Of all the post I have done in this series, this one seems to be the key to a lot of resentments toward my mother and her brothers. It is a story of rape, incest and betrayal of trust that has taken me many years to understand and move past. Piecing together this memory has not been an easy task, but a necessary one for my own personal healing. It has been a journey that has helped me move into a place of true compassion and forgiveness for the "wounded souls" that were simply victims themselves.
It has been 3 days since I started this post and now I feel I am ready to put this in writing and move forward and step into my my bright future with joy and gratitude. It has given me the courage to finally branch out from this beautiful island and take the journey I have dreamed of since I was a teenager. I will be moving my home base back to Washington State in a couple of months to spend time with my daughter, grand-kids and dear friends. Then possibly off to Europe to meet up with my "Tinman" and start my travel blog. Maybe spend the winter in Malta with my gypsy friend and shaman. I will be doing a separate post regarding my decision to sell off everything and embark on this exciting journey.
My next post in this series will be to sum up all the lessons I have learned by revisiting and sharing my past with such a caring and compassionate community. I will also give you and update on how I came to the conclusion that "people can change" if given the opportunity. And in spite of all the traumatic experiences, my siblings and I stuck together with love in our hearts for both our parents and each other. I will also talk about how grateful I am that my mother managed to keep us all together and how her own life changed after this incident and why I feel she handled this situation the only way she could have. Had she not stopped my Daddy from literally blowing my uncle's brains out with his shotgun, he would have ended up in prison for life and our whole family would have been split up and victims of the corrupt CPS system.
If you haven't read my previous post in this series, I suggest you read them now, then come back to:
Under The Tree House
My memories of this particular incident are quit sketchy and I still don't know the whole story, but I will piece it together as best I can. I was probably around eleven when this incident happened as my sister that is 2 years older than me was only around 13. This is the same sister that I wrote about In Part 1 - The Nightmares of a Child - The knife describing my nightmares as a young child of my brother holding a knife to my throat and later finding out that I was reliving a repressed memory of an incident that actually occurred. She managed to escape being raped by my brother only to have her virginity brutal taken by the very uncle that raped our sister and covered up by my mother to keep my Daddy from killing him.
My memories of The Treehouse started off as fond memories of my younger brother allowing me to "help" him build a tree house deep in the woods on our family property of 5 acres where we all grew up. I was his little helper, handing him boards and nails. It was a place where we could go and play and pretend to play house. It was our "sanctuary" away from adults and their endless rules.
Sundays were days we all looked forward to. My mom would start the day before cooking and making preparations for our weekly "family" gatherings. Us younger kids would chase down several chickens for my mom to dress and have ready for making her famous fried chicken placed on homemade biscuits that were split in half, topped with the fried chicken and then have mom's gravy made with the grease and crust from the fried chicken poured on top. This was accompanied with freshly picked boiled corn, green beans from the garden and mom's famous peach cobbler. It was also a time to spend playing in the woods with our cousins and playing in our tree house.
This particular Sunday started out like most Sundays. We walked the quarter of a mile to the assembly of God Church located at the end of our dirt road about a quarter of a mile from our house. We came home, changed clothes and eagerly awaited the arrival of our cousins and mom's fried chicken along with all the tasty dishes my aunts had made.
This particular Sunday, it was my mother's youngest and oldest brothers that showed up with their families. Her younger brother Junior, I avoided like the plaque, so as soon as he arrived, I took off to the woods with her oldest brothers girls whom I was very close to.
The four of us girls, Emy, my sister, Linda, my cousin that was born 4 days before I was and Barbara who was close to Emy's age, were playing happily in the tree house when my uncle Junior came climbing up the ladder into our sanctuary. He ordered me and Linda to go somewhere else and play. We knew better than to question or balk his orders for fear of getting the crap beat out of us for talking back. I remember feeling scared that something was about to happen and the helplessness of not being able to do anything about it. I think Linda knew too because she told me we should just go play in the woods close to the tree house, so we just went and sat in the bed of pine needles underneath the giant pine trees a few yards from the tree house.
I will never forget the sound of my sister's piercing screams and crying echoing through the pine trees. Both Linda and I jumped up and ran to the tree house as fast as we could. When we arrived, my mother was already there. Emy was drenched in blood from the waist down and my Mother was trying to clean up the blood. My cousin Barbara was standing next to her trying to comfort her. I started crying and demanded to know what had happened. My mother told me that everything was okay and that Emy had just started her period. I looked at Emy and asked her if that was what happened. She looked up at me with tears running down her face and replied, "No, Uncle Junior raped me!" That is when my mother starting begging me not to tell Daddy as this was her brother and that Daddy would shoot him if he knew what happened. She said she could not let her brother go to jail. At this point, if I had a gun, I probably would have shot him myself. I felt so betrayed that my own mother would choose her brother over her own daughters. I never went inside that tree house again!!
Everything from that point was very sketchy but I think somehow my Daddy found out what happened because I remember he and my mother arguing later and my father giving my uncle orders to leave and never come back. This incident was a turning point for my whole family and the beginning of my resentments towards my mother that took many years for me to overcome.
My next Post: Part IV - What Happened to the Abused and the Abusers?
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Photo Credit: Google Images
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If you haven't read my previous two post in this series, I suggest you read them now, then come back to:
Under the Tree House
If you would like to read some of the previous stories of "My Life as a Detention Officer," You will find the links listed on this post by @canadian-coconut:
CPS and Foster Care Abuses: -- INDEX of PUBLISHED STORIES now on the Steemit Blockchain
Please take the time to read, upvote and resteem the above post to show your 100% support for this cause. Also, please visit the blogs of these authors and consider doing the same. Most of these cases are still on-going and any financial support you can give them could make a difference in whether these family units can be saved!
What Is @familyprotection? What Are The Rules? How Do I Donate?
If you are concerned about where these funds are going, please take the time to read this post:
We are Family Protection, Keeping Families Safe, Together
@markwhittam grew up in the care of CPS and then many years later he and his family had to flee their country under threats from the state to take their child because they home schooled.
Linda, @canadian-coconut, started @familyprotection because she has helped several families who have been torn apart at the hands of the legal kidnappers aka. Child Protection Services.
It is up to us as a Community to uncover the truth and spread this truth worldwide!
If you or someone you know have children that are now wards of the state and/or government, we encourage you to share your story. If you are an underage youth caught up in this insane cycle of abuse and control..Please share your story..If you have friends in abusive situations..Please have them share their story. We here at steemit.com have caring people that that are willing to help you in anyway we can.
If you wish to donate in support of this project, please do so by sending your donations in the form of Steem, Steem Power and or SBD to @familyprotection
Show your support for @familyprotection, @markwhittam, and @canadian-coconut by visiting their blogs, leaving comments revelent to this most worthy cause, upvoting and resteeming as many of these posts as you feel drawn to do.
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