what to be afraid of and these girls and this place wasn't it.
I grew up with monsters.

This picture.

In a place that most couldn't wait to leave but I felt safe.
I could breathe and smile and go to school and close my door and refuse the phone.
I didn't have to pretend.
I didn't have to run.
I could just be.

This picture.

I held it in my hand as I cried on my floor. Thinking back to all the places I had been, the things I had done, the horrors that had been done to me.

And I'm more than just o.k. now.
I do more than just survive.
I live.
I love.

I think about all the people that have said to me,
You're so strong.
You made it.
You did it.

And I always get asked the question,
How?

And my answer, so inadequate, such a let down to what they were hoping for.
Just a shrug. A nonchalance, not because i didn't care but because I didn't know what to say.

And as I sat on the floor, it came. Something I have known but didn't really grasp until right then.

This picture.

I stared at it, blurry in my tears, heartsick in the worry that sometimes wants to drown me for my own kids, and their struggles, and the pain and disappointment they are learning to feel and walk with and grow in. All the things I can't save them from.

I could weep for the girl in this picture.

But I won't.

I've done so much of that already. A mourning for a different life that was stolen in whispers and darkened bedrooms with a person that's now dead.
I celebrate her instead.
For waking up.
For somehow choosing to keep going.
For dreaminng of something bigger.
For sacrifcing so her kids would have what she did not.
It's incredible.
The strength.
Not hers but from the one she shunned and raged against and blamed for so long.

HIM.
Giving a strength she could not muster.
There were no big girl panties to pull up. Someone had yanked those down from her long long before.

This picture.

It's a child.

And then I knew.
He was right there, in every moment I felt alone, in every tear I dropped, in each place I felt my heart crack and shudder, He was with me. His heart broke next to mine.
All that love He walked in and pursued me with ...
it is the same love He walks and pursues my kids with.

They will struggle and their hearts may break,
but they won't die.
It won't kill them.

He will carry them,
strengthen them,
and they will do more than survive.
They will live.

I get it.
And I hope you get it too.
Our kids, we want so badly to protect them from everything... and it's our job to want to do that. We should do that in all the best ways we can.
But we also have to know that is an impossible task.
We are here to love them, guide them, pray over them, support them,
and let them go.
They are not alone.
Not ever.
Breathe deep mamas. Unhinge your shoulders from your ears.
It's a big love out there.
It's a perfect peace.

Clump of dirt

When I visit my mom, we smoke. She lights up a fat cigar and I suck on a camel. I always make sure I have a fresh pack, because by the time I leave they are almost gone. It is not weird to smoke with my mom. Sometimes I wonder what we would do with our hands if we didn't.

Together.

Would we cry? Would we scream? Would we drown inside it all? Or would we laugh until the crazy left us? I am not sure. But when we talk and swap stories, sometimes the words are so heavy, it is the drag that lifts us back up, gives us the pause to catch our breath, and enables us to keep going. This will not be the case forever. But for now, I have given myself a break and I will take it as it is. Until we are ready.

I sat with mom just a week ago on her back porch. The sun warmed us as the ocean air breathed over us. For five hours we sat. Together. Giving and taking strength - comfort. We talked about the monster and how everyone celebrated him. How they cried in sadness and eulogized his life. I shook my head at how blind people choose to be, unable or unwilling to pull the covers back and see what really is. Was.

It was always my plan to go. I wanted to see him dead. I wanted to watch the dirt fall and bury him. I always pictured that with each clump that fell and sealed him under, it would in turn release me. I wanted them to see me, see how unbroken I am. I wanted them to look into my face and remember, remember how they forgot about me, how they pushed me aside, how they failed a little girl and left her to fend for herself. I wanted them to know that the truth is still here and no matter how many miles separate us, the horror of it all will always bind us together in a way distance can never separate.

But I did not go. And my mom did not ask me to.


