Good Mourning: One Woman's Journey from Incest & Violence to Forgiveness, Healing & Joy

Stone

INTRODUCTION

Everyone has flashbacks of traumatic incidents in their lives. Some of my worst flashbacks are memories of abusive incidents. My memories come back in bits and pieces—a fractured reconstruction of my past:

I wish I had never had you. I wish you were dead! my mother screams. I feel worthless, humiliated, and demeaned.

Why are you so fidgety, Wendy? Can’t you sit still? my first grade teacher demands. I yawn defensively. My eyes water and tears escape down my face. "Are you crying?" my teacher then asks, embarrassing me in front of the entire class. I wish with all my heart that she and my classmates wouldn’t look at me. Instead, I am humiliated again and again as traumatic memories replay in my mind.

Please go away, I’ll be good! I plead to the frightening face of the devil image that I see in the dark corner of my bedroom ceiling. The image torments my young impressionable soul night after night. I am terrified to tell my parents, fearing that they will not believe me.

As I close my eyes to sleep, I see my body floating in space and getting smaller and smaller. I feel detached from myself. A hazy distorted face of a man appears as I drift off to sleep. I am terrified. I shake myself awake. Who does this face belong to? I wonder.

From childhood until I left home for college, I was a victim of incest and physical, emotional and verbal abuse by both my parents. I also suffered abuse by persons outside my immediate biological family. My abusers had me convinced that there was something wrong with me and that it was senseless for me to tell anyone the truth about what went on behind closed doors in our home. No one would believe you, I was told. I was so sexualized by this mind-set that by the time I went to college, I lived primarily for unrestrained and unfulfilling sexual pleasure. But then, in 1995, an amazing thing happened. I entered into an honest, forgiving, redeeming, healing, and restoring relationship with God. It changed my life forever.

I have five goals in writing this book. First, I want to offer hope and comfort to a generation of children, adolescents, and others who are currently the victims of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and severe trauma. Many of these individuals feel hopeless and are afraid to tell their stories. They cannot risk going to someone for help. I hope to show them safe ways to escape their evil abusers.

Second, I wish to reach out to those who have been victims of abuse in the past. In the Episcopalian Book of Prayers, there is a unique phrase used to describe evil memories: The burden of them is intolerable. My abuse began when I was a pre-school child, and I spent many years not wishing to live. I carried around the burden of my abuse for 25 years after I left home at the age of 17 until I finally met a counselor who helped me become free. I want to reach out to those who have suffered abuse in a similar way and encourage them so that they can be made whole.

Third, I want to reach out to those who suspect child abuse is occurring and arm them with information on how identify the facts, and if necessary, teach them how to intervene. It is time for us to recognize the symptoms of abuse and stop the traumatic cycle of evil. I have included a list of helpful books to read and organizations and support groups to call on for help in the back of this book. Imagine the relief and joy that awaits us when we help ourselves, a dear friend, or a loved one to become free and forgiven!

Fourth, I want to motivate abusive parents to stop abusing, get treatment, be accountable to persons in authority and seek forgiveness. So that hopefully they can be reconciled to their loved ones. I want abusers to identify with the pain and problems their victims are experiencing because of the abuser’s behavior. I urge abusive parents to take full responsibility for their egregious behaviors and stop the cycle of abuse.

Finally, I wish to reach out to counselors, clergy and teachers. I hope to better equip them, and loved ones and concerned friends with information and resources that will enable them to be more effective in their vital roles.

CHAPTER ONE

A TIME OF INNOCENCE

I was born on Christmas day, 1950. Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Dennis the Menace, I Love Lucy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show were the popular TV shows of the time. Kids pedaled their bikes through the streets without helmets and rode in cars with no seatbelts. They had no fear of being kidnapped off the streets. Our household medicines were kept in medicine cabinets with no locks, and we even drank tap water! We didn’t have computers or video games to distract us from developing our social skills, and there were no high-tech toys to entertain us. We actually had to use our ingenuity and make up games. We could play outside for hours and into the early evening.

We went trick-or-treating without adult supervision. Sometimes, we ventured far into the woods to climb trees or play hide-and-seek. No one ran background checks on our friends’ parents or kept a special watch on the older man who lived alone down the street. When door-to-door salesmen rang our doorbell, they were invited in to make their sales pitch. After school, we took our leisurely time walking home. We frequently stopped at the neighborhood candy and gift store to see if we could slip a few pieces of our favorite candy into our coat pockets without being caught.

