I wasn't only angry with my father, but I was angry with my mother as well. Mom wasn't as acutely aware of some things as Dad was, but there are just some things that you don't do to your children who have been sexually abused. Mom didn't realize it however. She did the best she was able to do at the time. It took me several years to realize just how difficult things were for my mother. She wasn't prepared to deal with the hand life had dealt her.

When my father died, just a year after I told on my grandfather, I was sent away from my house so HE could come and stay there for the funeral. Yes. I had to leave my home when my father died so my grandfather could sleep under the same roof that my father had last slept under. Given the choice of staying or going, I naturally left. What else could I do? I certainly wasn't going to stay in the house so he could finish what he'd started! ANYONE would have left. No one should have had that choice given to them however. HE should have stayed with OTHER relatives....not with us. I lost the one person on the face of the earth that I felt safe with, and on the same day my abuser is invited into my home. I know that he was very upset. He had EARNED being very upset. He had defiled his son's child many times over. In all fairness I had wished him dead a hundred thousand times a year. Instead my father died, leaving that monster to roam the earth. It just wasn't fair.

But show me where it says that life is fair? Nowhere in the book of life is that statement written. Life has a way of giving us chances to make things right....not every time, but sometimes. I think that this was a chance for my grandfather to do right by me and my family. He did nothing. He never apologized to me, not that anyone can apologize for the horrendous things HE did...but he could have at least asked for my forgiveness so I could have had the satisfaction of turning him down! He could have checked on us from time to time after my father died. That never happened. We might as well have ceased to exist for all the contact we had from my father's family. My one uncle who was only a half brother was very good about checking on us. His daughter is now one of my closest friends, even though we technically are related. We saw them frequently, but all the rest of the family treated my brothers and me like we didn't exist. I had to wonder where my father had come from. He would never have done that to his brother's families. I guess his family took after their father. And my opinion of them has never drastically altered. Nothing says I have to like them...even though I am related to them. No one can dictate whom you should like and respect. Those are emotions that you and only you can have control over. I chose not to spend time with my father's family. It is easier that way. I have no respect for most of them, so I see no reason to socialize or interact with them. I am old enough and comfortable enough to make those decisions which are healthier and happier for me.

My grandfather lived many years past my father's death. I was quite grown up when Mom called me wanting me to take her to North Carolina to see his wife. My grandfather was in the hospital and was going to die. I recall thinking that they'd need to do some rennovations in HELL to prepare for him soon. I didn't even particularly feel venomous about it, it was just a statement. I had long ago turned off most of my feelings for him one way or the other. I agreed to drive Mom over to see my grandparents and I waited outside in the car while she spent time inside with them. We took my youngest brother John with us. All of my brothers were crazy about my grandfather. It was just sort of taken for granted that I didn't feel the same way, and no one ever discussed the whyfors of it. Mom wasn't very good with talking about feelings or showing emotions. There was never any outward signs of affection in my family, and as a result, some of us were starved for touch. I still am. (which again is very difficult to deal with...being touched when TOUCH itself is somewhat frightening to you.)

My grandfather died shortly after that trip to North Carolina. I drove the family to the funeral. I went only to make sure he was really dead. I looked at him in the casket and felt nothing...absolutely nothing...I simply verified that he was not breathing. I figured that GOD would take care of the revenge for me, so I didn't even waste any negative thoughts on the man. I was still emotionless.

My therapist later told me that I needed to forgive him. At first I thought she was insane. All these emotions had begun pouring out of me. I was so angry at that man that I wanted to drive over to North Carolina, dig him up, and give what was left of his bones to the lions in the zoo! She wanted me to forgive HIM?? He didn't deserve my forgiveness, and I politely told her so. Then she said something quite remarkable to me. She told me that I didn't have to forgive the deed, but that I would find it difficult to heal until I forgave the man. She told me that I wasn't ready yet, but she wanted to make sure that I understood the concept she was setting out before me. This woman was not particularly religious, let me add. I am far more spiritual than she, and she was smart enough to realize this. She told me that I would eventually need to let go of the anger and forgive him for myself. She told me that it might be years before I was ready to release that pain, and to find forgiveness for him in my heart, but that someday I would need to do that in order to be well.

