There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep.
-
J.R.R. Tolkien
It wasn’t like I was an attractive child; “Husky” was the
diplomatic euphemism the J.C. Penney catalog used to describe my body-type. Of
course, being beautiful would not have been any kind of excuse for the things he
did…for what he took from me.
For years, I’ve been able to lock the
memories away; way back amongst the cobwebs in a seldom visited corner of my
mind. Occasionally, of course, something would remind me – catching a whiff of
cigar smoke, seeing someone chewing tobacco, a news story about a child being
sexually abused – but I’d quickly push the memories back into that corner, until
now.
Why dredge up the memories now, after nearly three decades? Why
reveal something that I’ve never told another living soul? Because, my maternal
grandfather, Arthur H. Monigold, the man who sexually assaulted me several times
in the early 1980s, is dead.
He was diagnosed with Cancer early in 2007,
but he didn’t tell anyone. A week before he died, while he lay in a hospital
bed, his doctors informed family members that they expected him to die at any
time. And, on October 17, 2008 – my 40th birthday – he did.
Standing
beside his casket; seeing him for only the third time in nearly 25 years –
knowing that it would be the last time I would see him on this earth – he didn’t
look like “Grampa.” He was no longer the man who towered over me back when I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. He looked like a wax sculpture. His once-strong
fingers and sharp hawk-like nose were withered and shrunken. He was nothing more
than a pile of wrinkled, leathery skin buttoned up in the last suit he’ll ever
own.
And I was happy to see him off. It took a long time, certainly a lot
longer than expected, or deserved, but I guess that if the good die young, the
evil seem to live damned-near forever.
Most people will find it a bit
strange that I’m celebrating a death in the family. I don’t mean celebrating the
life which preceded the shuffling off of the mortal coil, but actually rejoicing
that a family member is now residing in the deepest, darkest, hottest pit, in
the lowest level of Hell, with several demons assigned to make his eternity as
terrifyingly uncomfortable as possible. I assure you, my vivid imagination turns
to the worst horrors that John Milton and Dante Alighieri ever
described.
I could tell you some of the good things the man did in his
life. He served in the United States Army during World War II. He spent decades
working in Ohio steel mills. He married, fathered seven children, and adopted
another. He provided food and education for the entire clan, and watched them
all marry-off.
But those good things only make what he did to me more
difficult to understand. His abuse wasn’t like a father teaching his son to be
tough by telling him not to cry when he skinned his knee, or when he got hit by
a pitch while playing baseball. It was a grown-up taking sexual advantage of a
child. A child entrusted to his care, a child who trusted him; a child who was
probably more damaged by keeping the secret of the abuse, than by the actual
abuse. My grandfather told me not to tell anyone, and I didn’t…for nearly thirty
years.
I wasn’t the only child he abused. Unfortunately, I’ve learned of
three other children – all family members – that he hurt. In addition, over the
last several years, I’ve received hints and heard rumors about his abuse of two
other family members. The knowledge that I might have been able to stop some of
the others from being hurt burns me – if I had just told on him – if I hadn’t
kept his secret…
When I learned of his imminent death, I did not travel
to Ohio for some kind of death-bed reconciliation. I did not wish to hear an
apology or an excuse – if he had even offered one. Too many of my “issues” can
be traced directly back to his abuse.
It is why I don’t like being
touched by any but my closest friends. It is why I don’t trust many people – and
rarely give a second chance to the few I do. It is the biggest reason why I
don’t sleep at night, even in my own bed. It is the reason that I am always
suspicious of peoples’ intentions with children and constantly self-conscious
about my interactions with my 4-year-old niece. No, I felt – and still feel – no
need or desire to forgive him or to forget what he did to me!
What I do
feel is hate! Hatred at him for what he took, and hatred at myself because I let
him take it! Because I couldn’t do anything…because I still can’t do anything. I
can’t tell you how many times I wanted to drive to Ohio and strangle the life
out of him with my bare hands. I wanted to look into his eyes as the life left
them, and see his final realization that I was taking something valuable from
him. But I didn’t. I didn’t use the fact that I’m bigger and stronger than
someone else to hurt them!
Too often, I hear people use their own past
sexual abuse as an excuse to explain their abuse of a child. As if that is any
kind of justification for visiting that kind of pain on a child. As if there
could ever be any justification for that. Yes, I was sexually abused as a boy,
but I would drag razor blades across my eyeballs before I would intentionally
hurt a child.
I didn’t make a scene at the funeral home. I politely
declined a request to serve as a pall-bearer. And, despite my repeated
blustering that I would remain at the cemetery to help the workers cover him
with dirt, I did not. Before the service began, however, I found a quiet moment
to stand beside his casket and slide a list of his crimes – the ones I know
about – inside his jacket, as a kind of boarding pass for the trip to Hell. I
wanted to make sure that the Devil didn’t miss anything.
This
revelation…this confession…is not about finding some kind of closure for myself.
I’m certain that if I haven’t found closure by now, I never will. No, this is
about the truth; a truth that should have come out a very long time
ago.
I know, of course, that I’ll see my grandfather again…someday. We
will have a lot to talk about while we both spend eternity in Hell. Until that
day, however, I’ll go on living my life as best I can – an endeavour more
difficult some days than others. As painful as it is, I’m trying to learn to
accept the past for what it is – rather than pushing it back into that dark
corner – because I know that it will always be there, and I can’t change it
now.
F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates this struggle in the last sentence
of The Great Gatsby. He writes, “So we beat on, boats against the
current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The fact is, we each suffer from
the accumulated wounds of our lifetime. We can wash away the scabs of immediacy,
but the scars remain to remind us of the pain much longer…sometimes forever. My
scars will never fade completely. My memories will always have the power to
carry me back to the past. All I can do is beat on against that
current.
For information about missing, abused, neglected, and
murdered children, please visit these sites:
Child Abuse and Neglect –
HelpGuide.org:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/child_abuse_physical_emotional_sexual_neglect.htm
The
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PublicHomeServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US
The
National Sex Offender Public Website: http://www.nsopr.gov/
NetSafeKids
Home Page: http://www.nap.edu/netsafekids/
