Things I know from a picture

Its funny the other day I was going through an old book that I had made with letters and cards from different people over the years and I found a group of pictures. Pictures that all tell a story, that all are  pieces of my story. 

There are the first two that say a lot. It was July fourth of 1975. I was a little over three months old. I knew when I was that young that he was not a nice man, the one where I am screaming, my father is holding me. I knew, I knew in my bones that things were not going to be good for me. And the other I am with my mom, I seem calm and content. If I could speak I would tell her to please leave that things are only going to get worse for me, that my innocence would be taken, that he would take things from me, that should never have been taken. She can take care of herself but me I am just a little one and there is no where for me to go, please keep me safe. I wish I knew what she was thinking in this picture, what did she think of me, what was going through her mind as she held me, I was so little so fragile. She she let me scream him holding me, or did she rescue me and make everything ok. These two pictures have always stood out to me, What I got from one and what I truly wanted from the other. It is sad really. This is exactly how things started out, and they say a picture can capture a thousand words, this does and thousands more.

This was my cat. I don't remember her name, I think it was Maxine, but I am not sure. Well she had a habit of getting on the dinner table. So this night things didn't go well for her. My father picked her up off the table and threw her down the hall. Cats are made to land on their feet ! Do you realize just how hard that he would have had to throw her for her leg to be broken; Really really hard. I don't remember much more I knew that she was hurt and I remember us taking her to the Vet, and I remember her coming home like this. With that huge cast. Animals were always special to me, I talked to them and they listened. I can remember being sorry, telling her that I was sorry. I would lay with her for hours, making sure she was ok, and petting and petting her.

This Wow this was Yan Idle in Germany. This one makes me smile, makes me think that maybe someday, I may find a good guy for me.  I am sure you could say that I had a crush, ok a HUGE crush. He was handsome, had an accent he always smelled good and was always more than kind to me, what else could a person ask for. I felt alive that summer in Germany, and he made me smile. He won me a little banana stuffed animal at  carnival that I can tell you; I still have . He made me feel special.  At that same outdoor carnival,  there was an exhibit. It was like the Omni theater only you were standing up.  I was enjoying every second, I ca say I was lost in the moment and ended up loosing my balance and fell towards him.  I froze. But he smiled  and said it was ok, he didn't bite and gave me his arm to hold onto. I held on  he held on and I was safe.  I was terrified, my life was crazy, but that time for those minutes I felt safe. He made me smile. How he looked at me; like everything was ok, it was a first for me and I will never forget. Oh I hope that he is well.  It was the first kindness for me in a very long time, he made my heart happy.  And still seeing this picture my heart remembers and thinks maybe someday , and I can' stop smiling.

This is one from my high school graduation. Everyone was crying that they were going to miss people, that it was all over and then there was me, I was more than relieved. But this one is less about me and more about the picture on the wall. That was the picture that was in my room growing up. Crazy that he picture never went away, and ended up in the dining room.  That is the picture that I often hid in ; in my mind, when things were too scary when things got to violent and I had to get away. I would count the trees, the fence posts, the little flowers, the daffodils, the buildings in the background, the children that were hiding behind the rocks. I would pick what rock I would want to hide behind.  This was the picture that I memorized night after night as I was raped in my own bed. I wondered what it would be like if I could just join them, just be somewhere else in the world, anywhere else other than in my own room, where such terrible things happened. I have not seen that picture in years though I remember it piece by piece, I am grateful for that picture. It was in my parents wedding actually, and I think was done by one of the nuns. If only this picture could talk, oh the things that it would say, and it breaks my heart.

 

 

This was my uncle Dennis, my fathers younger brother. Somehow we reconnected and I ended up going there, t Boston. First for a trip in the summer then back for Christmas. It was the Christmas of 1999, because I can remember everyone thinking that the world was going to end in the year 2000, WOW well it didn't. That summer, my first morning there, we were sitting in the kitchen table and he asked if my father had ever done anything to me, I couldn't breathe, no one knew, only he did. My father had also abused him as a child. A conversation that no two people should ever have to have. There we were having THAT conversation. I wasn't the only one.  But  He didn't have the same desire to keep others safe. I can remember when we found out that Bob was getting remarried and she had a daughter and the brothers laughed and joked, well that’s one more for him to poke. They thought it was funny,   I did not think it was funny, I ended up going upstairs crying my eyes out, why couldn't they understand this was important, we couldn't let anyone else be hurt like we were!!  To them I was overreacting, to me rape is never a joke, never funny. That was my last trip there.  When the DA called him asking if he would testify for my case, his words "If you make me come there, I will make him look like a fucking saint on the stand". I think that was the beginning of the end. Why didn't he want to help, keep her safe get justice I didn't understand, so I moved on and kept fighting. For a time, I was grateful to have him, even for that short time.

Then there is the picture of Angela. This was the first picture that I ever saw of her, sitting there in the busy courtroom so much craziness going on around me. I knew Sam and Cheryl was there with me. We were sitting on the benches and I saw Dianne walk in and I looked over at Cheryl and I said that’s her, I think that’s her and she saw Sam and then they walked towards me, and my stomach dropped I was right it was her. She sat down next to me, and I am sure we talked for a few minutes but I don't remember what was said and she asked if I wanted to see a picture and I said yes, and she unzipped her purse and pulled this little picture out, now Angela had a face, this was the little girl that I was fighting for, that I so desperately wanted to keep safe. And I looked at it, and held on ever so tight holding it close to my heart and crying. I showed Cheryl and said that’s her, that’s her. It was more than amazing, she was everything perfect and innocent. I finally had a face and a picture, that is who I was fighting for.

Pictures of my journey, kind of more than amazing. kind of sad. Every picture tells a story.

Just a collection of pictures, they say so much.

I heart your heart.