I thought she was nuts.

It was several months later when I began toying with the thoughts of forgiveness. I have an analytical mind, and I had to think this concept through. I understood the part about forgiving the man vs forgiving the deed. I agreed that there was no way to ever forgive an unforgivable deed, and I wasn't going to try. I could live with never forgiving a series of acts that were so reprehensible that I felt the death penalty too good for the perpetrators. "Can't we do more than just kill them??" was my thoughts on child molesters. Death was far too good for them, I thought. I hadn't been able to work out the exact way to extract that pound of flesh, but I certainly had given it a good shot at trying. But that "forgiving the man" concept just haunted me. I felt like I was missing a very important point, and I can't stand thinking I don't know everything that there is to know. I have a very large ego, I suppose. I just didn't want to "fail" my therapy, so I forced myself to think about that forgiving the man part. I simply wasn't ready.

I thought about that concept for months. One day, I noticed that the bitterness I felt for him wasn't quite as sharp as it had been. I didn't love him any more than I had before, but I was beginning to realize that the negativity was wearing me down. I was giving my molester power in the grave, and he didn't deserve any more power. I had let him take far too much of my happiness away, and it dawned on me that hating him was feeding a fire that was best left to die a lonely death. I was suffering by keeping my hatred alive, and I had suffered enough. I didn't want to feel that way ever again. I was trying to fill a void that he had left, and I didn't know exactly what I needed to put into that void, but I knew that I needed something. I was still trying to adopt a child, attending adoption classes and passing with flying colors. But I still had that one part of therapy that haunted me. I just couldn't figure out how I would be helped by forgiving someone who did such horrific things to me. After much soul searching, it clicked inside me. I didn't force it. I asked older relatives on my mother's side of the family what their perceptions of my grandfather had been. My cousin told me that he was a slimey old man, and that he had made passes at her, but that she had kept her mouth shut because of respect for my father. My father was so unlike the man that gave him life! From what I found out about him, he was just plain disgusting. And that was the nice version of what I found out about him. He was married to someone who loved him dearly, and it wasn't enough for him. He was like a sex fiend, from what I could find out. I finally came to realize that he had to be sick...mentally ill. There was no other way I could reconcile his actions except that he was sick. Vile and sick. The "forgiveness" slowly washed over me. I meditated on the idea of forgiving him for many weeks. I wanted to either do it or forget about it for good. One day, I realized that I actually was able to do it. I could forgive him. I pitied him. He was pathetic. He had to spend the rest of his life on earth knowing how disgusted his son was at him. He never got forgiveness for himself to my knowlege. He never got it from me while he was still living, and I didn't want to expend more negative energy on him. I was going to release him and allow GOD to do with him whatever HE chose to do.

It was like releasing a flock of white doves...wings flapping as they excitedly flew toward the heavens. I felt joy for the first time that I could remember since this ordeal had begun. Not only a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders, but I felt as if I had been caressed by a choir of angels. There was the most beautiful presence around me, that I can't even begin to describe it to you. It was better than feeling peaceful. It was like I had just filled a void of hunger with food for my soul, and then the most remarkable thing happened. I got a message.

I 'knew' something wonderful was going to happen for me, and very soon, and it was as if I had passed some kind of huge test. If an angel could laugh with joy, this message I received showed it. They were thrilled beyond any happiness I had ever felt. I say "they" cause I really felt like I was being visited by a band of angels, I really did! It felt like they were flying around me, touching me, spreading healing love all around me, and it was the most blissfilled state I have ever been in. It was magical. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I had done something right. I knew that I had. I was also going to be rewarded for it. I couldn't help but wondering what it might be.

Two months later I found out.