Well, it's time to get back to this story too. Obviously it's been a long stretch; about a year since the last chapter posted. Yet since I started posting "Ask Me", the cycles of the past recirculate.
I wasn't thinking much about any of this until an issue with church that's been brewing in the back ground for years has come to the forefront. Since I'm either estranged, or separated by their deaths, from much of my family of origin at this point; (My husband has even died.) much of what has become my family has been found at church.
Needless to say, a particular grieving of the Spirit of God has been brewing for about 7 years now. The leadership of my current church seems to be in a quandary about simply baptizing my son. ? The kid came to me when he was 9 and told me he wanted to be baptized. When I told the pastor, he said to wait to see if my son "had a credible profession of faith". Well, my son began meeting with the pastor when he was 13 and since that, the pastor has come to the conviction that the kid does believe and that it would be appropriate to baptize him. Problem is that for some reason, the rest of the leadership can't seem to come to a consensus on this. ?
The deeper issue appears to be that there's a spiritual problem with some of the people in this church; one of whom is a session member. Some weird stuff has happened and people who are a bit "outside the box" seem to be targeted in different ways for their "outside the box(ness)". We have a woman in her 60's who's kind of a hippy and walks around in bare feet. (Apparently this is a continuing issue for certain church members. ?) My son and I have been bounced around the building for the past 5 years on account of certain issues that have arisen because of his disability. (Apparently the lack of understanding of his disability on the part of certain people has excluded him from the use of certain spaces in the church.) Then there's a fellow who was a member of the church many years ago; who'd been running a ministry in conjunction with this church to Cuban / Hispanic immigrants / refugees. Well this fellow has just gotten out of prison after serving an 8 year sentence and since he's now registered as a sex offender, he has certain legal ramifications he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. The church has been made aware of the charges, the trial the outcome and that a few members of the leadership have been visiting him in prison for these past 8 years. The church has been told that these leaders believe this man has sincerely repented of what he's done and that they believe he is a genuine believer, yet, they have not given him communion the entire time he's been in prison.?
Well, just like my son, if you're a part of the body why aren't you invited to the table?
I'm a rather "tell it like it is" type of person, who's not prone to sugarcoat things; of which this personality trait is apparently "offensive" to some of the women in church. ? Several of my friends there have described me as "upfront", "You're not rude but you do speak your mind." and "Maybe you're a little rough around the edges, but I like you because I never wonder where I stand with you." and the most consistent thing I've heard from my friends at church is "With everything you have been through, I have never heard you complain."
So, I've confronted several session members over whether or not their church traditions actually line up with Scripture and they've yet to be able to compile a reasonable response to the points I've made. They basically agree with me, but can't seem to answer beyond that, as to any reasonable objection to baptizing my son. ? Only about half of the session members have actually taken the time to sit down and talk to me about this and outside of the pastor, none of them have actually sat down and talked to my son. So, I've given them a deadline. At the end of July we are going to a local Christian music festival and if they won't baptize him by then, he'll be baptized at the festival. I've told them that no matter where they are at with any of this, we are still under obligation to be obedient to what God commands; and God commands that people who profess belief are to be baptized. (Simple - end of story.)
So what this issue in church has surfaced is that if this is suppose to be my "family of God", it's not eliciting a whole lot of confidence from me as to it's commitment to obey God and function the way it should. Not much different than the family I came from. So obviously the question arises, do we stay or do we go? I don't know what the answer to that is and for now, we are still there because my son does not want to leave.
And so the reality has surfaced that in my own life, there are fellow believers I'm friends with whom we at one point or another attended the same church, but don't any longer. And in the end, as morbid as this may sound; I've come to the revelation that we all still die alone. Reality is that much of our lives really are spent when it's just us and God in the room; and this realization is why I've come back to, and decided to publish "Ask Me" which I'd written so many years ago.
And so with that story - as it's part of this narrative. It's time to post some more chapters here too.
Alyssa lies
Child Protective… 1978:
It was the fall of second grade and a new girl had come to my school. Her name was Rachel and I remember being so "jealous" of Rachel, because she had the most beautiful long flowing little girl dresses, with lots of frills and cable knit knee stockings. (She also had really long thick wavy brown hair.) I wished so much I could have some of Rachel's pretty dresses. So in the first week or so that she was in school, I'd made friends with Rachel. We'd talk about our doll collections and grandmas who liked to sew.