I was mommy to my Chatty Kathy, Tiny Tears, and Betsy Wetsy dolls. I acted out scenes with my play kitchen and my painted cardboard grocery store set. My favorite books were Dick and Jane readers, Little Golden Books and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. I loved playing with Slinkys, Jacks, Pick-Up sticks, Tinker Toys, electric trains, and racecars. My favorite board games were Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. I ate chocolate cupcakes and drank lots and lots of Coca Cola and chocolate milk. No one talked about the detrimental effects of sugar. The line from Peter Pan, I won’t grow up, I won’t grow up, I don’t want to go to school! was my theme song. I dreamed of being able to fly just like Wendy and her brothers.

Every morning at school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Kids fought with their fists, not guns or knives. One time in elementary school, my girlfriend and I staged a fight in the schoolyard. We thought it was hilarious, but our teachers didn’t. When I went into junior high, the boys and girls had make-out parties and played spin-the-bottle with an empty Coca Cola bottle. Our choice of compelling literature included Archie and Veronica comic books, The Nancy Drew Mysteries and popular teen magazines. American Bandstand was the craze, so every Saturday I turned on the television to learn the latest dances and to hear the newest performers.

Later on in high school, I cruised around town with friends and hung out at Hot Shops, a drive-in hamburger joint. We ordered food from our cars, listened to the radio, and gawked at boys. If a high school girl got pregnant, she was usually sent away to have her baby. I never heard the words abortion or condom while I was growing up. I was so insulated. The most daring act that I ever undertook was throwing a cupcake party with my friends during study hall. As a result of this ingenious idea, I was awarded a visit to the principal’s office.

My great grandparents immigrated to the United States from Russia, Poland, and Austria. My paternal great grandmother, Esther, was an Orthodox Jew. When she was 16 years old, she, along with many other Jews, ran away to escape the anti-Semitic Russian and Polish pogroms that were occurring at the time. She escaped from Russia by hiding in a hay wagon and later came to America alone, carrying only a small suitcase of clothes and her only other possessions, a pair of brass candlesticks.

When my great grandmother reached America, she met my great grandfather, Alexander. He had once studied in a Russian yeshiva—a school for Jewish men being trained and educated in rabbinical studies, Jewish scriptures, and Levitical law. When Alexander came to America, he had few work skills, so he became a cigar maker and opened a cigar shop. Esther kept a strict kosher home.

My maternal great grandfather, Louie, once sang in the Vienna Boys Choir in Austria. Louie worked as a jobber, or a salesman, pushing his cart of goods to sell to businessmen and buyers all around the city. Louie’s son, my great uncle, was a dentist who took care of our family’s dental needs. Another cousin was our family doctor.

My paternal grandfather, Joseph, was a wholesale knit goods and hosiery merchant. His wife, Rose, was active in the affairs of the Hebrew Orphans Home. She was also the former Chairlady of the Ladies Home Circle. In addition to my father, Joseph and Rose had two other children, my aunt whom I adored and an uncle I never met. Both of these grandparents died by the time I was four years old.

My maternal grandfather, Samuel, was a pharmacist and drugstore owner. Samuel was a very undemonstrative and unaffectionate man who worked from early morning until late evening at his store. Grandfather Samuel died when I was an infant. My grandmother Hattie remarried, so I had a step-grandfather. Samuel and Hattie had three children, one of whom was my mother.

My father was a brilliant Harvard-educated attorney and proud member of The National Social Science Honor Society. My father enlisted and fought in the 112th Infantry in World War II, rose to the rank of captain, and was later assigned as a judge to assist in the investigation of war crimes. He spoke of only one incident that occurred during his military service—he was chased by a German tank and jumped over a bridge to escape, injuring his back in the process (the back trouble lingered throughout his life). After the war, my father was offered a job with a Supreme Court Justice of the United States, but he turned it down for reasons he never shared. Instead, he decided to go into private practice.

My father was multitalented. He built a bicycle built-for-two. He could repair anything. I spent hours with him learning how to use different tools and helping him remodel our recreation room. He even showed me how to use his power saw. I loved helping him garden and do fix-it jobs, and he enjoyed teaching me. I became quite adept at using a hammer and spent hours constructing different objects from scrap wood. I was fascinated by how things worked. With the zeal of an engineer, I spent many hours dismantling old cameras, radios, and toasters and then putting them all back together.

My father taught me to play tennis and ping-pong. I won the girls ping-pong championship in high school. Every winter, he took my two sisters and me tobogganing down some steep and challenging hills. I was very agile and enjoyed physical challenges. I also took an interest in my father’s law practice at an early age. He often shared his cases with me and let me read his legal briefs. Discussions often ensued. At one point, I considered going to law school.

