A Dose of Reality

Betty,

I did not personally know a childhood as you had. If I was an adult who knew of what was happening, I would have tried to help, taken you in my arms and let you cry on my shoulder.

Perhaps God's grace was there helping you endure horror and become the loving person you are with the strength you have today. I do not know this.

I believe prayers make a difference. Actually this has been proven through research, although years ago people felt researching the power of prayer was wrong.

I could never have gone through life alone without God, but I don't believe He gave me cancer or wealth, but helped me figure out how to endure the bad and appreciate the good. I'm still learning, and like Marie wish He'd let all of us in on his schemes.

I've had coincidences along the way. When I had cancer the first time, every time I'd go for chemotherapy, an older woman from our community would be there. She was beautiful and she and her husband always spoke with us. She was like an angel and gave me strength.

Carol

I am remembering a line from A Star is Born. Barbra Streisand's character says to Kris Kristofferson's character, "We can find all the answers of life together," and Kristofferson's character replies, "Answers! H*ll, I don't even know the questions."

And that makes me think of Douglas Adam's approach in his Hitchhiker 4-book trilogy, where we start out knowing that the answer to "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42. And the task of the characters throughout all the books is to find the question so that they will be enlightened.

The Hero's Journey has a structure that runs through the life of every hero, and taking the journey requires a descent which involves a series of tests and trials meant to prepare the potential hero to reach the nadir of the journey, meet the dragon, steal or be awarded the dragon's boon, treasure, or magic elixir, (the Answer?)and return upward, back to her or his own community and share the reward, which will turn the community from a wasteland to a flourishing, fertile green valley where everyone has more than enough. We are all heroes. We must all take the journeys. We all must return and share the treasure if our community is to be healed.

I believe that.

Ann

Carol Troestler wrote:

Betty,

I did not personally know a childhood as you had. If I was an adult who knew of what was happening, I would have tried to help, taken you in my arms and let you cry on my shoulder.

Perhaps God's grace was there helping you endure horror and become the loving person you are with the strength you have today. I do not know this.

I believe prayers make a difference. Actually this has been proven through research, although years ago people felt researching the power of prayer was wrong.

I could never have gone through life alone without God, but I don't believe He gave me cancer or wealth, but helped me figure out how to endure the bad and appreciate the good. I'm still learning, and like Marie wish He'd let all of us in on his schemes.

I've had coincidences along the way. When I had cancer the first time, every time I'd go for chemotherapy, an older woman from our community would be there. She was beautiful and she and her husband always spoke with us. She was like an angel and gave me strength.

Carol

Carol,

You are much kinder than I am. I'd have called the cops.

I cannot abide abusive parents. My parents were very decent--my dad did not ever even sit on my bed. If I was sick in bed, he brought a chair in and sat there and visited me. The very idea of a man so sick he would rape his own daugther repels me. Betty's father belonged in jail for ever and ever.

There is compelling evidence that child molestors cannot be rehabilitated.
You never hear someone get up and say, "I was once a child molestor. "

Betty wrote:

Quote :

I had to find some beauty somewhere. My mind needed it, my heart longed for it.

Betty, this sounds so much like Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning).He wrote that one of the ways he and other Holocaust survivors were able to get through the horror was by finding a little bit of beauty, even in the camps. You have not only survived, you have thrived. Your life is all about creating life, and literally feeding people. Your stories are a testament to your understanding of life.

You are a "hero of the return." You lived through the darkness of the nadir, found the elixir, and brought it back to share with all of us. We are all so grateful for your sense of wonder and beauty.

Ann

Ann, that was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't agree more.

This whole issue caused a big disagreement on this messageboard and I don't wish to go there again, because protecting children has always been of utmost importance to me. I am not kind to abusers. I couldn't even bring myself to be in the waiting room when abusers came for therapy, with someone else, because I refused and as business owner I could seldom refuse. And one time my caring for a child kept this person from going away and starting a new life somewhere else which was needed, that the child needed me for support. That was not right, and the system doesn't always work the way it should.

Yes, I would have called the cops. I would also give comfort and be there because life was about to get crazier for a while. And I would have believed.

Betty, if I lived close to you, we could talk and cry and maybe even do something symbolic to let the past be the past. But I think you have done that already with the way you live your life. You are a survivor and victorious in all you have done.

Love, Carol

Good point, Carol, Is there a statue of limitations on rape and child abuse and neglect?

Alice,

States have different laws. Before I retired there was a statute of limitations in my state, but I think that has changed.

Carol

Betty,

I really need to know more about your parents.
You need to explain them better.

I can't figure out why they had so many kids. They obviously were not kid-friendly.