(Someone was spending a lot of time and energy actually making Rachel's dresses, since they were not like any dresses I ever saw in stores my parents went to. Maybe J.C. Penny's; but I almost never went in there.)
One day, we were sitting in reading group and I was talking when I wasn't suppose to be; the teacher looked up at me to tell me to be quiet and listen, when she noticed Rachel pulling up her knee-highs. Rachel's legs were all black and blue. The teacher stopped and suddenly popped out with the question "Rachel, what happened to your legs?" Rachel stammered out some comment about her dog did it. The teacher just sort of nodded and than told Rachel to go down to the nurse.
That was the last time I saw Rachel. She never came back to school after that and by the end of the next week, I'd asked the teacher where Rachel was? Was she sick? Was she in the hospital; because she'd been out of school for a week at that point? The teacher said "No, she's not sick, or in the hospital. She goes to a different school now." I objected with another barrage of questions. "Did she move? She just came here? Where'd she go?" The teacher only commented rather off the cuff, as she was correcting papers: "No, her parents didn't move. She just lives some place else now." I just stood there sort of staring at the teacher and then asked her if I could visit Rachel? Could I send her a letter or a card? The teacher looked up at me a moment before she said: "No, I'm sorry, but you can't visit her, or send her anything either." I stood there for another couple of minutes before I blurted out. "She's in a foster home isn't she?" The teacher just kind of stared at me like, how did I know anything about foster homes? I just turned and walked away.
It was my friend's cat!
Nearly the entire school year had passed and summer was creeping up on us. It was just before lunch and I was sitting in our reading circle falling asleep, as I had so often during that year. The teacher only commented in a mildly exasperated tone: "Why are you so tired all the time?"
Right after my reading circle time was over, everyone was lining up for lunch while I was back by the coats fishing for my lunch money. Once the student teacher took the rest of the class to the cafeteria, the teacher stopped me and asked me to stay behind.
"You are always falling asleep in school. Why are you so tired all the time?"
I just sort of stared at the floor, squirming around, wondering what I should say when I finally decided to just say something because maybe it would really be the help dad needed?
"My sister got raped last night." I mumbled.
"Uh…..What?" The teacher responded.
Over the next several questions, she inquired of me as to whether I really knew what rape was and when I'd answered sufficiently enough that the teacher was convinced that I knew what I was talking about, and that I did indeed know who did it; she asked if the police had been called. I said: "No, dad wanted to, but mom wouldn't let him."
She sent me to lunch and after lunch was over, she sent me down to the nurse's office.
I jumped up and almost skipped out the door, happy to go because I didn't really want to sit through math lesson anyways; although I had no idea why the teacher was sending me, since she was usually telling me to go sit down for my frequent requests to go there when I rarely appeared to be sick at all. Besides, I liked the school nurse. She was always nice to me.
The nurse's office was set up so there was a wall right next to the entrance that created a little corridor before one actually came into the office proper. The nurse's desk sat facing this entrance about 4 feet away and usually had two chairs right in front of it, facing the desk. When I turned the corner, she was sitting at her desk. I stopped and looked around the room. Standing next to her was another woman I didn't recognize and facing them, off to the side, around this wall, where I could not see him until I'd actually came into the office; was a uniformed armed police officer. I knew right than that something serious was happening if he was here.
"You can come in." The nurse waved me over in her usual friendly manner. I scurried over and sat in the chair next to the window. She introduced me to the two other people and explained that I was not in trouble, but that they'd come because this nice woman wanted to talk to me; (although I hadn't quite put it together yet that they were there to ask about my sister).
The woman came over and sat down in the chair across from me. I kept staring at the cop and she told me not to worry about him, he just came because they told him to. She explained that she often worked with the police and that she was a detective of sorts. She showed me an ID card that was attached to the waist of her skirt and said that was sort of like her police badge.
She started with some simple questions like how was lunch? What was I learning in school and than moved onto some other simple questions like who lived at home with me. At that point, I realized that this had something to do with my sister. I remember spending quite a bit of time talking about my dog. The lady asked a lot of question about what kind of dog did we have. What was her name? How old was she? How long had we had her? Than we started talking about my siblings and my parents. The next thing the woman asked was if I remembered talking to my teacher about something that had happened to my sister last night. I said yes.
