silent all these years

no voice. they have none at all. a five year old says her daddy washes inside her tooty with his bare hands. they warn him of his "boundaries" and go on with their day. what have we told her? this same girl at ten finds out her mother is pregnant. she writes a letter to the state, and the judge and anyone who will listen. "don't let her take a baby home for one night" she pleads. she begs. she speaks of the worry she will have in her heart "24/7" knowing that the child will not have siblings to protect him/her. knowing that s/he will endure the damage she and her siblings have already endured, and are still battling with. Nobody reads it. or if they do, they write it off as the rantings of a pre-adolescent.

Her four year old brother, my son, disclosed that his mom "touched his privates". He discloses this the week that she is taking home his little half-brother from the hospital. He tells the truth, and is not taken seriously. oh, no, huh huh...how could a mother have done that? he was just a baby. only two when he left the house. surely he's mistaken. WHAT ARE WE SAYING TO HIM? He faces the monsters, the ghosts, the horrible secrets from his past, and he is paying for it. He's woken up three nights in a row now, scared. They say he's just reacting to having to say goodby to my deploying husband. I don't think so. I think that a little boy who finally tells the truth is terrified that it will come back to bite him. I think he is smart enough to know that nobody believes him. but I do.

And I'm not with him to tell him how proud I am of him, or to hold him at night when he's scared, because he's been so scared by those monsters that he's rejected family. And so he sits in a residential treatment center scared and man and full of a "fireball" that he can't put water on. In fact, that's what he was doing. His therapist said that if he wanted to get rid of the fireball, he needed to tell about how it got there, and it would be like pouring water on it. only he was squirmy and "different" when he finished telling of his parents beating animals and stabbing each other and screaming at and pinching him. He seemed "less genuine" when he got to the part where he told of his mom touching his privates. OF COURSE HE WAS. HE WAS TERRIFIED!!!

And I have been so worried about peace keeping and not stepping on toes, or over boundaries, that I have not used the voice I have. I have not used the voice that even he has been brave enough to use. problem is his is small. his is small and comes from the mind of a very confused and damaged little boy. i am not confused. I am clear as ever. I will write whomever I have to, whoever I can. I will not scream so that I may not be written off as irrational, or "talked off the ledge". I will speak loudly and clearly and slowly. I will spell it out. Think hard big people. What message have we given them? What have you told these children? you tell them to tell. to speak the truth and be brave and that you will fix it. then you slap abusers on the wrist and calm the foster parents down and let years and more babies go by. I will not stand back and watch this little boy be ignored. he will be heard. and he will speak on behalf of his new brother he doesn't even know about. and he will speak with his sisters who have been ignored for far too long. I don't know where to start. I only know I have to. I am constantly being reminded that it's all out of our control, that it's up to God. THat may be true, but I am not nothing. I have been given a voice, and I will use it. God bestowed this little life upon us, and I will not take it lightly. He deserves more than that. his sisters deserve more than that. his two day old brother going home with a borderline personalitied unhealed woman who was once that voiceless little girl, deserves more than that. I wish someone would have done it for her 30 years ago. I think she deserved it too.

lost

I don't know why I want to include this, except that I can't get it out of my head. When I first heard it, I could only weep for my daughter Emma. I wondered if perhaps the artist (Emmylou Harris) had herself lost a baby. the more I listen to it, the more I wonder if it is a different kind of lost. a Tieran kind of lost. either way, it is more than a song, it seems to me a prayer. And I pray it today for all the Emmas and Tieran's, some lost and found, and some still wandering. I pray for the mothers who lost and the mothers who are chasing, or waiting, or weeping. God bless people who can write lyrics like this, they are sometimes my only window to sanity. It brings me sanity today because I know the Shepherd will do the job that earthly parents cannot always muster.

MY BABY NEEDS A SHEPHERD, by Emmylou Harris, album Red Dirt Girl

My baby needs a shepherd, She's lost out on the hill
Too late I tried to call her when the night was cold and still
And I tell myself I'll find her but I know I never will
My baby needs a shepherd, she's lost out on the hill

My baby needs an angel, She never learned to fly
She'll not reach sanctuary just by looking to the sky
I guess I could have carried her But I didn't even try
My baby needs an angel She never learned to fly

Oh I ran so far through a broken land
I was following that drummer Beating in a different band
And somewhere on the highway I let go of her hand
Now she´s gone forever Like her footprints in the sand

Toora loora, loora lo
First the seed and then the rose
Toora loora, loora li My kingdom for a lullaby

My baby needs a pilot She has no magic wand
To help her part the troubled waters of the Rubicon
But in my soul I know she'll have to go this one alone
After all that is the only way she's ever known

But there is no lamp in all this dark
That could chase away her shadow From the corners of my heart
I pray she'll ride a dolphin But she's swimming with the shark
Out where none can save her not even Noah and his ark

Toora loora, loora lo To the cradle comes the crow
Toora loora, loora li My kingdom for a lullaby

My baby needs a mother To love her till the end
Up every rugged mountain And down every road that bends
Sometimes I hear her cryin' But I guess it´s just the wind
My baby needs a mother To love her till the end

justice

isn't it ironic. friday my son's birthmother gave birth to another boy. justice is his name. how perfect. perfectly maddening and sickening. a baby with that name born to a world that will not show him any.
I wish I had something powerful to say. to believe in. to feel.
I feel nothing. it is just too much

reaching

I haven't been able to form a thought, let alone in words, since my last post. But I've been thinking a lot about long reaches lately. Tieran's been at his new temporary home for three months now. Three months since I left him there, both of us in a fog. That day where he showed true fear is long gone. His survival mode is back, and his defiance even stronger. I can't help but wonder how far the pain of his past will reach into his future.
I realize now that it was really not me. That I wasn't in some way instigating the problems. I watch him there, engaging in and carrying on the same battles that he had with me. In fact, now I am the reprieve from that battle. If someone fills the caretakes position, they will get the battle. You tell him to brush his teeth more than once or twice, and he assumes the position. The position of "oh no I won't!" The position of please God, dont' let there be some unsafe unstable unpredictable big person in charge of me... I imagine it will truly be a very long time before he is able to trust that not every big person is like his first mother.
He turns five this month. Which means he will have been out of his terrifying home as long as he was in it. It took only 2.5 years to create this damage. I have always scoffed at the stats that talk about how many years it takes to undo damage... I don't scoff so much anymore. I realize that the days don't counterbalance the way I thought they would. Sure, he's been out of that environment for 2.5 years now. But how many of those days have been healing? How many of those days has he set down the model he learned there? not many.
But it is for those days that I pray. for those days that I long for and watch for and wait for. Those days that will eventually add up to enough that they may tip the scales. He had three days a couple weeks ago. Three in a row that he actually enjoyed himself, made himself available for fun activities and didn't waste all his time fighting those who are trying to help him. He's probably had a handful or two of them in the last 2.5 years. I hope that they become more frequent, and last longer. I hope that the rewiring of his internal model will have as long a reach as his primal wounds have had. I hope that our days of soccer and coloring and dance parties will start to become as much wired in him as the days of stabbings or hunger or screaming.