If I could be her voice

The following are some thoughts jotted down this week, they may reveal why I have not been writing publicly as much for some time.  I leave them here, I'm open for feedback.

Thank you

BettyK

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If I could be her voice

If I could write for her, if I could be her voice; what could possibly be said?

This beautiful, creative, brilliant child has become a somber, hollow, hopeless girl.  She has a sadness in her eyes.  She has less heart to her laugh, whenever she allows her laugh to surface.

This woman that gave birth to her; she should have never been given the ability to procreate, but then again if that were so we would not have the joy of this beautiful girl in our world.  This woman was broken from the beginning.  She was damaged by her own mother and seemed to never have a chance, until she met him.  He wanted to come along and save her.  He saw her beauty and thought if he could love her enough the tragedy could be erased and she could become a strong and loving woman, defeating the odds against her.  

He was never more mistaken than in those decisions he made regarding her.

Therefore, even with his noble intentions, more destruction would come.  She would tear at him, rip his heart apart, psychologically break him down and work diligently to attempt to remove all his manhood that she possibly could.

There would be fights that would go on for hours, then some for days.  There would be physical abrasions that he would cover up but the erosion to his spirit and core of who he was eventually became visible to all who knew him.

She knew how to work people.  She was skilled at manipulating the system.  She could make you feel like she was the victim even when the physical evidence proved otherwise. There was something that would overcome you and all you would want to do was sooth her and care for her.  It was mesmerizing; people around her could be coerced into protecting her while she was victimizing and the sensation to help her was compelling to the point of powerlessness.

There were moments that I would like to believe that she was genuine. but after being fooled then seeing the truth so many times I finally realize I am truly unable to comprehend what is in her mind at any time.  Too often I have secretly, and fearfully thought; I wonder if I am looking at the eyes of a killer in the making.  I fear she will do harm that cannot be taken back and that afterward all who are around her will look back and see she should have been stopped. In seeing this I believe people will also realize that no one would be capable of doing this when needed.  

When the drugs became commonplace that was when the real ugliness of her heart became everyday expressions.  So much pain, so much sorrow.  Her swarm of pain and suffering did not just affect the two of them, remember that beautiful girl I mentioned in the beginning, she was born around a year after they were married. This beautiful helpless perfect baby girl, wrapped in a soft pink blanket and smiling with her eyes closed came into our world.  It is an unfathomable tragedy that such innocence came through such a vessel as her mother. 

Someday she will have to know it all, for now she knows enough from her first-hand experiences of abuse and neglect from this woman who calls herself her mother.  Someday though she will probably need to know how her mother would wail and cry hysterically and punch herself in the stomach repeatedly screaming her hatred for this unborn baby and how she wanted to make it die- she would cry out how she just could not be pregnant anymore. She may have to learn how her mother would stand at the top of our stairs and cry out how she wanted to throw herself down to miscarry as she heard that would possibly kill her child.  

Some day she may hear about the day she was born.  She may hear that so much of her extended joyous family came in to take turns holding her, and getting pictures of her, and expressing how beautiful and precious she was.  If her father or I dare to tell her she will also know that after all who loved her left for the day, and after the photos even captured her mother and father both worn out but looking at her adoringly as well, after this eventful day; the darkness would come. As I now look back over those photos of that day I realize her father was looking at her adoringly, her mother was looking at him like she finally had him under her power for good. I didn’t see this until years later as I was revisiting those pictures and that day.

In the very early morning hours when it was still considered night she would go into hysterics and rip apart everything in the hospital room.  Thankfully the baby was already taken to the nursery for the mother to get some sleep, but she used her energy to scream, and throw, and push, and create a scene that shocked even the medical staff.  I arrived and the nurses just motioned for me to go on back to the room, they had no words for me.  He was beside himself and at a total loss of his own.  He knew her actions were startling to the hospital staff and they even seemed powerless to her anger and violent outbursts.  I was awakened unexpectedly when he had called me to come in, I was not prepared for what I'd see.  He was trying to pick up her debris, he was like a lost child, I saw his look at me as a cry for me to please help him make this stop.

She was relatively calm by the time I arrived on the scene.  She was breathing like an animal that just strolled away from a grueling match with another creature.  But she was done with the physical exertions and verbal outbursts.  She was saying repeatedly, I can't do this.  This was where I wish most that I acted differently, my response that night would come to change the course of the rest of all our lives.  

