Imagine grief
Is an iceberg
Traveling through cold water
I just tell you
The part you can see
Is nothing compared to
The cold country in the depths
The place we cry
Alone
Iceberg Girl
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Category Archives: child advocacy
Surviving Abuse
It has been 3 years now since I found out that my adopted son had abused children–my children.
Child abuse should never happen, but when it does the survivors need to know that it is not their fault.
For years I lived a full life unaware of the abuse. Terrible legacy. But for the past 3 years my children have lived in safety and have begun to heal.
I shudder to think about the past, but more than that I shudder to think what would have happened without our concerted efforts to bring out the truth.
The truth is Charles will NEVER be safe with children. We should not give predators access to any children.
It is not worth the risk
Not worth the heartbreak
9-11 and Jessica Ridgeway
Imagine for a second planning a plane trip on September 1st 20001. Think about the beverages and nail clippers you would have blithely stowed in your carry-on luggage.
You would not have had to remove your shoes! You also would have had no fears of homicidal acts of terror. The world changes, we have to face its incipient danger.
I mention 9-11 because we all acknowledge that a balance has to be struck between personal freedom and public safety. None of us wants a world constricted by fear.
That being said, it is time to acknowledge that we are failing our children and ourselves. When our children cannot walk to school in safety we have failed our children. When our children are being lured and snatched in front of schools, hospitals, and libraries in daylight we have failed our children. When one child is lost in one of these cases it should be a cause of universal mourning and rapprochement. It is time for a change.
Parents need to face that law enforcement and “living in a safe place” will not keep our children from harm. We need to look at what predators do and how they think. None of us want to, but we must.
Predators
Live everywhere and if they don’t live close to you, they have cars
Watch children
Monitor patterns of movement
May record and photograph children
Maintain contact with other predators, gaining support and information from others
Have no conscience
Will resort to violence to get what they want
Will lie about everything
Monitor/keep track of what children believe and respond to
Disguise themselves well
Volunteer or work at jobs that give them contact with children
Fool people around them
And are fueled as much by anger as by sexual impulses
Not a fun list, but we must face it. And we have to face the fact that most predators do not get caught or reported. They are “us” and pride themselves on the deception.
They benefit when we ignore them. So let’s not.
And we have to keep our children safe. Many of us remember great freedom when we were young. That freedom is no longer safe. Adults need to stay with children outside all the time. We cannot assume a short walk to school or a park is safe. It is not.
We need to face the hard stories of loss and learn from them. Elizabeth Smart was forcibly abducted by a day laborer. Jaycee Dugard was snatched by a married couple who had tracked her and planned her kidnapping with great detail. Jessica Ridgeway was taken on a short walk to school.
if you are a parent you have to face these stories to keep your child safe.
And we have to teach our children:
If a grown up offers you candy from a vehicle
scream and run for help
No adult needs your help finding a puppy
scream and run
never go anywhere with an adult you don’t know/strong>
We need to give our children permission to defend themselves. We need to teach them self defense and also strategies for escape if the worst happens. And we have to talk about the unthinkable. Our children are irreplaceable. We have to keep them safe. Knowledge is power.
The borrowed child
I once borrowed
A child/you could say
Lent.
She was lent to me
Because
her mother was a drug addict…I believed in the system…believed a caseworker…needed infinite
Light
This is not a poem.
She held the world in her eyes
And all the treasure I could have
Begged, borrowed, stolen
I would have traded for her
My in-between child
The little boy whose mother is a chalk angel
Lying beneath
The chaos of war
The little girl who believes the old man in the white car
Who does not really ever
Need her help to find a puppy
The baby glued to a wall
Broken like a vase on the hard stones
Another woman
Laid down on the floor
she would have been a good mother…
Monster.
It is the thing we call
A person who could do that to a child
My baby
He pulls the crystal bowl
Out as I am turned askew
Aside
Asunder
His father viewed this as s trinket
And did not hide it away
High where it could not be reached
Shatters in an instant
And we both
Stand amidst the shards
I say
It is not fair
And scoop him into arms
His siblings distract him from the wreckage
And I sweep up the mess.
