Sisters: What I Know Now

We are slowly putting the pieces of our life's puzzle together. 

I stare at the bedroom window as I wait for sleep to come. I focus on the light between the blinds, the tree branches dancing against the dark sky. 


I think about two little girls, one blond and one brunette, and the atrocities they suffered. 

I am going to refer to the other sister as J. She does not seem to want contact. And after all she's been through, I can't blame her at all. So I want to preserve her anonymity.

I think how terrified J must have been as one of our mother's boyfriends held her down in the bath until she defecated in the water. And, I now know, cut off the oxygen to her brain.

I think about her being raped by her adoptive father, and then being forced to have his child at 16 years of age. Then married off to her boyfriend. 

People feared the father and did what he said.

I think about the other sister, who had to fend him off with a butcher knife. 

Who had to listen to her older sister pleading through the walls of their home, "Please stop, it hurts." 

And having no way to help her older sister because the man was former law enforcement, and still had buddies in the community. 

And he was vile enough to threaten her with her life.

I think about how scared Marietta must have been when he threw her out of the house at 14, so she wouldn't cause him any more trouble. 

She was to become a gypsy in adulthood until MS struck.

I think about the people who take advantage of the most vulnerable of the population. The young. The brain damaged. The elderly. 

I think about how a man killed his own brother-in-law to keep him quiet, but somehow managed to get it ruled a suicide.

I think how these two little girls started out life with our erratic mother, then were adopted by the most evil of individuals. 

They quite literally went from the frying pan straight into the fire. 

The two sisters live in different states and have not remained very close. But then, you have to realize that one is a reminder to the other of what they suffered. 

And that was a nightmare no one would want to revisit.

Siblings blown across the landscape like leaves in the fall wind, who had to fend for themselves much too early in life. 

I was the lucky one. And I feel survivor's guilt because of that. It is an inexplicable yet somewhat normal reaction, I think.

I stare out this window at night, and try to imagine what it must have been like to be betrayed so badly by the very people who were supposed to protect them.

I feel a sadness for those little girls, now women, that is unmistakably visceral. It is a knowledge that presses down on me like a warm yet stifling blanket.

And even worse, to know that this kind of thing goes on every day. In homes where you'd never suspect such things of happening. 

In cities where child sex trafficking is not at all unusual. 

In countries where women and children virtually have no rights at all.

I remember studying Carl Jung in college, founder of the school of analytical psychology. He famously said: 

"Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness."

I believe that some forms of darkness are simply beyond comprehension. 

We know that evil lurks in many shapes and sizes.

It resides in human form and obliterates the spirit of the innocent.

There are wolves in sheep's clothing out there hiding in the shadows. They are warped and dangerous. 

They have no regard for human life.

And the worst part is, we can't identify them by appearance. They hide their predilections behind invisible masks. 

I wait for sleep to diminish what I now know. The pieces of this puzzle.

Remembering two little girls who deserved so much more. In a world that failed to protect them.

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness. Carl Jung
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carljung114795.html

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness. Carl Jung
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carljung114795.html

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness. Carl Jung
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carljung114795.html