Its 3:21 am. It’s Mother’s Day. Second night in a row I can’t sleep. I pray. I talk to God. I ask Him to heal me. I trust and wait for inspiration. I take inventory of the past day and see if I need to make any amends. I’m highly critical of myself overthinking and evaluating every interaction with everyone.
My mind wonders to when I was eleven and I was violently assaulted by my stepmother in one of her alcoholic drug stupors. She would kick me out of my fathers’ house and call the cops and say I was a runaway. In those days you were arrested and put in juvenile hall for running away or worse brought back to the house and told to behave. Our small town had two police officers. Population 3,125 in 1981. Fort Lupton, CO was literally a trading post turned into a town.
My stepmother told the police I was unruly and did not want to obey house rules. It all was a lie. My father whom also is alcoholic was never home. He was at work or in the bars. He actually met the town whore in a bar and brought her home to be mother to his five children. My older sister sexually abused me and the neighbor kids from the time I was seven until she left when the stepmother came.
I’m the second child. My brother Dana who just graduated last year in June 2021 Doctor of Jurisprudence also passed the California bar is third. RIP to my fathers’ fourth child who died in foster care at age seventeen. RIP to my fathers’ fifth child my baby sister Summer who committed suicide in 2015.
I would get beat up kicked out and then arrested this was the norm. The alcohol, drugs, violence, and sexual abuse was normal to me. My stepmother gave me drugs and smoked pot with me. Alcohol was readily available at all times.
At age fourteen I had my first puppy love and got pregnant. Kenny knew of my violent crazy life and asked me to go live with him he would give me a better life. I was in ninth grade. Kenny was a responsible Junior, his mother had died two years prior in a car accident. I was so scared. Someone wanted to love me? Take care of me?
I believed my stepmother that the best thing was to have an abortion. I didn’t want to disappoint her, she fooled me. Kenny paid for the abortion and never spoke to me again. My father took my stepmother grocery shopping and dropped me off at the clinic alone. I remember the physical pain of the vacuum and I can still hear the noise of it. I was not put to sleep. They both picked me up when they were done shopping. It has never been addressed again. I’m haunted by the choice I made.
I forgive my fourteen yr. old self. I’m sorry Kenny. I’m sorry baby, please forgive me. When I did my 12 Steps in AA. Step 9 suggests you make direct amends whenever possible. I tried to contact Kenny he declined. I will see my baby in heaven one day. I believe he was a boy.
I live with the emotional pain, brokenness, and trauma. I fantasize about how great my life would be if I had left with Kenny and had our baby. Reality tells me I was not healthy. My brain at that age was not even able to comprehend. Is life better for all parties involved? Could life have been worse? Could it have been better?
Please God forgive me and take away the sting of death in Jesus name, amen.