Put poultices on the ground
Pretending for a moment
That there is a magic word
For love
Stronger than
Caustic
Glue
Girl
I would reach you
With my arms if I could
With my words if I must
Like walking on water
If I have to…
Resort to prayer.
Happy Birthday to Me
Last year I had not yet written an obscure self-published memoir called Just: a story of the lost and found.
I was not on Facebook. I was a private citizen wading through the havoc and grief caused by our decision to adopt a boy who would rob us all of our innocence.
My birthday is a watermark. Three years ago I did not know my children were being abused. We found out the weekend of Columbus Day 2009.
Rough memory
It stalks through family
Pictures, movies
Dates and times
No one is safe from it
The dark ominous
Scowl of truth
I have given myself some birthday gifts:
The gift of freedom from what people think
The gift of mobility
The gift of prayer (to the God Who Indeed Lives)
The gift of preservation and strength for my children
I have walked away from people I wanted to trust because they did not fight for my children
I fought instead
So it will be strange for me today, my birthday because I do celebrate these years–this gift of a broken life redeemed.
And I bless my God, my Friend for this new community He has given me
In place of the years
The locusts have eaten
I served my time…
To understand the old woman
Walking down the quiet street
Tonight with a baby
Sleeping in her arms
You would have to look
Back to a room
In a borrowed house
Wooden floors/old carpet
And chairs from a garage sale
Heavy with layers
Of paint the two children
Small, shocking
Red
Hair they match each other not taking
Time outs in those beat up chairs/rooms/carpet
Years I don’t just
Wanna forget
Wanna unravel
Why he could hurt me so much
For so many years
And hurt my babies too?
They wiggle off the chairs
Again and again
Hold them the caseworker says
Hold onto them
I think
Until I had to let them go
Clay pots and true treasure
The story involves a baby swatting a vase which then rolls off a table to the bench below. The vase is visibly chipped by not shattered.
We mourn for a few seconds
That we could not fix it
That we could not have snatched it from the edge
The kids watch for my reaction
I tell them, that is why we buy vases from Goodwill.
Peace.
I know that this simple event is crucial for us because my reaction provides traction for my kids. What I did not do or say reflects my priorities as much as what I did.
My child is the treasure. All the vases in the world are not as precious as one dear little child.
The rest is dust.
Keyon Dooling
I am interested in the language of this article. Dooling admitted? How about revealed or detailed or spoke of? The Times writer’s use of the wordadmit reveals the strong (and erroneous) stigma attached to the victims of sexual abuse.
Dooling is telling us in no uncertain terms that the strongest, fastest, tallest members of our society are the routine and silent victims of sexual abuse.
We need to admit that we are failing to protect children. We need to admit that the silence and the stigma hurts us all.
Amber Alert
Somewhere on the eastern coast of the United States a family has been torn apart. A 12 year old girl is missing and the person who took her has already proven he is dangerous, especially to children.
But my Facebook page is eerily quiet. I posted the Amber Alert along with two other friends. I thought people should know, should search, should pray.
Hopefully someone cares, right?
A quote surfaces at times like these. Carson McCullers–the life you save may be your own.
Something in this country is broken.
I think it might be the heart.
This place is no place for children.
I once
I once lived in a country with high
Beautiful walls
Stone/mud/concrete
But most of all
Jagged glass
Broken/beautiful
Like a crown of pain
Stained glass warnings
Don’t come any closer
Danger.
Beware of dogs?
How do you say “Doberman”
In this other language
I knew a dead man who taught me this
And a boy I always loved
And feared
Who knew the future…
There Is more than one way
To die/to maim/to rape
A country/a people/a family/a man-woman-child
But one way for sure
Is to look the other way
When it is happening to them
And hope their blood appeases
Men trained like dogs for war.
Carrying Light 