Shock

Read the news today. No, not shocked, but a bit in shock. A similar sort of story when I was a kid, the father in that one killed his children because they were being taken from him, and his excuse - "If I can't have them, no one will." Bad enough, but my father completely sympathized, agreed. Already afraid of him, this shook me to the core. I never felt safe in that house again. This story, took me right there. Maybe he would not have done me actual violence, but he was never hard pressed. I would not have trusted him if too much crossed. Home was a dangerous place, where I had to be more on guard than anywhere else. What kind of human being would say such a thing to a child? Nonetheless a father? Well, my father, evidently.

Once D and I found each other, I have always felt safe at home, for the first time and ever after. I do not take Home for granted, ever. Reading this left me cold and shaking. And wanting there to be a hell, for those who hurt the vulnerable in their care, a millstone about their necks. I don't believe there is, merely the obliteration and recycling. The evil live in a hell every breath, no need for more.

And, much as I feel for the rest of the family, perhaps those boys would have felt as I did, better not to live than to have lived through that childhood. Really, only in the last decade, as love saturated my life, did the early years seem worth surviving. But for a very long time, had I been given a choice, I'd have chosen not to have ever been born. The balance shifted, eventually, for which I am immensely grateful, but damn it took a long time. On a road that once seemed endless, I never expected ease and comfort, ever. Took me a very long time to trust it entirely, even as I trusted D completely. Maybe those two boys were too badly scarred already, maybe not. Either way, there is no mitigation for a father to blow up his children, even if it does save them a life of suffering. Independent variables.

Came across Aunt Evelyn's funeral card today, held it and wept a little. She would love this house. She would approve of the woman I have become. I know this. I carry her with me, she occasionally looks out my mirror at me. She would be proud of me for surviving and thriving, as she did.

This process, opening up our things and letting them stretch out, our history filling the ample space, is also haunting. All the stories want telling, want to be remembered. The bad and the good and the funny all together.

So, I put up our postcards and assorted art and ephemera that has held on, as fragile looking things often do. Delicate flowers on lichen in the arctic blasts, incongruously sturdy. Bits of paper, christmas ornaments, scraps of cloth, stones and shells from beaches, insignia, earrings, all endure in the cracks and live to tell the tale. And I remember, with a few tears, smiles, laughter.

Perhaps there is reincarnation, especially for the abused young. Automatic replay, but with decent parents, safety and responsible kindness. I'd like to believe that. It would seem just. Justice is a human concept though, in defiance of the reality of the universe.