The shock of what my father is hasn’t worn off, but I don’t break down over it now. I try not to dwell on it and I can go days without thinking about it, but it’s still very raw under the surface.

I haven’t spoken to him since September now, possibly earlier and mum I haven’t spoken to since October. I write the occasional email in answer to her weekly newsy email – which is just signed off as ‘mum’ and not ‘mum and dad’. It hurts to think I no longer have the relationship I had with them – I’d always thought of us as a close family, even if we lived in different states.

However, my brother and sister are I are much closer now. After I contacted them by letter and outlined what had happened, both rang me for a long talk. Turned out they had more pieces of the story puzzle that I had no knowledge of and it shows that dad has had a history towards this for a very long time. Just how long we do not know.

I pray and hope that the children in his street are safe and that mum is keeping vigilant when they are in their house – as I know the children are still visiting. Although mum reports in her letters that their parents are there too at the same time. She probably won’t mention if the kids come alone anymore. The authorities in that state have been notified and they told me that he will be under surveillance.

As much as I would hate it, I want him caught and charged. I want him to acknowledge and accept that what he’s done is wrong and I want him to be counselled and healed before he leaves this earth.  Dad is in his early 70s and suffers from enphacema so I know that realistically he may not be with us for much longer.  I know once he knows and accepts that what he has done is wrong he will undergo tremendous guilt and pain but he needs to go through that.

We pray for the protection of those children. We do not know their names and we do not know how to contact their families but the authorities are aware that children had been visiting the house prior to our contacting them.

In the meantime our family life has improved and the relationship between my step daughters and myself is now much better. The air has been cleared and the girls now know that their father and I weren’t ignoring them and what had happened all those years ago, but that we genuinely had not known anything about it at all and if we had, that we would have taken immediate action. Whilst the relationship I had with the girls when they were little will never be reinstated, we at least have a much better, stronger and more understanding relationship now and the girls know I really do love them and care for them.

authorities, sexual abuse, child abuse, surviving abuse, non-offending parents

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 5:10 am and is filed under Our Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.