Note from 2/28/17
She took my childhood. Imprisoned me, controlled me, beat me, and diminished me to nothing.
Stomped my backbone from birth, shredded my voice, mocked my existence
Then tossed me away
Daddy picked up the pieces
And loved them …every sad fragment
But something was still broken
The first boy who was nice to me,
I settled in. I basked in that innocent childish love, let it wash my 17 years of aching tender wounds
Until he started tearing at those wounds with angry fists and kicks of rage.
And love was suddenly more familiar with bruises and breaks and bloody noses
So I just loved him harder like I had mother
And he beat me harder and harder – just like mother had
the harder I loved.
Daddy didn’t help because this was “such a good guy”.
The police didn’t help because they “knew my boyfriend’s big important daddy”.
Then he put a gun to my head and I begged mother for a place to hide where he couldn’t find me.
Mother refused to help me because she said I “must have liked it to stay so long with all the beatings”. She said, Call me in a year and maybe you can hide here.
I was desperate – scared literally for my life, not just another beating, – my life. So I went to my aunt.
And then mother was REALLY FURIOUSLY pissed off because I’d asked my aunt for refuge, who happily provided me a place to hide and start a new life and to help me till I got independent. I was 19.
But I pushed on, hoping once I made a better life for myself – away from the domestic violence of my boyfriend – and on my own, mother might be proud of me… And maybe even love me…?
I got my own job, my own apartment, I had no help from anyone. I was fiercely determined to earn mother’s love.
Working at a massive corporate law firm in downtown Cincinnati with over 500 attorneys. Several of the partners got to know me, believed I was far too intelligent to stay a legal secretary, and encouraged me to go to college and to consider law school. I was invigorated by the encouragement.
I decided for college one day and excitedly called mother to tell her so excited that she’d be proud I was going. Mother mocked, snidely laughed and told me I could never succeed in college and
I believed her.
I always believed her.
But my bosses seemed so sure I could. They seemed so impressed with my abilities and my intelligence. So I told my dad what the law partners were saying and daddy said I could live with him and go to school and get student loans… He’d do everything he could to help … and my best friend back home, George, was always saying how much he loved me.
So I did.
Even while self sufficient I begged for her love, but I moved forward in my life without it and just hoping… someday
And I did it.
I made honors in community college until I got a partial scholarship and loans to attend a university.
All on my own.
Grace seeks sanctuary 