Alice, abuse often makes no sense. Audie Murphy had an abusive father. His explanation was: "When my father couldn't feed the kids he had, he got him another one."

Ann

They are people who overall make bad decisions, often resulting from alcohol.

But it doesn't mean the next generation can't do things differently.

Carol

Okay,

I am out of focus here. I have a need to see what the real facts are.

If eveything is ugly and I see beauty, I would be disoriented.

It is mportant to me that I view a situaton as it is --not how I wsh it were.

Alice, I think it is important to view things as they are, while looking forward to see how they can be.

Dear Alice,
As a child, I was as bewildered about the real world as an alien on any planet could be. I could have been beamed down into the school room. No one looked like me, no one spoke to me, no one played with me, and no one wanted to.

I went to school and I loved the learning. It was not until I did a summersault on the playground that anyone discovered that I had no underwear. I was not aware that underwear was important.

I think some one came to my mother and told her that underwear was required. She made me some out of a cotton sack and some innertube. She blamed me for that. I do not think she ever got over that summersault.

To walk around unadorned without undewear on this day of my life would make me feel as vulnerable as when I was that small. Now, I have pretty underwear and pretty nighty things.

You know, Alice, to talk of these things this night makes me cry. What hurt people can do to children in their power.

If I were to try to explain how I needed beauty, I would fail. I have never discounted reality. It is there, bold and in your face.

But, there is that reality that is so mean and sorrow filled, and then there is the other side of reality. I have to see the other side. The side I can see. Kind and good people and feel that I am one of them who changes the world one little minute at a time. I hope that is not vain of me. I need to feel it is true.

To look back and think that without any dreams I would be where my mother was, I could be as mean as she. I would still wear no underwear.

If God there be, he has saved me.

Love,
Betty

Betty,

That is beautifully written.

I know that beauty is so much brighter after the reality you knew as the little girl you speak of.

Love, Carol

Dear Carol,
That little girl.

I will never forget her.

Love,
Betty

Betty, you are in good company. The good seem to be the target of hurt. For the good, the relief comes only at death.
An eighty year old friend was giving a speech. He spoke about a time when he was ten. The remembrance of it brought him to tears. He could not continue with his speech and had to leave the stage. The bad never seem to feel the hurt. It is only a passing thing with them, and they go on.
The best writers the world has had, carry a ton of tears in their bag.

Thank you, Betty.

Betty,

Love her.

Carol

Betty,

I wish we coud somehow wipe your mind clean. You are not that little girl any longer. You are over 60 years old.

Unfortunately our early memories are our best ones. That is not reality now-- that was then, some 50 years ago.

Carol, How do we hold the good memories and free the bad ones?

Thank you.

Betty,

One last thought here. I happen to like you now. That little girl grew up years ago. It is not her fault that she had no childhood.

It is probably not her parents fault either. Parents can only give what they have--not what they do not have.

I want you to live in your reality now--not then.
You are a woman who writes, grows food, you have lovely underwear...
Get it--You better.

Betty Fasig wrote:

Dear Carol,
That little girl.

I will never forget her.

Love,
Betty

Forget her! She grew up and is an old person now--a good one too.

Dear Alice,
I would not be on this message board if I still lived in that past time. I am not she, that little girl. I will remember her, though. It is important.

Dominic,
Thank your for your kind words.

I do not hold on to that past time. I remember it. That is all. I do not feel sorry for my self. I feel sorry that my parents were so miserable and so mean. they could have done better. Poverty and even ignorance is no excuse. They were mean to the core and smacked their lips over it.

I think you are a kind man.

Love,
Betty

There are many things in this world I will never understand. I do know that who I am this moment is who I am meant to be, with all my past memories shaping my ways of thinking and living. At this moment, I have my own trials and tribulations; but they are small compared to where I have been. I made it here. I'll make it today, tonight or whatever I have.

At work we were talking about being parents. I know some really great parents with children whose adulthoods are rife with emotional disorders and inability to cope with life. I know people from horrid childhoods who become stable and capable adults. I don't know the rhyme or reason for these things. I only know that each day is a new one full of new choices, and I try to make the best ones I can at the time in spite of that person inside who remembers things she'd rather not and sometimes slips into bad decisions as a result. The next day, I start again.

I read this thread.

I admire all of you.
You are very brave people.

There is a very loving group of people here.

I think Betty can't forget the little girl she was, because she needs to take her in her arms, acknowledge her existence and pain and recognize her courage, her heroism, her being able to find beauty.

She existed, she grew into a pretty good person.

I can see her in my mind.

Love, Carol