I have another Grandpa, a real one. One that loved me. One that took me to Padres games. One that told me stories while he smoked his pipe. One that had few words but would nod his head and tell me, "You've done real good, Shannon. Real good. I'm proud of you." One that wasn't sure if it was ok to hug me when I came back to California at nine years old, traumatized and soul broken. One that called me once he had moved to Missouri to tell me he was saved now and he had kept the letter I had written him, telling him about Jesus. One that I wasn't afraid to have my kids know. He was a good Grandpa. The best. He died this past year and I couldn't go. The reasons are many and life, but I was so sad to not be there. To honor him. To show respect for him and all he has done, all he has given.

How could I not go to the funeral of the grandpa I loved and go to the funeral of the one I hated most of my life? The irony of it hit me hard in the gut and I knew I could not do it. I would not give the monster that honor. I refused my presence in his life. I would refuse it also in his death.

My mom told me later how glad she was I was not there, even though she had been so close to asking me to go with her. "I don't think you could have stood it," she said quietly. "I could barely stand it. It made me sick.... You would have been SO angry.I thought about getting up and saying something, telling everyone there who he really was ... but I didn't have the balls." She looked up at me, from her cigar and the sun, "But you would have."

And in that moment she gave me a little piece, a clump of dirt, and my soul moved up. Just a tiny bit higher.

Where did all the good grandpa's go?

This is not the original post I intended to write. For two days I have hammered out consonants and vowels, explanation points and long periods but something, something was just
off.
I felt muddy. And like I couldn't see clearly. So I took a deep breathe this morning, hit "save as draft" and took a shower.

Wouldn't you know it? While shampooing my hair all these thoughts and and complete sentences flowed in and out and I thought, "Wait a minute! I can't even write this down.... should i get a tape recorded for the bathroom?"
I mean, come on. Should I?

Because I have to be honest, some I have forgotten and the more I try to piece it together the more I feel like I'm trying to herd a field of cats, so instead, I wiped the page clean.
and here we are.

I like do overs. I think they are pretty rad.

So here we go, I'm just going to let it fly.

My monster died last month. He had a name and a title. But I never use it for him. Just thinking it makes me want to hock a loogie the size of my fist into the ground and then poop on it. Or dance in a graveyard wearing a white dress.
I won't do this though. I don't poop outside and I don't wear dresses.

Instead I will write and I will attempt to rid myself of the junk and maybe, just maybe, help someone else get through the same thing. I mean, one in five ya'll.

That's a fact.

A woman every two minutes. 60% go unreported. So, I'm not a math genius or anything but one in 5 is keeping it on the low side. There's a lot of us walking around out here.
The sexually assaulted. The raped. The molested.
We're breathing, singing in our cars, taking our kids to Chuck E Cheese, filling our gas tanks, hiking up a mountain, sitting in church, and trying real hard to have good sex with our husbands without freaking out because all of a sudden we get so damn scared, and then it's not our husband kissing us anymore.

A lot of survivors. Even more victims.

And some, some, are forced to see their abuser

every
single
day.

They smile, and hug, and go to restaurants,

pretending

it's all ok.

A big high-five to all ya'll that do that for one reason or another. It's a bravery I do not have. I prefer the confrontational kind. But this kind, it takes a different sort of strength to keep moving in dignity and quiet while someone constantly tries to break you with whispers that no one else can hear. I shed tears for you. In applause, not pity.
my sisters, my sisters.

So yes, he's dead.

Finally.
And maybe you can detect a little bit of flippancy here, a tiny fraction of anger as I type? I've got some stuff to work out.

This I know.

But not with all the details. I don't want to get stuck. Freedom is calling. So I am going to post an essay I wrote a little bit back. Just so we're all on the same page and we are clear on who the monster is.
In case any of my family reads this, I imagine you are getting a little excited, a little red-faced concerning all the dirty secrets I'm letting out because "ding dong the monsters' dead" is playing a tune in my brain.
Please. (I'm smiling)
Let me assure you. (My smile is growing)
I let it out (yes?)
a long time ago. (biggest smile ever breaking my face wide open. Can you see it?)

I did it (spilled the beans, lifted the rug, threw poop into the fan)
To my coaches in juvenile hall.
On the internet.
To my therapist.
To my husband.
And my ex-husband.
My kids know.
My friends know.
My church knows.

