I wrote this to her after she told my daughter "Your mother is delusional and always has been."
afterwhich, she denied disrespecting me.
[names withheld]
letter, June 14, 2010
Sister JT,
I'm writing this on paper instead of email because it takes longer, and more thought has to be put into it. Also; I won't accept a speedy or terse reply.
Actually, if you want to say something to me or ABOUT me that is unkind or unsupportive in any way, just keep it to yourself. I don't need it.
I have been in therapy for the abuse I suffered from childhood through adulthood, starting with Dad and continuing through until I have had to keep men away from me completely. That is, from 1992 through now [2010]and continuing, more than 18 years of work both in and out of therapist's offices - and if I NEVER had an epiphany of previously undiscovered truth, it would be a real shame.
It was anything but easy to face what happened to me in August before my 12th birthday, but I did it. Mom saw the bruises on my throat and the completely
destroyed torn lavendar blouse, she knew what Dad had done to me. She made me wear a turtle neck shirt to cover the bruises, in AUGUST through most of September with 80 and 90 degree weather I had to suffer with a turtle neck.
It was not MY shame that was being covered up.
I told Mom when it became uncomfortable to sleep on my stomach, she told me to sleep on my side. She knew what was going on with me. One day I was in my bedroom doing homework, at my desk next to the accordian door that led to the kitchen. I hear Mom talking to Grandma A. on the phone, and misunderstood that half of the conversation. I though Mom was pregnant. I didn't know why she said she wanted to take me to New York where "it could be taken care of"..... I never heard of doctors doing abortions in 1966 [autumn].
Thinking Mom was pregnant, I told my friends in the neighborhood the good news [including our cousin who lived down the street] and when Mom came outside, they all rushed up and congratulated her and asked when the baby was due. Mom was pissed.
She told me off for eavesdropping and telling a private conversation.
Sometime afterwards, Grandma came by with something she had made for Mom, and they went into Mom's bedroom. It was an undergarment in skintone fabric with eye hooks behind the waist, and an interior pocket in the tummy where stuffing could gradually be added. Some of us saw it and asked what it was, and Grandma said "it's to protect the baby."
How would kids know that extra padding is not needed to protect the baby?
Mom started wearing maternity clothes and told Dad she was pregnant. As long as his focus was on her, my secret was safe. Every day Mom would give me some of her liquid prenatal vitamins, she said she didn't want me getting anemic like she did when she was young. One time our older brother saw and asked for some too so she gave him a taste. He remembers that.
Eventually I was being harrassed in the girls locker room at gym class, because of my shape. I told Mom and she got a doctor to write me a note saying I was to be excused from gym due to asthma. My gym teacher said she would fail me if I didn't wear my uniform, but I refused. She made me stand in the doorway holding my books for the duration of class every day. One day I fainted and was taken to the sick room. She let me sit after that.
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In the winter [ I think January 1967] Granddad came by to see if our older brother and I wanted to go with him to visit Great Aunt Nora in the nursing home. I had finished breakfast and was watching cartoons still in my flannel nightgown. I really wanted to go so I ran and got dressed. Before I came out to the hallway, Mom came and told me "You have to keep your coat on and fastened until after your Grandfather leaves. He is not to see you without your coat !"
I agreed. I was used to wearing a girdle every day and covering my shape with tent dresses and loose sweaters.
When we got to the nursing home, it was hot inside. I kept my coat on and fastened. We walked down long tiled hallways and when we got to Great Aunt Nora's room, I was shocked to see how bad she looked. She was so skinny and pale, she had refused to eat since she broke her hip, she looked like a skeleton with skin.
The next thing I knew, I was face down on the floor. I heard Granddad say "Ginny's fainted."
Some nuns came and took me down the hallway and gave me smelling salts and told me to put my head between my knees. I told them I knew, it happened all of the time. I continued to refuse to remove my coat. I always did what Mom told me.
Our older brother remembers this incident because it scared him. He says I knocked over a tray and things all crashed to the floor when I fainted.
When we returned home and Granddad told Mom, she said I had skipped breakfast,
and was probably overheated from keeping my coat on. I tried to say I did have breakfast. but she sent me to my room to lay down.
Granddad was not allowed to know.
