ABUSIVE ANN AND MY FATHER
RECALLED
As the days and weeks go by
since my sister Marlene’s husband died, we talk a lot via the phone. She has
reminded me of so many things that I must have blocked out.
There was an incident where
our father hit Ann’s son. A very big fight between Ann and my father took
place. She told him that he was never to hit her son again. He told her that
she was never to hit me again. He never hit Norman again. As for me, you know
that story.
Norman was a monster to my
sister and me. He was his mother’s son!
My sister told me about her
wedding. She and Don had rented cabins upstate to have a small ceremony and
have a few of their friends stay in the cabins for a few days. Her mother, Ann,
was not wanted there, as my sister knew she would ruin it, and she did.
In my eyes, how could my
father not know that Ann was beating my sister, his daughter? My prayer is not
that my father and Ann now rest in peace.
My prayer is that they see what they have done to us and feel shame.
Some of the things that my
sister reminded me of I cannot write down. I want to think that my sister,
brother, and I are damaged but not broken.
My brother Todd and I had an
intense conversation just last week where he finally started telling me some of
his “wonderful” memories. His pain is real. He has taken that pain and has made
himself to be a excellent father to his son. That makes me smile! So my
brother, my son, and I broke certain cycles, keeping them from continuing. For
that I am grateful.
My sister told me a story
about her working as a social worker. She was employed at a certain hospital
that had a special unit for drug and alcohol abuse. Her boss told her that our
father was in the unit and that she should go and see him. After much thought,
she did. She walked into the room, and my father and another man were sitting
there. She said hello, and the man said, “Is that the daughter that you said
drove you to drink?”
Our father said nothing. My
sister left. At other times in her life, people told her that she should talk
to her father. She would respond that she could not. She told them that they
did not know the circumstances. She was so right.
Recently, I finally took the
time to write to a Bureau of Vital Records to ask for any and all records that
they can find relating to my mother, my father, and myself. Maybe they can
bring me some closure on some parts of my life.
ANN’S ABUSE OF MY SISTER AND
ME
Talking more and more to my
sister, I am coming to believe that Ann hated us both. We were not children of
her first husband, whom she had still loved, as she stated many times. Other
than her getting pregnant with my sister and thus needing to get married, she
married my father because of the money my family had, I have always believed.
The emotional abuse of my
sister by Ann went on much longer than did Ann’s abuse of me. Ann was her
mother, not mine. I pushed the abuse far back in my life, and I did what I
could not to let it rule my life. My sister had many more years of contact with
this evil woman.
I still have not told my
brother nor my sister about my writing this. Anyone who knows me well knows
that I have changed. The days of allowing anyone to hurt me are now over. No
one gets a second chance. Maybe I’ll soften up a little at some point. I don’t
know.
Years ago my father asked me
where the little girl who used to love her daddy had gone. Well, here I am,
Dad, the little girl whom you hurt and betrayed for many years. I have lived my
life letting other people hurt and betray me, feeling somewhere inside me that
such is all that I deserved.
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We have been serializing the memoir KIDNAPPED TWICE: Then Betrayed and Abused, by Mary E. Seaman and Douglas Winslow Cooper, published by Outskirts Press,
available through OP and on-line booksellers like amazon.com and bn.com.
My coaching, writing, editing site is http://writeyourbookwithme.com
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