Child abuse does happen. So does denial. For years Dad said he didn't do it but he did. Amazing Grace. My father is 79 years old and sober now. He entered treatment the night he was served the lawsuit papers rather than kill himself. It was his first step into truth. "Twas grace that brought us safe thus far and grace will lead us home…"
Nine months ago, and six years after the lawsuit, I learned my father was dying and went home. It had been sixteen years. My nineteen-year-old son, Mark, came with me because he wanted to meet his grandfather before he died. It was Easter Weekend. In that hospital room, for three days, we cried together, held each other, laughed together. We talked everything over. The lawsuit. The 20/20 story. The CBS movie Ultimate Betrayal. The Child Abuse Accountability Act I got passed with the help of Pat Schroeder and the American Coalition of Abuse Awareness (ONE VOICE) that allowed me to garnish his federal pension. I told him stories about what I was doing when he was out drinking that made him drop his head in grief. He never knew. I never told. We loved each other through to forgiveness but we had to talk it over and feel it. The terror, the shame, the anger, the grief and loss. His grandson, Mark, (an angel as my father kept calling him) both witnessed our coming together and was an intimate part of it. He's the next generation. He said he is not going to hold a grudge. He's not ashamed to talk about his family history and its legacy. He said that legacy would end with him.
We have spent hours upon hours telling the truth to each other since then. Dad owned up. And he didn't die. He miraculously recovered. This Thanksgiving he flew to Boston and gathered with friends and my family around the cherry dining room table I purchased with the $73.00 a month I receive from his FBI pension. He said he was proud that I got that legislation passed. He understands why I did it. I said I was proud of him for getting sober and making room for a relationship with me and my family that was based upon truth and compassion.
Family. We've been through many dangers, toils and snares and it took all of us doing our own part, even suing a parent, even a parent denying his actions then telling the truth, making our family's private pain public. Dad getting sober, years of good therapy, remembering the horrors and letting people go there with me and much, much more. That's what it took to come together. In September Dad said to me: "I didn't believe I would ever say this, Sharon, but I believe the lawsuit was meant to be." Hard as it was, I agree. Walking back to the Hawthorne Hotel after the vigil with our candles still shimmering, burnt down now, I wondered what it will take for our separate camps to come together. Those who believe in "repressed memories" and those who don't. How many more dangers, toils and snares? I don't know, but count me in for the long haul. I believe in Grace.