The previous Halloween I attended a party with my friend T. M. at her cousin's house off Shady Grove Rd. There was a magician and lots of kids running around. After the magic show, I was standing too close to the swing set and got knocked in the head with the swing and was unconscious a few minutes. T.M.'s Mom, took me inside and put ice on the bump and said she would call Mom to come and pick me up. I started crying and told her not to, because she would send Dad to get me and I was terrified to be alone with him. Mrs. M. was alarmed, I had told her about abuse before, and she asked me what she should do because she couldn't leave the party and wasn't going to let me sit there injured. I told her to call Granddad A., he could pick me up. She phoned him, she also told him I was afraid of Dad. Granddad picked me up and talked to me a bit. When we got home he told Dad that he had better not ever touch me again, and Dad stood there denying it.
I was not taken to a doctor even with the head injury. I never saw a doctor for anything that year, except early September 1966 when I had pink eye in both eyes.
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Mom never spoke to me about what was happening to me.
Easter in March of '67, Grandma had taken me to Woodie's on a shopping trip and got me a cute bright pink tent dress that had gold buttons at the shoulders and an inverted pleat in the front just below the yoke front.
There was a white eyelet lace middrift top with puffy sleeves that was worn under it. She also got me white pattent leather shoes with a slight heel and matching purse with a gold chain shoulder handle.
She also gave me a silver mesh art deco hand bag that Mom only let me use when Grandma took me and our older brother to visit Aunt G.C., a nun, at St. Mary's in Rockville on Easter day.
I never thought twice about the fact that we found that dress in the maternity section. Grandma refered to it as "the chubby section".
On April 30th 1967, as everyone was packing to move away from 2001 Gainsboro Rd. to our new home at 2629 Henderson Ave., all day I kept having gas pains. I went to the bathroom a number of times with no result. Dad & our older brother & uncle F.A. were loading the truck Dad borrowed from his boss. Somebody was using the bathroom so I went down to the basement even though I didn't want to use the toilet down there because there was no privacy.
When I got down there, I started having extreme pain and there was a splash of water everywhere, I was just a couple of feet from the door, nowhere near the toilet, and I fell on the floor and could not get up. I was doubled up in pain for quite some time, until some of the kids came and found me. They ran to get Mom. She yelled "Oh good grief!" and she sent for Dad. All of the kids were sent away to keep packing and wait in the car. Dad got a brown glass bottle
of chloroform from the metal shelving unit near the shower stall. He got a wash cloth with it and held it over my face. The next thing I knew, I heard them saysing "it's a boy." and Mom told Dad "not my good towel Morris, get the brown one." I looked next to me was a baby boy wrapped in the brown towel. I was groggy and confused, but I asked if I could hold him. Mom said he had to be cleaned up first. Dad got a cardboard box and put the baby in and carried him away. Mom mopped the floor. After a few minutes I was getting my wits about me and Mom got me off the floor and wrapped a large towel around my waist. She made sure nobody was in the breezeway and sent me to my room to change clothes. I had kotex and a belt to use with it in my closet, so, even though my hands were shaking, I used them and put on clean clothes. The next thing I knew, Mom told me to get my Barbie doll cases and go to the car, so I did. Everyone was waiting in the car. We went to Henderson Ave., and Dad took the open cardboard box out of the trunk and put it in the back seat of the car and rolled the windows down a bit. Mom was worried, but he said "It's not too hot and the car is parked in the shade."
I was told to keep an eye on the kids, Dad was going back in the truck with uncle F.A. and our older brother, and Mom stood looking out the front door until they returned. She told us she was going to have the baby that night. I was confused from the chloroform and the trauma and just did what I was told. After all the moving was done, Dad and Mom got in the blue chevy and went to the hospital. He came back later and told us to go to bed. Our beds weren't assembled yet, but we had our matresses on the floor. You and sister S.A. were guessing it would be a boy, I said "It's a boy."
that night, for the first time in ages, I was able to sleep on my stomach.
The next day Dad enrolled everyone in schools, Highland Elementary for M.C., J.T. and S.A., Newport Jr. High for me and our older brother. The school had not received our transfer papers yet, so our older brother and I had to sit on a bench in the office lobby all day. I was struggling with cramps and was glad I had enough kotex, but sitting on the bench all day was stressful and I got sick and had to go lay down in the health room.