I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but apparently I'd said enough to her that when we'd gotten out of school and I was walking with my one older sister home; we turned the corner and noticed a strange car in the driveway and a cop car in front of the house. My sister stopped cold and her jaw almost hit the ground as we watched my oldest sister get into this official looking van. (I don't think it was an ambulance, but it looked like some sort of medical transport, or maybe a police vehicle?) The van pulled away and the police car followed it. We stood there and watched as the third car pulled out of the driveway and drove away.
"How'd they find out?" My sister muttered in shock.
"I told them." I replied in a flat emotionless tone.
Those 7 houses between the corner and our house was probably one of the longest walks I've ever tread in my life. I had a flood of emotions as I watched these cars pull away. I wanted to run down the street and scream "Take me with you." I didn't do that though. Then I wanted to go hide in someone's yard; but I didn't do that either.
When we'd gotten to the house, my sister was afraid to go inside, so I took her hand and said "We just gotta be brave." Dad was awake and since my brother (who went to a different school) wasn't home yet; they were the only ones down stairs. We walked in the door and dad stopped us in the living room. He didn't say anything at first, just stood there staring at his two terrified daughters holding each other's hand.
Dad only commented: "They took your sister to the hospital."
When mom started yelling at "which ever one of us who told….." and that we'd never see our older sister again. Dad just quietly told us to go to our room.
When we got into our room, my sister burst into tears. I just sat on my bed and stared at my dolls for the next…. four hours. Besides my sister crying and mom slamming doors, the house was quiet that night. I don't know what became of my brother that evening. I do remember dad coming upstairs at about 6 P.M. and telling us to go down stairs to eat dinner. If my mother and brother were in the house, we didn't see them. Dad made us grilled cheese sandwiches and we went back up stairs to our room.
We spent the rest of the weekend cleaning the house; of which my dad made my brother do most of the work. My sister and I were basically responsible to clean our bedroom and that's where we stayed most of that weekend. "Making it better so our sister could come home." was the message.
My older sister spent much of that weekend in various states of teary eyes, while mom blamed her for "telling the secret". For some reason my mother seemed to believe my one sister had 'done this' to my oldest sister out of some personal vendetta to 'get my (oldest) sister in trouble'. My sister would just plead with mom; "No it wasn't me. It wasn't me."
I just remained silent and didn't say a word to anyone. Dad had figured it out though; besides the fact that I think (looking back at it now) he probably had some 'inside information' from talking to the social worker himself. Finally by the end of the weekend dad was pretty fed up with mom blaming my sister.
"Leave her alone!" He yelled. "Besides, it wasn't her. It was that one!" He gestured in my direction. Mom just shut up and stared at us, like she didn't exactly believe dad. Than he said to mom: "You need to pull yourself together before they take all your daughters….. away from YOU!"
My dad had brought my oldest sister home from the hospital that afternoon and I was excited to see her. So when no one else was around, I asked her "Did you tell them what happened?" She looked at me and growled back. "Tell who what? I was at Marine's house all weekend and these scratches were from her cat!"
Down the Black Hole:
That was the point I realized no body was going to protect me. I was really hoping my sister would be the one to say something, because she was the one with the evidence at that point. She had the welts, the bruises and the scratches. Apparently though without a "complaining witness" there wasn't anything they could do. I don't know if for legal reasons, they would have needed both of my parent's permission to do a GYN exam on my sister, but mom certainly would not have consented to that.
Years passed and of course with the expressed permissiveness of my mother, the abuse got worse. It was a mystery to me until after dad died, as to why he never said anything. Why he never 'told'. I understand that now, with the way the system was run at that time, as well as my mother threatening him. Dad had once told me after I'd gotten out of the Navy, that he had talked to a lawyer "many years ago" about divorcing mom and then he said: "He told me I'd never get you and your sisters."
Despite all this, dad did do what he could to try and protect me; yet it was made clear to him that if this was ever going to end, we were the ones who'd have to speak up. Dad spent many years vacillating back and forth between denial and depression, trying to figure out what he could do to help his family.
When I was in 7th grade, dad tried to confront mom about her alcoholism and did all he could to encourage her to go to counseling; but mom refused. Many years later (1998) when I was hospitalized for depression; mom did sit with me on the psych ward and told me about an experience she had with counseling back just after I was born.
