Hush Now Baby. Georgina Redding
My Lantern
It is my hope that by journaling my thoughts and feelings that I will be able to have clarity on those days that I feel as if I will surely go mad.
There are the good days when I do well and then there are days like today when I feel as if I am wandering along the train tracks in the fog.
There is so much that I do not understand nor will I ever understand. On good days, I can lay all in God’s hands. On bad days, it is almost as if I have forgotten how. My heart and my soul know that God has not forgotten or abandoned me. My thoughts can’t see through the murkiness.
My writing is my lantern.
Secrets
Secrets… the word depicts a quietness, a stillness almost sacred. Secrets are, in reality, deafening, oppressive, and destructive. Secrets are an open wound. The longer the wound is left unattended, the more the wound festers. The festering wound begins to poison all that remains. Healing cannot take place until the wound is drained, cleaned out, and exposed.
My life has been clouded with secrets for as long as I can remember. Sometimes the secrets were so dark and murky that they were impossible to see through. It wasn’t until I could stand on higher ground where I could see through the darkness into the light of truth. It wasn’t until I made a choice to step out of that darkness did I discover just how damaging those secrets were.
This is my story.
Sunday Best
The Perfect Family
I was born in 1959. Some people say those were the golden years, the years of innocence. I don’t agree. There was nothing innocent about them.
In those days, sexual abuse was not discussed aloud. Perhaps it wasn’t discussed at all. Perhaps it was only discussed in the dark, in secret “where it belonged”.
No one came to the schools and talked about the danger of strangers or the danger of family. There were no books for children about being careful and watchful. These were years of innocence after all.
My father was a chemical engineer. His work involved a lot of traveling. My mother was a stay at home mother. I have an older sister, an older brother, and a younger brother. My sister is three years older than I am. One of my brothers is a year and a half older than I am. My other brother is a little more than three years younger than I am. My sister, older brother, and I were born in New Mexico. My younger brother was born in California.
We were the perfect family.
As young children, we were respectful, obedient, and most importantly, quiet. We kept our thoughts to ourselves. We rarely complained. This perfect façade was nurtured and maintained. We were the sweet little family that went to mass every Sunday morning. The boys clean and neat with their hair combed. The girls almost always wore sweet little dresses with little white gloves, and carried darling little purses. We would sit quietly during the service, standing and kneeling, when need be. After mass, we would go home and change our clothes. Perception was everything. We were the perfect family.
I learned early on that perception really was everything. I learned how to live my life on the outside as expected. I learned how to behave like a good girl. I learned how to keep my feelings, when I did feel anything, to myself. I learned how this was the way to survive.
I lived in two worlds. Inside, I lived far away in imaginary lands where animals talked and it was safe. I could walk in the woods, visit my animal friends, walk along the seashore, dance in the wind whenever I wanted, wherever I was, whatever the reason -all the time, on the inside, safe and, happy. On the outside, I could be in school. I could be in church. I could be at the dinner table. I could be with my grandfather – on the outside. I learned early on to prefer living on the inside rather than living on the outside. And so I did.
Piece By Piece
Some days I feel like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from all the other puzzles mixed in. The pieces should all fit but they don’t and they never will. Other days, the jigsaw puzzle is just missing a few pieces. I look around for the lost pieces and they allude me. The puzzle remains unfinished.
The corner pieces are my favorite pieces. I look for those first. They are the foundation pieces. Next, I look for the outside border puzzle pieces. They fit nicely as if they were holding hands. Those pieces make sense. The inside puzzle pieces are what throw you. They are not smooth. They are jagged. Those are the ones that don’t always fit. Those are the ones that are usually missing.
Our puzzle pieces are our life experiences, people in our lives, and parts of who we are. My corner pieces are God, my faith, my husband, and my children. The border pieces link my dear friends and prayers. This is what keeps me going. They are my framework.
The inside pieces are a hodgepodge of my life. Some pieces are smooth and beautiful. Some pieces are tattered and bent. Some fit smoothly. Some are warped. All the pieces are real but some of them should never have been in the box.
My puzzle has no pretty picture on the box to work from. I don’t know what my puzzle will look like. I suppose none of us do. I do know that God knows what the picture looks like. And with His help, I continue to put the puzzle together. Some days it is a joy. Some days it is a struggle. But I continue to work on it.
My Grandfather and Me
Hush Now Baby, Don’t Say A Word
My grandfather, my mother’s father, was by all accounts a family man, a religious man, a good man. He was a World War I veteran. He worked for the United States Post Office. He was married only once and he and his wife, my grandmother, had five children. One daughter died when she was a young child. No one talks about her.
My grandfather loved children. He was known to be quite generous and he would even randomly give money to children that he would see in the marketplace. He was charming, my grandfather.
When I was a very young child, we lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, not far from my grandparents. My brother, sister, many cousins, and I would individually spend countless hours, days, and weekends at my grandparents’ home. Much of that time was spent alone with my grandfather.
He would take us on outings. We would go the racetrack. We would go the fair when it was in town. We would go to the bakery. We would go to church.
My grandfather would play with us outside. He would help us climb the big apricot tree to pick apricots. He would show us all his woodworking projects that he did in the garage. Sometimes, he would let us help him. The garage smelled of sawdust. I can remember him showing me the little white wooden cradle that he had made me for my doll.
On the nights that I slept over at my grandparents’ house, my grandfather would climb into bed with me and tell me stories. My grandfather would tell me stories with his words and with his hands. As he spoke, he would have his hands inside my pajamas and my panties.
I would lay still and listen and watch the clock on the wall. It was one of those clocks shaped like an owl. The eyes would roll back and forth and the pendulum tail would swing back and forth. And it seemed like a long time before the story was over. My grandfather would get out of bed, kiss my head, and say good night. There were many other places that my grandfather would take me to hurt me. Those words are for another time.
I do not know exactly when my grandfather began sexually abusing me. The earliest I can remember him touching me like that was when I was three years old. He continued to sexually abuse me when he had the opportunity until I was twelve years old and then he stopped.
When I was about six years