The staff asked if I would be willing to take responsibility to make sure this baby was safe.  They needed to know someone outside of these parents would be willing to do this as they stated, “in order for them to feel comfortable letting this child go home with her father”.  I now know that what I should have said was she needed a psych evaluation, can't you see she’s crazy?  I should have said she needed admittance and this child to solely be cared for by her father.  They failed all of us there at the hospital.  They were scared to death to deal with this woman, and that would not be the first time those who should have had the power to stop her were powerless regarding her.

Oh, if I had only known what would lay ahead in all our lives I would have chosen differently than I did at that crucial moment.  But I didn't know what was ahead, I couldn't see it.  I thought he just wanted his baby girl so much, and that he was strong enough to take care of all of them.  I hoped this was still just a moment of pain that would soon be long forgotten, so I said I would take that responsibility, there is almost no regret I have stronger than this one from that night.

As I sit here filling these pages with this story I know our beautiful girl is being interviewed by a caseworker about the 'altercation' involving her mother yesterday.  My heart is so heavy.  She is only eleven years old now but these eleven years have been more than filled with heartache, trauma, sorrow and so very little joy.  

Her mother has held her like a possession and refused her freedom in spite efforts over the years by her father and various advocates.  Remember, she knows how to work the system. 

That person that identifies herself as her mother has pushed her, hit her, screamed at her, and terrorized her.  She had held her by the ankle as a baby and put her in danger more ways than I can speak of and now she has drug her by the leg, spit in this child's face and declared repeatedly with such hatred that she promises to make the next seven years of this beautiful girl's life a living hell.  

That is all she wants to do with her; there is no love, nurturing, not a breath of humanity in her for this child.  Her motives are not mistaken anymore, the manipulative tears that were once used to hide her evil intentions don't work so she doesn't make any more attempts with those of us close enough to know the truth.  We see her pure intent is to control, torment, and possess this little girl as a mere object to practice her hatred and domination on.

How do I really give this child a voice?  I could go into the gory details of abuse and neglect, because what I have divulged here is nothing compared to the many other moments of affliction.  I could go into the many ways the system has failed to protect her and has rather stripped her of safety, security, dignity and hope.  These things are not my place to reveal right now, they are for her to tell as she will need to in time.  I am sure there will come a day when she is in a coffee shop writing her own story of her ugly and sorrow filled childhood, and it will hopefully bring her closure, and peace.

Yes, I think I am supposed to leave that for her.

For now, all I can do is continue to fight for her to be free from the grip of this woman who identifies as her mother in any way I gain opportunity to do so.  I stay in communication with the children as much as they are available as the courts have ordered a shared custody where they alternate spending weeks living with mother then father back and forth.  I believe the way I have reported events to the authorities immediately as I hear them will hopefully provoke them to act on these concerns and rescue this beautiful girl, and her little brother as well.  These exhausting calls of reporting and restating the truth are bound to gain the children freedom from her someday soon, each intake worker that hears me and says they will do something gives me hope there will be an end.  

I try to stay in contact with the children as much as I possibly can, we now live so far apart, but I will not stop trying.  I have become strong enough to deny any tugs at my heart to pity this mother whenever events or words concerning her are relayed to me in attempts to invoke sympathy for her 'plight'.  Sympathy is not allowed to surface in any way concerning her, she is entitled to absolutely none. 

When I do have the opportunity to talk with this beautiful girl I remind her of those who really do love her, I tell her how I hate what she has had to go through. I tell her how I hate how powerless we have been with all of this, her life. But I also tell her that I know, she is going to be okay.  I know she will be past all this ugliness someday, and she will be free from this season of pain and suffering.  We talk of how I look forward to having her come visit us, to have her with us again, and she agrees.  She says how much she wishes for this too but she reveals how she has no hope or expectation any of this will ever really happen.

She is enrolled in a great school because of her father, and they have been advocates fighting for her as well.  They see the truth.  They protect her when she’s there and they look the mother in the eye when it is her weeks to have custody, they are sure to relay a clear message of protection for this beautiful girl.  It is shocking when people hear our story of how the system is willing to protect the rights of an abusive and neglectful parent who even has violent tendencies with others only because she identifies as the mother of these children.  It is excellent that a mother’s rights are so guarded, but the blind eyes to those mothers who actually abuse those rights, this is a tragedy.

I know her father loves her so dearly, and I know he is so grieved when he doesn’t have her with him, I can't help wishing though that I had the means to have her come live with us, that we had the money or the power to break this woman's grip over her and have her come and be with us now.  I could see her spend these next years with us healing, and growing and enjoying life- as a child should.

Instead, here I sit, waiting to hear what will come next.