My mother was a prolific reader and dabbled in painting. She loved music and had a beautiful singing voice. My grandfather had dismissed my mother’s talent and desire to become a professional singer and had not allowed her to indulge in that lifestyle. She deeply regretted never having fulfilled her dream to be a musician. She often listened to Sinatra, Bennett, Crosby, Peggy Lee, and other popular singers of her era. She introduced my sisters and me to Broadway and classical music. One of the productions we saw was Fiddler on the Roof. My sisters and I could sing all the words to the show tunes from Oklahoma, The Music Man, South Pacific, Bye Bye Birdie, and West Side Story. For my sweet-sixteen party, my mother invited a local singer to perform songs from the show Mame.

My mother received her Bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Pennsylvania but did not teach after she married. She developed an eating disorder and became very overweight. After many failed attempts to lose weight, she gave up and started spending hours in bed, reading and watching golf and baseball on TV. She knew every facet of each sport: the players, their records, and all the different teams.

I had two sisters, one two years older than me and one two years younger. We lived in an affluent Jewish suburb in a lovely old four-story stone home that originally belonged to my maternal grandparents. The house had a huge wrap-around porch. My grandfather’s drug store and soda fountain shop were located down the street from our home. By the time I was born, the store had been sold to a new owner.

My parents hired live-in housekeepers to help raise my sisters and me, assist my mother with housecleaning, and to help with cooking and serving for the large parties that my parents held. My parent’s cocktail parties were often weekend events. Our housekeepers were typically older African-American women. From my youth, they were mother figures to me, providing the love and security that my own emotionally ill mother was not able to give my sisters and me.

Summers were spent attending overnight camp or traveling by car across the country on lavish vacations in California and Florida. We journey to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the Painted Desert and many other national forests and historic sites. We went to Knotts Berry Farm, Disneyland and Las Vegas, where my parents took us to see Harry Bellefonte at a club. We visited my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in California and got to stay at some pretty posh summer homes in Hollywood and Beverly Hills that were owned by my father’s clients.

My parents practiced Reformed Judaism, the more liberal movement of the Jewish faith. My sisters and I attended religious school on Sundays at our Temple’s suburban branch. I didn’t pay much attention in Sunday school. I learned a few poignant Bible stories and could recite many Hebrew prayers by ear. I was supposed to learn how to read Hebrew, but I wasn’t very motivated. However, I did pick up a little Yiddish and learned about the Jewish holidays. My Hebrew name is Hadassah, which translated into English means Esther. I loved to dress up for Purim, my favorite Jewish holiday, as Esther. Our family celebrated the Jewish holidays with relatives and friends.

On the surface, my life seemed to be normal, even idyllic. But if you were to step inside my home at that time, you would get a very different picture. All of these wonderful experiences were in stark contrast to what was really going on behind closed doors. In some ways my life seemed rather surreal—all lovely and safe on the surface and all ugliness and terror within.

While other young girls and teens had fairy tale dreams of meeting their prince charming, getting married or having a rewarding career, I dreamed about being rescued and finding new parents. I knew that I would be safer anywhere else than inside my own home.

Vicious crimes were committed against me and the trauma and horror in my life wounded me so deeply that I almost didn’t survive. Even when I was not being physically or emotionally threatened, I could not escape the fear. As I drifted off to sleep, sinister monsters—including an image of the face of the devil—would come alive on my bedroom walls and poke their eerie faces out of the closets. When I did fall asleep, unremitting nightmares tortured my fragile young mind.

Images flashed furiously through my mind night after night. A man wearing an amulet around his neck presses himself against me, forcing me to submit to his will. He is powerful, and I am terrified of him. People with guns and knives chase me as I dart in and out of rooms to get away. Rubble rains down on me from above. Car windows shatter.

In one dream, a man kidnaps me, hurls me into his car, and speeds through the street, hitting people in his path. We get out of his car and walk among the dead, mangled bodies. He takes me into a dark, eerie room where he holds other people hostage. He threatens to shoot each of us. I kick a soccer ball at him, hoping that if I can entertain or amuse him, he might spare my life. I appeal to his nature. I offer to have sex with him, and he agrees. Afterwards, the other hostages and I are allowed to live.

In another nightmare, I try to lock the doors of our house, but each time I secure the locks, they come loose. I check the front door and the back door repeatedly, but I still worry that someone might come into the house. In the dream, I awake to find that the doors are not locked, and I wonder if a stranger has come into the house during the night. This reoccurring nightmare haunted me well into my adult years whenever I felt especially vulnerable.