That evening after work, Dad took us all to the hospital and our older brother watched the rest of you while I was taken up to the nursery to see J.F.. He was so cute, I was happy to see him. When we went to Mom's room she said "What are YOU doing here?" I told her I wanted to visit, and that the baby was cute. She was really cross with Dad for bringing me, he told her I had a right to come.
Nobody ever took me to a doctor. Mom falsified the birth certificate by putting her name as Mother. I was expected to shut up.
When we got home, Dad told me "You are in charge of all the chores around here, your mother has done enough."
I was being punished for having a baby. When J.F. was a few days old and Mom brought him home, she was showing me how to dress him and change his diaper. I already knew how to do those things, I had babysat infants since I was 10.
He was so little and sweet, I told Mom "I want to keep him." and
she said "of course we're going to keep him, he's part of the family."
and I said "No Mom, I want to keep him."
She went on a rant, with a crushing litany of how inadequate I was... no job, no money for an apartment, diapers, bottles, doctor bills,...... and followed it with how crazy and ungrateful and stupid and lazy...... she kept barraging me until I broke down crying and went to bed with a migraine.
The same kind of 'SHAME RANT' she pulled on me everytime I told on Dad, the same way she tore into me at your place in Florida when I tried to share what I remembered.
you didn't know why I sat there and took that verbal lashing, but it always shut me down.
She imediately insisted I drive her back to s.c., although that was never the plan. She was furious that her stuff had to be sent on the train, although I had S.A. and J.L. and M.J. and G.I. and G.N. with us, and all of their luggage.
She wouldn't speak to me the whole drive to s.c., and Dad and J.F. met us at the train station. She took J.F. away and wouldn't let me speak to him.
She was afraid I remembered everything. She was determined to keep J.F. to herself.
On his 42nd birthday, as I was speaking to him on the phone, my heart started pounding and I found myself thinking "My baby boy is 42."
I didn't say anything to anyone, except friends at church and my therapist. When all of the details started coming back, I got up the courage to ask J.F. to do a DNA test with me. He was wonderful about it, because we have always had a close friendship.
It was a terribly stressful few weeks before we got the results in Otober 2009.
15 out of 15 markers an exact match.
I was so relieved! If it had come back negative, I would never know what happened to my baby. could Mom possibly have a baby boy the same day I did? Yes. Was it likely? No.
How did she get the doctor convinced it was her baby? I will never know if he was aware of the deception or not.
I don't even care.
I DO care that my sisters think I 'm delusional or a liar.
Why do you think I made sure you knew that our oldest brother was born before Mom met Dad when you were going to tell her you were pregnant?
I knew she could plow right over you with shame, unless you were armed with HER shame.
Why do you think I suggested she take you to holy cross clinic? I knew a catholic hospital would try to stop you from having an abortion.
When your daughter was a baby and Mom & Dad found you having a beer in the front yard with a boyfriend, and when they went in the house they started conspiring to have you declared unfit and take your daughter away from you.
I got mad and defended you, being a full time mom and going to school and having a tiny infraction like a beer DID NOT mean they were better than you! I told them if they took you to court I would testify against them and they would be lucky to avoid jail and could lose the kids they already had!
They backed down.
What did they think I had on them?
REALLY!!!
I would never let them harm you the way they had me. And they certainly had no right to take your daughter.
There were no DNA tests in the 60s, 70s, 80s.......
even if I had total recall back then I would not have had any proof.
When my first boyfriend read my FB post about being JF's Mom, he wrote me privately and said "That explains a lot."
He was my first lover, but there were no signs of virginity, and I had stretch marks and a strong fear of Dad.
I never told anyone for 42 years.
How would you feel if it happened to you?
How would you feel if I went behind your back and told your daughter you were delusional?
I would NEVER consider such a thing.
When you were fighting with your daughter because she believed me, I told her not
to push you if you were in denial, because we can't force the truth.
I don't know if I will ever mail this.
Force is wrong.
Ginny
well, I did mail it, a little over a year after writing it, and now it looks like my sister is happy to never speak to me, as it has been nearly a year and a half since I first told everyone I am his mother.
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