It’s been three weeks and three days since we were informed one of our children had been sexually assaulted.
Today, already, my life looks almost normal. I eat, and sleep (ish). I laugh with friends, I do the work I’m supposed to do. I keep my volunteer commitments and I keep up my correspondence. I hug and kiss my husband goodnight every night.
My husband. Last week I sat in a meeting with a counselor and listened to Ralph talk about his feelings, his struggles. I looked at him and remembered the seventeen year old boy I used to mercilessly taunt-flirt with at the Dairy Queen window, his strong, beautiful hands against the drive-through sill, chipped nailpolish and floss-bracelets. Twenty years ago! I felt that pang, something plucked in my chest, that bit of sentimentality. In that moment, looking at him in the shabby office chair talking to this woman, this counselor, this stranger, I didn’t want him to have to go through what he was going through. I didn’t want to have to hear his pain. I wanted to leave the room. I had that weak moment.
It happens.
I suffered so much three weeks and three days ago I thought I’d die. I was surprised how much pain I was in. I was horrified to find that the feelings-experience of my faith left my body – like a spirit upon physical death. I had many correct thoughts, and those kept me putting one foot in front of the other. “This too shall pass.” “One day at a time.” I even called the right people. But my feelings were simply struck from my body. I said it the other day to friends: “In the space of a few moments, my trust in the Universe was bitch-slapped out of me.” Those first twenty four hours, when I couldn’t eat, when I was out of my mind, I took apart every human being on this planet who came into my consciousness. I was judge, jury, and executioner. I had thoughts of killing. I had thoughts of dying, of eliminating myself.
Something saved me from making poor decisions. I knew it was selfish to act on these thoughts, so I let the thoughts come and go.
I prayed a lot.
My profound distrust was perhaps the worst thing, so far, about the ordeal. And here’s what’s nails-on-the-chalkboard type of horror, if I let it be: the fact I never want to have that experience again does not mean one day it won’t come visiting – again.
I talked to some pretty smart people to talk to. I talked to my first sponsor, and she listened, and gave advice, and called me “sweetie”, and told me I was handling this better than she would have thought. She told me something that I grasped to my heart. “This didn’t happen to you. Don’t make it about you. Your child will be your teacher.” This struck sanity back into my body. I knew she was right and I was wrong.
I knew things. Thoughts came that were sanity, and I grasped them. Like: I knew my husband and children were not responding with such severity. I knew that I was going through this in part so I could help someone else, later. I knew I would forgive all those involved, that the forgiveness would happen, perhaps not today but not so far off. What a blessing it is to know these things! Like a drink of water to a parched throat. I could know something even if I wasn’t experiencing it at the moment.
A friend of mine said to me, “[Your experience of forgiveness] is happening fast.” I told her – I’ve been practicing. When life was good, I practiced. I worked on forgiveness, grappled with it, prayed over it. I was willing to do what it took to understand forgiveness because in my life, forgiveness is equated to survival.
All that practice kept me from doing something rash, terrible, unkind, foolish, or destructive. When the time came I had a fall-apart that didn’t hurt everyone around me.
In my faith tradition we don’t so much pray in the supplicative tradition so much as we voice aloud, kind of, wishes or blessings. “May you be safe, may you be healthy, may you be happy, may you be at peace.” I have these wishes for all those in my life – for myself, for my children, for my husband. For the perpetrator(s), for the victim(s), for my friends. For the law enforcement involved, for the advocacy personnel and the counselors.
I have these wishes, this blessing, for all reading here. For the world. I wish you this safety without one part of me holding back. But if it turns out you are not safe, or that one day peril comes, well now I’m here for you. Because I got through it – am getting through it – breathing in and out, sober –
Hell, even with a tiny bit of dignity.