My nightmares were profound metaphors that explain how I survived my childhood. My life was saved, but my body, mind, and soul were corrupted. I was fighting for my life, my security, and my sense of self. Giving in to my abusers seemed to be my only viable option. I did whatever I had to do to survive. My abusers convinced me that if I were ever to speak the truth, I would die. I believed that my mind was going to shatter. I felt as if I were living in the middle of a battlefield under a death sentence.

What does a little girl do when her nightmares become her daily life? How does she cope? To whom does she turn? I feared the terror of night and the arrow that flies by day (Psalm 91:5). Mocked, defiled, and debased, I held on for dear life. But somewhere deep inside me, I sensed a calm and loving voice assuring me, I will preserve you.

CHAPTER 2

MY NIGHTMARE OF EXISTENCE

Wendy, Wake up! It’s time to get ready for school, my mother yells. I am abruptly awakened to face another aggravating day. There are no ‘Good morning’ greetings in our house.

Clothes shopping trips were a ritual for my image-conscious mother. Each new school year, we traipsed off to stores to find new outfits. For special occasions, my mother would have a dress tailor-fitted for me. My mother wanted me to dress impeccably and stylishly partially because this made her look good. Arguments would inevitably occur on many shopping sprees, and she often embarrassed me in public. Doesn’t Wendy look sexy? she would say, commenting to my father on what a good figure and nice legs I had. I was a preteen at the time. Dad would pat me on my bottom.

You are going to get fat like me, my Mother chides. She is 5’1, weighs over 200 pounds, and is on her way to weighing much more. You walk like your uncle…Your knees are knobby…Your eyes are beady…You are so stupid, you will never amount to anything." These are my mother’s frequent litanies. I am under the tyranny of a maternal despot. I wish I could just fall into a deep blissful sleep and wake up 20 years later like Rip Van Winkle. Then I would be out from under the yoke of my mother’s cruel and unrelenting oppression.

Mother often corrected my speech. When I was flustered, I would pronounce certain words in a mixed-up way, and she would laugh. She nagged me about my appearance. She often made hurtful comments about my hair, my clothes, my face, my legs, and anything else she decided wasn’t acceptable. Although I was considered a very adorable child and, later, an attractive teen with beautiful red hair, my mother convinced me that I was ugly and funny looking. She planted these lies so deep in my head that when I looked in the mirror, all that I could see was what she saw. For years, my appearance and self-esteem were filtered through my mother’s critical words.

In elementary school, I wanted to play the drums, but Mother insisted that I take up violin. Girls don’t play the drums, she said. As for the violin, I destroyed it one day in a rage by slamming it into a wall. I never took violin lessons again.

My mother lunges towards me with a kitchen knife. What are you doing? I yell as I raise my arm to block her. You could have killed me! You’re crazy!

My mother was narcissistic and had volatile mood swings. She was obsessed about cleanliness. Everything had to be just so. As I grew older, she ate compulsively and put on even more weight. She took a number of pills for various symptoms that she claimed she had. In her worst state, she would become hysterical and threaten to commit suicide.

Come lay with me! my mother insists. She dupes me into accommodating her own narcissistic needs. I am repulsed as she molests me to satisfy her own urges.

I often sat on the floor at the foot of my mother’s bed and watched television as she lay in bed. She constantly ordered me to get things for her, and I acquiesced rather than face her anger. A mother who sexually abuses her daughter may seek emotional support, which sometimes results in a reversal of roles.¹ I found this to be true in our relationship—my mother increasingly wanted me to parent her and meet her needs. Our roles progressively reversed.

You’re still dirty, my mother admonishes after I get out of the shower. Look at your feet, go clean yourself better! She hurls a volley of epithets and insults. She glares at me with critical eyes. She mocks me. Let me see your breasts, are they growing?

My mother often exposed her body to my sisters and me when she sat naked in bed or walked around her private quarters. She claimed that it was too hot to wear clothes. It was repulsive to see her. My parents’ bathroom had the only shower in our home, so my sisters and I were forced to go into my mother’s room to shower each day. Every time I finished showering, I had to walk past my mother, wrapped only in a bath towel. I felt her intrusive eyes upon me. She frequently asked me to show her my breasts to see if they were growing. I never showed her. No matter how hard I tried, I could not figure out why these things were happening to me.

Female perpetrators may need to relate to a child due to immaturity, low self-esteem or poor social relationships. Child and adult survivors may not recognize their experiences as abusive because abuse sometimes occurs under the context of routine