Making Waves. Chris Epting
teacher, he was not the one pushing us to be swimmers. That was my mother, who had such an extreme fear of the water that she wanted to make sure none of us followed in her footsteps. She was always panicked that something would happen to us in the water, which was why she enrolled us in swimming classes early on.
I was eight years old when I started taking swimming lessons at Cerritos College, which wasn’t too far from our house. While I loved playing around in the water, I wasn’t too crazy about the lessons. To get us used to staying underwater, they would make us hold on to what was called a “shepherd’s crook,” which was basically a long pole with a hook on the end of it. While kids held onto the hook, the instructor pushed the pole to the bottom of the pool and held them down there. I absolutely hated it. Whenever I had to do it, it made my ears really uncomfortable, so I would shimmy up the pole as far as I could to get closer to the surface. This always made the instructors really mad.
I also wasn’t comfortable with the fact that, because I was just a beginning swimmer, I was placed in a group with five-year-olds. That was so embarrassing for me. They were practically toddlers. But it was what my mother wanted me to do, so I didn’t dare speak up. That was the rule. I would just cry.
Since I hated taking swimming lessons there, we switched to the Norwalk High School pool, where the classes were regulated by the Red Cross. In fact, my very first race happened at the end of that summer, when I swam against another girl in a single twenty-five-yard length. I hadn’t even learned side breathing yet, so as we were racing, whenever it was time for me to breathe, I would stop, dog paddle for a moment, take a breath, watch her pass me, and then keep swimming to try and catch up. As ridiculous as that sounds, I actually won the race. But before I even had a moment to enjoy and savor my accomplishment, I was shocked to see the little girl’s father rush over to the edge of the pool, grab her out of the water by her arm, and begin yelling at her for losing to me. “How can you be slow?” he yelled. “She’s not a swimmer. You’re a swimmer! Start acting like it!”
Wow, I thought to myself, is that going to happen to me if I ever lose a race?
My older brother, Jack, was a really strong swimmer. When my mom decided to sign us up for a club team, the coach wanted Jack, not me. But my mother always made me part of the package and explained to those in charge that if they didn’t take me, then they couldn’t have Jack. It was the first of many times that this would happen in my life. Nobody ever wanted me, but they wanted Jack so badly that I got tossed in as the add-on. It was crushing for me was to have to stand there and listen to my mother explain to the coach that, no matter how much they didn’t want me, they still had to take me.
When I was about nine years old, we joined a team called the Buena Park Splashers. Again, they desperately wanted my brother, but in order to have him on board, they also had to take me. I could see how mad it made the coaches to have my mother forcing me on them, but they would always bite the bullet and allow me to swim on the team.
I was a fairly good academic student around this time and actually got to skip the fourth grade, which meant that every day I would be walking to Norwalk Brethren, a private school nearby. It was maybe a half-mile away or so, which wasn’t too far, but we had neighbors who always worried about me. My parents showed no concern, but more than one person living on our street would always tell me when they saw me, “Shirley, you have to be careful when you walk by yourself. You can’t ever talk to strangers. You never know what might happen if you do. You really need to be careful.”
I always listened to them. I understood their concerns. To my neighbors, the streets were potentially dangerous and unkind. But had they known what was happening in my own home, they probably would’ve called the police. At least, I hope they would have.
I don’t know when it started. I didn’t know what it was. But I knew I didn’t like it.
I’m not completely sure when I first became aware of the fact that my father was molesting me. Of course, by the time I was in the third and fourth grade, I knew exactly what was happening. He would creep into my room late at night and wake me up. Then, quickly and quietly, he would remove my underwear.
I told him to stop, but he said things like “This is what daddies do.” Each time I told him no, he said, “It’s what daughters and daddies do.” I told him I would tell Mom, and he said she would call me a liar.
I don’t know how my mom didn’t hear me cry. When I was five years old, I said to her, “Daddy comes into my room at night and touches me.” My father was right—she called me a liar and told me to never say that again. Then she got the bible out and made me read the fifth commandment: Obey your mother and father.
Later on in life, she would say to me, “I don’t know what happened. You were always daddy’s little girl until you turned about five years old. Then you didn’t want anything to do with him.” Well of course not. That’s when I had realized what he was doing to me.
That’s the disgusting monster that my father was. I was so afraid at night. I kept thinking that if anyone found out, I might have to go to a foster home, just like my brother had warned. So I went on, never knowing why it was happening to me.
This is the hardest thing to talk about. But I couldn’t write this book without including it, knowing how many women and children he has hurt. To portray him as something else would be a lie.
It went on for years. I asked my mom to put a lock on my door, but she accused me of trying to hide something. Yes, I was trying to hide something. She was right. I was trying to hide myself.
It was so strange, because I would rarely see my father due to his work hours. He worked all the time. Not just at his job at the plant, but at a drive-in movie theater, too. Yet this was how he chose to spend our time together. He’d wait until the house was dark and quiet. When it would happen, I remember not allowing my mind to even try to process what was taking place. I would lose myself in some other world and imagine myself in some far-off, tranquil pool, by myself—away from the monster that was violating me. I had no other escape.
My own father.
Looking back on it today and analyzing my earliest years, I am fairly sure these horrors began taking place shortly after I was born. When I think about my parents’ behavior, it speaks to a very dark and haunting pattern in my life.
I remember when I was in the first grade, there was a teacher who was concerned about me. Even though these were the days when society was far more oblivious about things like child molestation, this teacher of mine must have sensed that something was wrong with me. I’m sure there are certain telltale signs that a smart teacher can pick up on and begin to get suspicious about.
She called my mother down to the school to have a little discussion about me and what might be happening at home. As I sat there, nervous and biting my nails (which was becoming a bad habit for me), my mother denied anything of the sort. “Mrs. Babashoff,” my teacher began, gently and diplomatically, “is everything okay at home? Shirley gets withdrawn at times, and distant. She’s a very bright young girl. We’re here to help if we can.”
“There is nothing wrong in our home,” my mother insisted adamantly. “She’s just shy. And I don’t appreciate any suggestion that something is wrong in our household. We work very hard at raising our family, my husband and me.”
On the way home, my mother just glared at me in the car, as if I’d had anything to do with setting up the meeting.
I remember once in the fifth grade, I was in the school bathroom by myself when a friend came in. I decided to confide in her about what was happening at home, to see if this was something other people knew about. Stammering once or twice, I finally choked out the words: “My dad takes my underwear off. He tells me that’s what all dads do. And then he touches me. And other things. He says all dads do this. Does your dad do that?”
Instantly, I was sorry that I had said anything at all. Understandably, my friend became very agitated and started yelling at me, “You can’t say that, shut up, that can’t