sorry

Hey Maggie,

After your last post, I wanted to think. And so I got out the lawn mower and proceeded to walk in circles for a long time.  I was almost finished with the front yard - probably for the last time this season, when I felt a burn, and another.  I mowed over a yellow jacket ground nest.  I started running, debating whether to strip off my clothes in the driveway.  I made it in the house, and there was one more in my pants leg.  I had about six stings on my ankles and lower leg, another higher on my leg and one on my back. And I had no benadryl in the house. I started a tea and filled my canning pot so I could immerse my legs while my daughter started asking her sibs and some neighbors if they had any benadryl.  Bottom line - I did not have to go to the ER. And my ankles itch like crazy...And I never made it here last night!

My daughter starts a new job on Wednesday.  She will be full time 3 - 11.  I will have the baby a lot more.  Tonight my daughter went for training, and I fed the baby, bathed the baby, played with her, put her to bed.  It took me back to my early mommy days...But my life is about to change...

I thought about your last post a lot. I wish I could share your burden.  It hit me hard, again, how much worse it was for you and S#3 being tortured and used at the hands of the brothers for so long.  I never had to endure that.  One of my first impulses was to copy paste the entry and send it to the three older brothers.  I want them to know what they did, to apologize and yet realize they can never fix the damage they did.

Yet my heart goes out to them, knowing they were also sexually abused.

I spent a day with a friend last weekend.  She gets mentioned here a lot.  She is a social worker and we discuss many things in depth.  I was talking a little about our family, and it really came out that Mom had to come from a place of sexual abuse too.  It's the only thing that makes sense, the only way she could be so afraid and so hard - I don't know - hard hearted or hard headed - about anything sexual.  I popped back to the time she told me I could not walk across the upstairs in my underwear because the boys could not control themselves. That is the essence of the rape culture right there.  Never relax, never expose yourself - they can't help themselves, they must rape.  Who taught Mom that lesson?

So that led to another question.  I know I have mentioned a young friend who died at age 35 of ovarian cancer.  After her death her mom and I stood in one place for many hours under a tree at a festival and talked. People began to joke about us still being there.  Just before her death, the daughter revealed that she had been molested by her mother's best friend's husband.  The thought that popped into my head was - Of course her cancer would appear in her reproductive system.  Since breast are seen as sex organ more than organ of nourishment for babies, I wondered if we had such a strong history of breast cancer because we have such a long, strong history of sexual abuse...There is that knowledge that if men see cleavage, we asked to be raped...

I am sorry I asked you the question about being 8.  It was very thoughtless of me.  I apologize...

Baby is asleep. All of her books are picked up, I think.  I remember your older son pulling all of the books down on a regular schedule.  Both of my little granddaughters do the same...

I miss you,

Love and hugs from Clare

PS - It is a matter of honor.  If he agreed to keep the rules of the school, he was honor bound to keep them.  Everything else is rationalization.