Women I meet for the first time find out when I hug them and pray with them and tell them...
you don't have to be stuck. don't give him that power. you are free. break free. live your life and be happy. God's gonna get em'. Cross my heart, girl.
Cross
My
patchworked, duct-taped, dragged on the ground, held together with toothpicks and Jesus mercy,
Heart.

God knows. I mean, seriously, ok? GOD. KNOWS.
Beat that.

So here it is. My story. Well, a small portion of it anyway. I saved myself in this one. It is the only time I was able to.

Small…and Slightly Bigger

She was eight when this all went down.
Eight is very small.
She wore her hair in pigtails then. It was long. She’d dress up and walk really fast in her purple plastic high heel shoes so she could hear them click, click, click, just like pretty grown –up ladies. She had a lot of Barbies and a 3-story Barbie Dream house. It was pink and white with an elevator. She loved Strawberry Shortcake more than anything. Her Grammy made her all the dolls and for Christmas one year, she got the record. She would put headphones on and sing at the top of her lungs in the living room… “Ice cream! And my name is Sugar… and I love all the flavors of the world. I like chocolate and vanilla and mocha…”

She used to fish with her Grandpa.

Tucked inside in the dark, knees to her chin, eyes squeezed shut, she hides. She doesn't like the dark much. Bad things happen here, in bedrooms with heavy tapestry curtains that block out all the light and muffle the voice. The bed is too high for her and so she must pull on the blankets and climb up, work her way towards what makes her stare at the ceiling and dream of butterfly cocoons and blue skies that let her float and fly free… far away from here. This room smells like her Grammy; feminine, vanilla, and glamorous. But it sounds like him; old, out of breath, and monster. Where did all the good grandpa’s go?

Her Grammy would read her bible stories at night. Her favorite was Noah and the ark and the rainbow. She loved the rainbow! A multi-colored sticky-note from God. His promise the sun would come back.

She wished everyone would keep their promises the way God did.

She loved snuggling up to her Grammy, she was alabaster and soft, a satin shirt pillow with pink lipstick. She was fascinated by her. She was so different from her own mother who blended in with everyone else that wore bell-bottoms and long hair parted in the middle. Mother was plain. Grammy was a movie star. She would always call her “Darling" but she would say it all southern and draggy and high-pitched, "Daaahhh-ling!", and then she'd throw her head back and laugh so hard and deep her breasts would bounce all over while her belly danced along. She was Marilyn Monroe but better. She was hers.
And she loved her so.

Eight is very small. Very small indeed.

The house she lived in with them and her mother was two stories and brick. White pillars stood tall and grand in the front. The backyard was big with a garden, and a lone oak tree held a homemade swing of rope and boards. There was a birdbath. And anthills. The first time she saw them they made her think of California. She smiled and pushed both hands in all the way up to her elbows so she could smell the salt and feel sand run out of her fingers. But it wasn’t sand and the tiny dots of red fire curled all over her arms in angry protest and she screamed and screamed until her mom came running out of the house to save her.
While she stared at her mom with the remnants of the anthill demolition on her hands and a dirty face of streaked tears; her mom told her she had to be careful with what she touched; things weren’t always what they seemed.

She didn’t know until later her mom wasn’t just talking about ants.
She didn’t know until later her mom would not save her ever again.

This is where she lived. In a house seen normal. In a house others would envy. He was IMPORTANT. Everyone knew him. People at the City. People at the Church. The girls at the school where he worked. But it wasn't normal. It was nightmares and secrets and dark; full of pretend love and make-believe smiles.

She wasn't the only one the monster came after.

She’s just the only one that wanted to leave.

He would whisper to her, in the dark, “this is our secret. You can’t ever tell. I’m just protecting you now.. ‘cause if you tell.. they ain’t gonna believe you. And they gonna be real mad.” Sometimes she would ask why, why would they be mad at her? And he would smile.. and he would kiss her on the lips… and he would say, “because good little girls don’t do these kinds of things.” Sometimes she would cry but not very often because if she did, he would put a pillow over her head.

