First question: Saami. I have always had the pleasure of having friends from other countries. I met a woman from Norway when I was involved with environmental activism. One day she said, "When I see you and your children, it's like being at home. But, did you know you are Saami? I can tell by looking at your features."
The Saami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. They are the traditional reindeer herders.
So I started researching Saami culture, looking at photos of the people. I found a photo of Grammy when she was quite young, and she has Saami features. I have been tracing our family tree, and unfortunately identifying Saami lineage is difficult, because the people were treated much as we treated the indigenous people here. We try to wipe them out, and don't feel their lines are worth recording. But Grammy has the facial structure, and came from the appropriate region. And it feels correct.
I was preparing myself to approach our other grandma. Thank you for paving the way. Sometimes I feel I am her, or that I am lost in her. I remember the way she perched nearby when we ate. She would not eat with us. Rather, she served everyone, then ate when we were done. I didn't like it, but I got used to it, mostly because she seemed more comfortable if we didn't try to intervene. And I remember once, Mom told me that Grandma liked it so much when I hugged her. I don't think anyone ever touched her - except maybe when she got her hair done.
She started being with me, in dreams especially, and so I asked about her. I found that during the depression, she would cut coats down and make new coats for people who looked like they needed them. Because I was asking about her, one of Dad's cousins sent me some old family photos. Grandma looks as invisible as I feel. I think I am afraid of becoming her. Silent and sad and invisible.
Last June, Grandma started "haunting" me. This is where fear steps in - revealing this. She was in my dreams, in my thoughts. When I woke up early, the morning cool and bird sounds planted me in our grandparent's house on the hill. I was in Pop's garden, his chickens in their little chicken house nearby, or in Grandma's rock garden outside the backdoor...it was real. And I started remembering us - our family. This felt like it was being directed, someone was guiding me, and I didn't want to go, but there was no avoiding it.
I remembered B#1 with his stick, keeping people away from him, protecting himself. I thought about the sexual abuse inflicted by brothers on sisters. I thought about Dad almost beating B#3 to death (it seems like in my memory...) because a neighbor said he exposed himself. I thought about the health problems, the psychological problems. I also thought about seeing an uncle kiss his daughter inappropriately once. I thought about dysfunctional families on that side...it was like a locomotive gaining speed in my mind.
I slowed down, and realized that only Bs 1, 2, and 3 were involved in molesting sisters.....
Just let me stop and say that I believe only someone who has been raped knows how to rape. A healthy human being who has been treated with kindness, love and dignity would never consider rape. It would be foreign. Only someone who has been abused would turn to abuse to relieve the pain building inside of them, to numb that.
I have always had a hard time with B#1, and he never really liked me. He always said I was too weird, and I thought he would do anything to be accepted. I thought he was just plain bad, because of what he did to you and our little sister. We didn't become friends until after high school, and we are not really friends now. Last June, amidst this turmoil, the little boy with the stick collided with the molester and I realized he had been sexually abused. It was the only explanation for his behavior - because I know people are good, and I know he is good. Something had to have happened to him.
If he was abused, then so were Bs 2 and 3. But B#4 wasn't. He didn't have that need to release pain through abusing others. Here is where I get sick and nauseous and afraid...I am afraid...Neither friends nor family members could have abused them, because we moved every year. No one had continued access to us. There were no consistent players in our life. And Dad was stationed away from the family the year B#4 was born. It's the only difference I could come up with. Do you see why I am terrified? Do you see how memory can become accusation? But I don't want to make the accusation.
I saw our grandparents differently. Pop grabbed me, kissed me inappropriately once. I panicked and flailed - making me a bad mark. Predators need prey who become silent, nonresistant, accepting the inevitable. I saw our uncles, one of whom was so mean, differently. I don't know...I don't know where to go, what to say. I am lost in the slime, trying to find the light.
Am I crazy?????
I was psychologically losing it one morning, and prayed that this would leave me, that the thoughts and memories would just disappear. I prayed that I could wait until I passed away to see the patterns and learn the truths, then try to decide what to do. The message I got was that this is what Grandma's trying to do. She died, she sees the whole story and she's trying to get it to us, on this side of the veil. She endured it all and is leading us to the Light, to healing the family - or to at least begin the healing.
PS - I love the child's version of the Swedish prayer. It was perfect!
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