Between Sleeping and awake

 

Sunday is the only day that no alarms go off, and there is nowhere to be.  A day when you can stay snuggled in the covers before starting the day and completing all that needs to get one. It's a cloudy day and darker than normal, I must have dozed off and dreamt of sitting my children down and telling them about what happened to me.  

There were hearts everywhere, and the room was bright and inviting. They are the age they are today. The room was comfortable, but nothing that I knew. I asked them to sit down, and the words literally came out of my mouth that I had never imagined saying: Do you have any questions about your father? There was this strange kind of calm. I was prepared for whatever they needed to say or ask. 

Vincent spoke up first and simply asked.  What happened. 

I said that I had met him online and we were going to go shopping. He was getting ready to leave the country.  I said that he had come, but he had never had any intention of shopping.  I said that he put a pillow over my face and raped me.  Once those words came out of my mouth, tears started streaming down my face, but I was no longer able to hear any words that either of us were saying.  

I woke up unable to breathe. No one should ever have to say those words. I don't know if a person can ever be prepared for such a conversation. These kinds of conversations are things that happen when the other person is ready or has a longing to know.  For those like me, there is no right time or right way.  There is no way to make the words anything other than the violence that they are.  So that is how the day started. 

Later, I watched the documentary Sugarland.  It was heartbreaking and often painful. It was about the schools that many native Americans were sent to that were run by catholic priests. One of the women who grew up there said how she always felt dirty for being an Indian. Heartbreaking.  Abuse was everywhere, and of course, no one knew a thing or did anything when there were rumors of terrible things happening to those children.  It follows some as they try to heal their story. Those who are still fighting, those who want answers, others who want justice, and others whose hearts are still brutally broken.  A huge piece of this work was the girls who became pregnant because of what happened to them.  Many of the babies were born and thrown into the incinerator.  One of the men who was followed in the documentary was one of the only men who had a different fate. He was one of the only children to survive. He tried to speak with his mother, wanting some gaps filled in his birth story; she cried that soul cry, unable to speak about what had happened to her, how her son came to be, and how he ended up in a trash bin. It was done beautifully, raising awareness of the atrocities that occurred. 

I find myself watching things like this, thinking this happens often, and no one speaks about it. This happens, and people want to pretend that it doesn't. What happens to these children? How do they deal with the facts of how they were conceived? I wonder all the time if those are things that my children think about. Do they have questions? Do they wonder what happened? I do not ever want them to feel sorry for me or think differently.  I hope that they would have a deeper understanding of the person that I am today.  It has only been spoken about once, and I don't remember much of it.  At the time, I told them they were in middle school, and in my mind, I was still just a slut. 

I don't think of it much anymore; my thoughts stay with my children, for whom I am so grateful. They are my world, so I focus on that. That keeps most of the pain away, and I keep breathing. But every now and then, I want to know where the other moms like me are.  What are their thoughts? Do they think some of the same things?  What is their relationship with their children, and how did they tell them? 364 days a year, I am just another mom in the world.  But on that 365th day each year, on August 22, I have my day.  I still often wonder how things could be different.  Not that I wouldn't have my children, but the fact that I wish someone had asked questions. I wish that someone had noticed the hurt. I wish that there was more care and less judgment. I wish on that day, there was an acknowledgment that from that moment forward, nothing in my life would ever be the same. I will forever and always, until my last breath, say I would do it all over again to have them.  But my heart breaks for the girl who just wanted to be normal that day. Days like today, I realize just how affected I still am even when I wish with all that I am that it didn't. Someday, I hope my children will speak to me. Someday, I hope they will understand.

I heart your heart.