I spent a lot of my youth surrounded by people who weren't good for me, who abused me, who treated me like a piece of shit and yet still I mourn them as if they never hurt me.
These memories of those people in my youth started reminding me those that I hated and at the same time not understanding why I could not let go of the good memories I had with them. How is it possible, logical even, to feel sorrow for missing someone who was abusive to you? How does that make sense? How can I feel empathy towards those people when they destroyed parts of me that I cannot get back?
I thought, at first, about Westley. He was my cousin, we grew up together and were more like siblings than cousins. We would used to stay up all night talking, laughing, joking around like kids do and all that time he had abused me. I pretended and forced myself to think that it was all okay, he was good and we had fun together. I forced myself to forget that he abused me. That at the age of two he undressed me to my diaper, took me to the closet and closed the doors and tried to show me what sex was and rubbed my breasts. My diaper was never removed and even though he was just 2 years older than me I knew it was wrong. I remember my Grandma Brown finding us and punishing us making us wait for my parents to get home to talk to us.
Years later, on a family camping trip with my Aunt Diddi, Grandma Adcock, baby cousin Danielle and Westley, we went to my Great Aunt Shirley's cabin in Michigan for a vacation. At the that time my Aunt Diddi was obsessed with the t.v. show MacGuyver and as soon as it came on she and my Grandma sat in the living room to watch it. Westley then asked me if I wanted to play a game. Pretend we were dogs and were going to "make a baby" (have sex like dogs) and our baby cousin Danielle, who is 2 or 3 years younger than me, would be the puppy.
I agreed because I wanted him to like me, to continue to have fun together but I knew, I knew it wasn't right and something very wrong was about to happen but that fear took over and even with visible hesitation I played along.
The room for "the game" was in the front of the cabin, away from the living room so no one could hear. Danielle wasn't in the room so it was just him and I. He ushered me to the floor between the bed and wall so that if someone walked by they would not see. He said "okay, we have to do it like dogs so we can have a puppy". He told me to get into a "dog" position on all fours. We were fully clothed. He then began to try and get on top of me from behind and I panicked. I KNEW this wasn't right but was too scared to run away so instead I said, very quietly, "I don't like this can you just let me lay on my back?". So he rolled me over and got on top of me, still both fully clothed. As he went through the motions of "making a puppy" I starred under the bed because I could not be present. I was trying to make myself believe that this wasn't real, that it was imaginary, but it wasn't. Clothed or unclothed he abused me in a sexual way and this puppy we were supposed to make and the whole purpose of the "game" never appeared as Danielle wasn't even in the room. The next day and everyday after I blocked it out and tried to pretend that nothing ever happened. I told no one. So how could I mourn this person's death? How could I feel sorry and cry at the funeral? How could I miss him? Brian didn't understand because he knew who and what Westley had done to me.
After a long time spent in the gang world, doing drugs and being in prison for pulling a loaded weapon on someone he died of a drug overdose on December 2, 2004. His Mother was doing drugs with him that night. I remember being at work and my Mother calling, screaming "Wes is dead! Wes is dead! Oh my God, he's dead". She was crying so hysterically that I am surprised that I was able to hear her but I did. Immediately I left work and drove to the scene. EMS was already there, my Mother was crying uncontrollably and all I could do was be "the grown up" despite the fact that I was so infuriated about the day he did the inevitable. I hated him for picking a day that I would never be able to forget. His death was exactly 1 year and 1 day before my wedding day and every anniversary to celebrate one of the greatest days of my life, my wedding day, December 3, 2005, every anniversary I am reminded of him.
Suddenly I had to play "Mom", I had to take charge, make sure everyone was okay even though inside my veins were pulsing with furry that I hadn't felt in a long time. Inside I wanted to scream every single thing that he had done wrong to me and to shout "I'M GLAD YOU ARE DEAD YOU PIECE OF SHIT", but I didn't. The paramedics pulled out the gurney from the house with the sheet draping the body. I walked over and asked "Can I see him?", they said no. I became more infuriated because inside my body the anger and rage was reaching a boiling point but my fear, my cowardliness, kept me from doing what I wanted/needed to do; kick the gurney over and beat the corpse of the cousin that sexually abused me, made passes at me, openly expressed his attraction for me, made me feel as though I had to hide my body and be away from him because of the looks in his eyes when he saw me. No, instead I became the adult. I became the one that took the responsibility to contact family and console them and even console his Mother, who I hated with every bone in my body.
Why did I take on that role? To this day I cannot tell you because I simply don't know.
But it was this collection of memories and the questions I had about missing the good in him, which I have come to realize didn't exist in him, that made me think of others in my life that have done similar, specifically my brother.
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