"I know now I was suffering from what they call postpartum depression." She said. "I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't take care of you. You came home from the hospital sick and I thought you were going to die." She confessed. "I couldn't take it, so your father had to take off of work so he could take care of you. Your grandmother helped too." She paused a moment. "Your father would drive me up to these counseling sessions once a week. It was women's group therapy and they'd sit around at talk about their problems…. and the drugs they were on. The people that ran it kept pushing valium on us and though I knew I had problems. I knew that wasn't going to help, so I stopped going." Then she said. "You know it was really hard for me to come up here. But I came and I'm glad I did. When I sat in your meeting with the doctors. I felt like they actually cared about you and weren't looking just to push drugs. Things are a lot different now then they were 30 years ago." When I asked mom if she'd consider going into counseling now. She said. "I'm past the point where it would change anything."
It took a long time before I really understood what mom meant by that last statement and looking back at it now, she was right at least at that point; that it wouldn't have changed the past. Maybe that's why mom never really could think about the future? And I guess that's the whole tragedy of it.
The CPS worker from way back when I was in 2nd grade followed up about a week later. She tried asking me about what we'd talked about before and all I could say was: "I don't remember."
Child Protective... 2016:
Some 40 years would pass when my neighbor's 8 year old daughter would stay with us for about 2 weeks. My neighbor had confided in me that she was up to her neck in a CPS investigation and she was having trouble getting the house clean. Her youngest was 8, the next older sister was living with her grandparents and she had a 14 year old boy at home who she suspected was doing drugs and an 18 year old girl who was mentally ill. There was an incident where the 18 year old daughter and her boyfriend beat up her father. So not only was there a CPS case open, there was an active police investigation. So I offered that the little girl could stay with us.
Well, her mom brought over her school back pack and a pair of pajamas. She said she'd have to go find more clothes for the kid. So I said to the mom, come on let's go shopping. So I bought the girl a coat, a pair of boots, sneakers a hat and mittens. It was Christmas break and her mom was feeling badly that she didn't really have any Christmas presents for her daughter.
After about a day when her mom didn't come back with any clothes, I took the girl to a consignment shop and basically bought her a wardrobe.
About two days later I took the little girl and my son to a mall in Syracuse that my son wanted to go see. It bore the same name as his favorite video game "Destiny"; and of course that peaked his attention. So I packed up the kids and off to the mall we went. The little girl wanted to go to Build a Bear; so we did and I bought her a stuffed My Little Pony and my son got a Chewbacca. Their stuffed critters spent the next several hours teasing each other in the mall. "You're not a bear, your a pony." "Well, your not a bear either, your a Wookie!" My son also had his Minecraft critters and she had a barbie doll dressed like one of the Frozen characters. Well Elsa was trying to ride Endy Dragon and he wasn't having any of that! So they chased each other down the corridors of this mall laughing and giggling as their critters insulted each other.
A couple of days later, the little girl was getting anxious about having to take her pony back to her house and she started talking about maybe My Little Pony could live at grandmas? When I asked her why she didn't want to take My Little Pony home, she said "My brother sets my toys on fire."
Well, over the course of the next two days, the reason for the CPS investigation became clear to me. The little girl had some marks on her face prior, that her mom said were "allergies" (it was December) and I'd noticed bruises on her arm. When I asked her about them, she showed me bruises and scrapes on her side too and than she started to cry and say she fell down the basement steps and mom's bunny fell down with her. When I asked her about her mom's bunny (since I knew her mom didn't have a pet rabbit); she described to me a large cement lawn animal that had been sitting at the top of the stairs. She described going down the stairs and than she didn't know how, but all the sudden she was falling and the bunny came after her. I asked her if she tripped over the bunny? She said no, she'd already passed the bunny, she was two steps down and she was suddenly falling and than the bunny was falling too and she got out of the way just before the bunny would have landed on her. I asked her if anyone was in the house when this happened. She said her brother was in the house and her dad was sitting in the living room. I asked if she knew where her brother was at the time this happened? She started to cry and said "no".