But she did tell, a lot of days and too many naps later, she blurted it out when she was standing next to her Barbie dream house, still dripping from the shower and wrapped in a towel. Her mom was yelling at her about something else, something small. “Mommy¸ grandpa’s touching me... down there.” Her mom stared... stuck with her arms mid-air and a mouth that moved but no words came out. She doesn’t remember when her mom walked out of the room and didn’t hug her or when she got dressed or how they got to the living room where he sat crying… and Grammy was crying and clutching her bible and sometimes she would yell out, “Jesus Frank! How could you do this?”… and his other daughters were yelling too but not at him, at her… And he was right. They didn’t believe her. They were real mad. They called her bad girl names.

bitch. liar. whore.

I left. I only went back once.

Eight is very small. Eleven is only slightly bigger.
But for me, it was big enough.

My Grammy wasn’t supposed to leave me alone. That was the agreement. I would have someone with me at all times. But the phone rang. Someone called in sick. Now she was showering, blow drying her red hair, putting on her pink lipstick… while I waited, my blue eyes watched her and my tongue was stuck inside my throat.

It made no difference to speak.

She turned to me as she grabbed her purse, “It’s only for a few hours honey. Everything’s gonna be just fine. You two have fun now and Grammy will be back.” Then she was gone.
I stood at the bedroom door staring at the spot Grammy no longer was. I could hear my heart thudding in my ears. I could hear the blood moving through my veins like cars on a freeway going too fast too fast. My eyes blinked.

Who would help me?

I could feel him staring at me from the couch where he sat. He said my name. I looked at him. I did not smile. I did not make any noise.
“Don’t be scared of me. Please.” He looks down at the floor, his hands fidgeting in his lap. I stare at the wisps of gray on his balding head. He looks back at me. He is starting to cry on the couch. His bloated belly hangs over his pants, pulling his shirt tight. “I’m not like that anymore. Please don’t look at me like that. Just come here. Come. Sit.” And he pats his fat old man knee.
My brain has exploded. I can’t hear the words in my own head because it is so loud. I don’t know what to do. He is crying. (liarliarliarliarliarliar) He is old. (liarliarliarliarliar) It’s been three years. (liarliarliarliarliar) Maybe he is… different? (nononononononono)
I walked over to him.
I sat on his knee.
“See there, it’s ok.” He smiles. He pats my knee that is covered by jeans. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I will never hurt you.” And then he did. Just that quick.

I felt his hand go up my shirt, brush my belly, and squeeze my nipple. I was numb. I was dead. I didn't say no. I didn’t beg or cry or scream. It really is my fault, I thought. I sat on his knee. I am a whore. I asked for it. Just like they said.
stupidstupidstupidstupid
And then he put his tongue IN. MY. MOUTH.

It was then that I saw her. In the dark. Eight. But she looked different. Her eyes were not squeezed shut. Instead they were wide open and blazing and fierce. Her face was wet but it wasn’t fear leaking out of her eyes.
It was anger.
And it was hate.
And it was BIG.
She screamed at me. "GET. UP! You knew this would happen, you knew he was the same. You knew it! Don't just sit there. GET UP!! You are not 8! Fight him! WE are not 8!"
And then the whisper.
"No one else will help you."
I knew she was right.

I whipped my head back and jumped away from him, even as he tried to grab me back down. Into the kitchen I ran, looking behind me to see where he was, and turning back to snatch what I was looking for.
I grabbed a knife.

It was a very big knife.

Just the kind of knife a girl at eleven may need to keep herself safe.
Because she knew no one else would help her.

I held it in front of me and we did not shake. We did not cry. We did not stutter. We pointed it at him. He stopped walking and watched us from across the kitchen.
I spoke quiet and bold, pushing the fear down and letting the hate rise up.. into my heart, into my blood, into my hands.

My fingers clutched the knife.

“I will kill you if you come near me ever, ever again.” He flinched.
And he did not move. He knew that we meant it.