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Monday, January 9, 2017

Confessions of A Dead Man

This post has been swimming around in my mind for a month or so. I was struggling as to how I might make it fitting for anyone that chose to read it. Today, I have come to the realization that I am going to make this all about me. If you care to join me on my travels, I welcome you; and if not, I hope to see you soon.
If you are still here, I feel I must warn you that our time together might be a bit longer than is typical for it’s not a short story AND it is also a story that has some parts that folks might find disturbing. You’ve been warned and now off we go.
First, I must give you a brief synopsis of my life, that would be forty-eight years crammed into a few paragraphs but I am feeling ambitious and so let’s begin-
I am a recent author of my memoir, Relentless: A Journey of Forgiveness (My apologies for those that are already aware of this fun fact.). It is there that I put pen to paper, or more accurately fingertips to the keyboard, to share with others my travels of healing and personal growth for the abuses I suffered as a child. As I plodded along on my path of self-discovery, I ultimately found myself reaching the pivotal point of forgiveness. That is my book and life in a nutshell and as the readers of my story know all too well, the actions, hurt, and brutality have always been denied by my abusers.
My book was written while both of my parents were still alive, but was in the midst of publication when my father, who played an abusive starring role, passed. It was after his journey into the afterlife that I was informed that approximately two weeks prior to his death, sensing that he was on his way out, he sought out one of my relatives and specifically asked them to ban me from his memorial services. It was also explained to me that upon his deathbed he was directly asked if he wanted to see me one more time, we had not been in contact for twenty-five years, and his answer was to shake his head ‘no’. For me, it felt as if he had abused me, quite intentionally, yet again.
So now you’re kinda, sorta up to speed on the backstory.
What came next was a series of what I believed were ‘signs’ from him. Numerous and various interjections occurred throughout my days that always reminded me of him. I had an inkling that he was trying to contact me (I am not here to argue on the validity of that truth or what happens once we die.) but ceased downplaying what was happening on the day I was driving down the road and spied his name, spelled just as his was, emblazoned on the mud flaps of the truck that was right in front of me. Okay, I thought, I will listen to what it is you wish to say. It was then that I proceeded to search for a medium. (Again, I do not wish debate, this time on the credibility of a medium.) Once I made the appointment to connect with him via the medium, it became clear to me that I wanted the truth from him. Will I get it, I wondered, or will he stay true to form even in death?
I sat across from the medium and the connection with him was instant, there was no denying it was my father based on the information he offered. The first thing I posed to him was very direct and intentional, “Tell me what you did to me when I was a little girl.”
She shared that he presented with a cloak over his head, viewing her with only one eye and head bent in shame. He owned up to the actions he had denied my entire life, he had sexually abused me. In fact, he took responsibility for even more details and behaviors than my conscious mind recalls. He shared other abuses he perpetrated, and those I had suspected, on other family members. He no longer held onto the lie that he hadn’t strangled me, confessing indeed he had. He admitted that his denials were simply blatant lies, for he remembered it all.
My father went so far as to offer me a glimpse into the motivation for his abusiveness: In sexually abusing me he convinced himself that the pleasure was mutual, though in truth he understood his actions were far from acceptable. He professed that in the moments that he strangled me or another family member he wasn’t out of conscious control of his behaviors but was instead asserting his role as leader and letting us know who was the boss. He explained that he was in fear I would tell the truth and that was indeed one of the reasons he did strangle me, it was his attempt to silence me. In another moment of strangulation, he was jealous, jealous of the fact that my music teacher was touching me as well because I was his possession. He voiced the truths and patterns of other family members’ personalities that were a direct result of his vile behaviors.
He even shared that it was his male ego taking its final stand against me when he purposefully left instructions to keep me away from his services. Guilt, he reported, was what allowed him to shun me on his deathbed. “He’s saying that he felt guilty about what he had done to you. He couldn’t admit to himself what he had done, let alone you. And he wanted his wake to be about the good he had done in his life and if you showed up in the hospital it would all come out, and then that’s all that would be on everyone’s mind at his services,” stated the medium.
He offered an apology and was not making excuses when he said that he was a wounded person. He shared which adult relatives had sexually abused him as a child. Finally, he said that he was proud of my book, though making it clear that he would not have had that same perspective if he was still walking this planet.
And then our time together ended, yet again.
I was left a bit sad as I understood that his confessions left me knowing he had taken even more from me than my mind had allowed me to comprehend at those times. I also felt gratitude that for once he didn’t cling to his pattern of denial and blame, something the medium said she sees often even after another has made their transition.
What I have done with that interaction since is simply sit with it. I have and am allowing it all to slowly settle into my psyche and most recently my heart. I am not sure where to go with it all and in truth am not trying to figure that out. I am not clear where it will lead me, but today I do get that finally, finally something was solely about me and not them. My life had been cast from their wounds and always shadowed and dictated by their unmet needs but in that half hour I spent with him in spirit, he offered me something he never could in his physical life- validation.
And that is where I will leave you, now just realizing that you are in the same place as me as you permit this sharing to shift places within yourself. I have no lessons to share or insights to offer for I am still learning them myself. Where and what it will touch inside of you I don’t know and can’t say. Will it be your heart, fears or spirit? Only you can decide but this is where you pick up and I bow out. I’ve made this blog about me, with the hopes that it has something for you.
Be well and happy.
My Memoir: http://tinyurl.com/relentlessbyspringer



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