I suspect her brother pushed her down the stairs and the cement rabbit after her. Her mom had told me at the point that her older sister went to live with grandma; it was because this brother and one of his friends had assaulted the older sister. (That was 4 years earlier.) I still don't think it's known as to what they actually did to her. According to her mother, she'd called her at work; who'd told her to call her grandmother and her grandmother came and got her.
So after some consternation that my neighbor would be upset with me; I called Child Protective and told the case worker what the girl had said to me about the "bunny incident" and that her brother sets her toys on fire. I'd also said that the 18 year old had complained that this brother also burned her possessions and that one sister was living with her grandparents because her brother had beat her up.
Regardless, my neighbor was upset and called me the evening CPS spoke to her and told me the little girl lies, she tripped over the rabbit and: "I want her back!" She than calmed down a minute and said. "I'm not going to come and get her now, but I want her back." (It was 9 PM, the kid was in bed and had school the next day.)
So the next morning, I got the little girl up, put her on the school bus, took my son to school and than drove over to her grandparents house. Her grandfather was home and I talked to him for about 45 minutes. After this, we drove over to where grandma was volunteering at a local Christian coffee house. From there, we made a plan.
Her grandfather followed me home and I gave him all her toys and clothing; (except her My Little Pony). When I went to pick up my son. I sat him down with his counselor and the class room teacher and explained to him what was going to happen. (He was in the 9th grade at a school that was about 40 miles from our house.) He got real nervous that we weren't exactly "telling the truth" about her grandparents "running into us" at Perkins. (I'd arranged with the grandparents that they would "surprise" meet us there that night and they could take the little girl home with them.) The counselor and teacher explained to my son that it's OK if you have to "lie" sometimes to protect someone.
So when the little girl got off the school bus that afternoon, she soon realized all her clothing had been removed from the closet. She asked me if her mom had come to get the clothes. I simply said: "no". Then I told her: "We're going to Perkins tonight for dinner." She asked: "Are my mom and dad going to be there?" I said: "I don't think so." She spent the rest of the afternoon in her room quietly playing with her My Little Pony, my son's Winnie the Pooh and a box of Legos. She'd come out with one Lego guy who had 10 heads stacked on top of his shoulders. I looked at it and told her: "Well you know how they say two heads are better than one?" "Yeah?" She said. "Well, looks like you got yourself a think tank there." She burst out laughing running around the living room with her "think tank".
When we got to Perkins, we'd arrived before her grandparents and when I told the staff we were expecting 3 other people, the little girl asked who else was coming. I said: "Wait, you'll see." When her sister walked in the door. She jumped up, ran and jumped into her arms. I could tell from her reaction she was relieved more than anything else.
We all had an enjoyable dinner. Grandpa talked to my son about my son's favorite computer games and when the night was over; they took her home with them. When Saturday morning came; her mom showed up on my doorstep with the girl's Pony. She said she'd found the pony at grandma's and was looking for her daughter. I said: "She's not here. We went to Perkins for dinner last night and ran into your parents. Your daughter is at your mom's house." She seemed a bit panicked, but at the same time relieved too.
Two years have passed and the grandparents now have legal custody of both girls.
My neighbor comes by more often now to talk than she did in the year following "the hand off". She since has told me about things that have happened with her husband. She'd disclosed at one point that he tried to kill her and she's not sure what to do. She's trying to get him help through the VA. (He has a traumatic brain injury, so he suffers from periodic episodes of volcanic rage; although he has never blown up at me or my son. I've heard two different versions of the cause of the TBI. His story is that it was a motorcycle accident. She'd once said that Jag investigators suspected he'd had an affair with his commanding officer's wife and the men in his squadron beat the shit out of him, sent him on his way on his motorcycle and he crashed. The question remains of how he sustained the head injuries he had, when the helmet wasn't damaged? And if that's the case, than his injury really isn't really "service connected" (because it had happened due to his own immoral actions). He's never confessed to any affair and was discharged from the army shortly thereafter.)
I knew exactly what I had to do, but when we got to school on Monday, I heard the news.
My little girl asked me why every body looked so sad. The lump in my throat grew bigger, with every question that she had. Until I felt the tears run down my face and I told her that Alyssa wouldn't be in school today.
'Cause she doesn't lie to the classroom. She doesn't lie anymore at school. Alyssa lies, with Jesus, because there's nothing anyone would do!
(Alyssa lies - song by Jason Michael Carroll)
