The Day I Died

So on my way up to the summit, we call this period……… tool gathering.

In August 1988, I went to live with my mom.  I wish I could sit here and say that everything after that was perfect. My father disowned me, and from that point forward he didn’t have a daughter. When people would ask about his children, he had 5 boys.  Somewhere in his mind, he convinced himself that all of the problems were my fault. It was my plan to disrupt his family so that I could go live with my mother. One big master plan of mine.

I was ten. I didn’t have a plan. I thought of running away a few times, but the fear of getting caught sent me back home. Staying was easier than the thought of what was going to happen if they found out I was running away. I suppose that’s the same reason most kids don’t report child abuse.  Either that, it becomes a normal.  It felt normal to me.

Everything that happened was my fault? As I close my eyes thinking about this, I have to say it’s haunted me.  One memory in particular. The hardest part about abuse…… is spending your life wondering……. Could I have done something different?

Three months before my last day at that home….  I had gotten caught.  For stealing food I imagine. Or maybe I didn’t come home right away…. I dawdled. Who knows….  I walked in the door and Stepmom says… “Go outside, find a stick, and bring it to me.”  I walked outside and across the street where the neighbors had a big row of evergreen trees. I grabbed a little stick and took it back inside. I wasn’t sure what her plans were.

She grabbed it from me and started yanking off the tiny branches so that when she was done it was a perfectly curved…. Switch. She grabbed my hair, turned me around and started yanking off all my clothes.  I remember her hitting me, but it didn’t hurt.   Apparently the stick I picked out wasn’t big enough to do any damage. I didn’t want her to know that so I started to fake like I was crying. It must have pissed her off something fierce that I wasn’t screaming so she left the room.  

I thought it was over. I thought…. okay, no dinner tonight, but the next thing I know, she’s walking in the room with a fly swatter and a bowl of water. She dips the fly swatter into the bowl of water and hits me across my ass cheeks and I knew as soon as it hit my butt it was the worst thing I have ever felt.  It continued. I don’t know how many times I got hit, but the force kept getting harder and I felt it on my legs all the way up to my head.  I remember screaming louder than I have ever screamed and I also remember a neighbor coming down from a street over a block away because she could hear me screaming. 

When Stepmom decided she was done,  she stormed out of the bathroom. I couldn’t feel anything. I looked down and I saw blood dripping down my leg and onto the floor. She comes back in the door and starts crying, apologizing to me, telling me how sorry she was and that she would never do it again. She hugged me and I wanted so bad to believe her.

We had a “mommy- daughter day” as she called it the next day. It was the first time in my life. She took me to see a movie at a theater and she bought me licorice. I have to admit it was a fun day and I thought, “man, she was really sorry”.   She helped me through that day when I needed help getting up or sitting back down.  My butt and legs hurt so bad that sitting down was almost too painful.  I got to stay home from school for the next 3 days. It was amazing.  It was amazing……. Until a week later when it all started back up again.  Some memories never go away. They can heal and you can find a place of peace with it, but it’s always there.  

My father and his family – well they weren’t there after that. I was now out of sight, out of mind. I got to see two of my brothers after that (three were not biological) as my mom would go down every other weekend to get them.

For me though….. it wasn’t really the end. It was the beginning of guilt, self-loathing, and severe pain. Memories would play in clips – they haunted me. Every day. Every damn hour until I somehow, slowly managed to start forgetting that it happened. That’s what I would do!  I would put all those memories in a box and throw it in Rapunzel’s tower!   That girl was dead. Whoever she was. 

I was ready for a new future. I denounced being Mormon. If they were Mormons, who needed hell.

Bring on the rain.  I had every tool I needed to climb that mountain the way I needed too and food was coming with me.