OK, so things have reached a new point with my dying, primary abuser, Walt.
My sis said that, she talked to him sometime in, I think, mid-March, before I took a recent vacation. She was under the assumption that he had talked to me and Tim. Those who read here know that Walt abused Tim, and they both abused me. My sis’s story is hers.
She then found out that was untrue about Walt talking to either of us.
So, she called him again, and cited chapter and verse from the most heinous, though not nearly all, of what he did to me, and one incident with all four of us.
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Here’s our Facebook conversation, to be followed by some afterward thoughts:
Walt: Sis helped unpack those memories. No wonder I tried so hard to blot them out. I'm ashamed and appalled with myself and horribly upset that I'd ever do such to you.
I'm amazed how you could bear to be in the same family, school, or room as your molester and of all I ever said or did, this hurts the most.
Please know that through all of this, I love you and want the best for you. I remember what you said earlier about forgiveness. Fair enough. But forgive or not as you will I cannot sign off without this final, "I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
Me: She talked with me by email, and a bit earlier on phone. I am glad that you're not only understanding and accepting what you did, but also understanding and accepting this within family dynamics — and hopefully seeing more clearly what happened to you. I'm also glad, per her, that you're doing some sort of penance, restitution or whatever on pushing your denominational officials to be serious on addressing this issue.
And, presuming you carry forward on that last, especially, you can have a more complete forgiveness.
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Afterward thoughts, after a recent phone call with sis:
First, I appreciate her intervention, but knowing that is why I gave "more full" forgiveness, not 100 percent. I don’t mean to crush him, but, without putting percentages on forgiveness, it is what it is.
Would he even have remembered, or “remembered,” all of this otherwise? Given that, in a letter to the two of us 20 years ago or a bit more, he copped to the sexual abuse, albeit in a non-specific way, I doubt it. I know that my pre-sobriety memories of his abuse were vague, called up but rarely from my subconscious vasty deep, and also detached from emotional content. But? I was the abusee, the victim, not the abuser. He may certainly have been sexually abused himself, but we’re talking about his abusing, not his being abused.
So, color me still a bit, or more than a bit, skeptical. Maybe even a bit more than just skeptical.
That said?
She indicated she might follow up on this Facebook Messenger exchange, in a new phone call to me.
I most certainly did not ask her to intervene again, to follow up with Walt once more on what I said, now that I've talked to him. In fact, I tried to dissuade her from that, apparently unsuccessfully.
It's more than "let sleeping dogs lie." Rather it's like Pontius Pilate: "What I have written, I have written." I may, on my own, give him a final RIP on Facebook. But, I have no desire to talk to him on the phone. None.
And, she says she’s OK not going to his funeral, in part having visited him about 6 months ago. But, it’s like she had to work that out.
Me? I was OK when he told us his diagnosis with not talking to him on the phone AND not going to visit him before he died AND not going to his funeral, and had nothing to work out. Closure is not a thing; I know that from my dad’s death, and never expected to find it here, and therefore never looked for it.
I have seen a rough copy of her follow-up response to him. It's not highly meddling, but it does say that my type of forgiveness might not be satisfying to him because I'm an atheist. Sorry, but that's not really it, I don't think, no more than Tim thinking the abuse made me atheist. She did mention sobriety, though not directly talking about him getting me drunk, or most generously interpreted, him encouraging me to get myself drunk, at age 10. This gets back to the above; since he was the one watching me booze up, and probably laughing inside at it, I doubt he "forgot" it. It is simply something that, not being the victim, wasn't on his radar screen.
Otherwise, to get back to something else above, I do not want her thinking that this new round will encourage Walt to talk to me further, to try to get me to talk to him on the phone. That's not happening. It's a boundary issue.
Sis, though a year younger than me, was often my protector in childhood, from physical abuse from neighborhood bullies in Gallup, New Mexico, and other things. She couldn’t always protect me, and at times, I think she tried to protect me to distance and distract from her own situations.
That said, physically?
I was a “runt” growing up. Per the Charles Atlas ads at the back of comic books when growing up, I WAS “5-1 and 98 pounds soaking wet” when I started high school, in fact. I was only 5 feet 5 inches two years later, at the start of my junior year. I didn’t hit the 6-foot mark until the end of my freshman year of college. I was 6-4 when I graduated, and topped out another inch or so in years after that.
We talked about Walt’s perception that I was passive with him since his terminal illness announcement, versus me controlling the narrative, or trying to, on how, when, and how long in written words, I responded.
As far as me controlling the narrative with him, rather than being passive? I think she doesn't recognize just how much I am a mix of the two with her. My being passive in non-response IS how I control the narrative, as I know there's no better way of controlling the narrative. And, that's not just related to this, it's in general.
With my sis, I’m like a stereotypical husband of 50 years ago who says “uh huh” to his wife every 5 minutes in a monologue conversation. I think she’s afraid, today, of being “cut off” in some way; Tim and Paul, the No. 2 brother, don’t visit a lot, whereas I, with this winter week off most years in my past 7, drop in regularly, and even before that, probably visited more than either of them did.
Oh, well. I can say “uh huh” and let her think she’s still protecting me. She’s more than once said that if I have anything devastating financially, I know where I can turn.
On that? Two and three-quarters years to the US federal medical finish line. Four and three-quarters years to the US “FRA” finish line. That’s assuming there’s anything seriously left in either Medicare or Social Security from you Baby Boomers. (I’m not a Gen Xer, either; I and one or two friends of mine have consistently for years described ourselves, in US sociological terms, as “70s kids.”) And, this doesn’t even count both American duopoly parties doing little to help. (End of politics.)
Anyway, I will have “more options” after I cross those “finish lines.” Having already crossed “the early federal finish line” last year, I already have a bit more options.
And, I’ll be glad for them. It’s a reason I remain prudent, even semi-frugal, with my money. Crossing these finish lines with a reasonable amount of dinero, and with the tatterered remains of the US safety net hopefully not even more junked, gives me yet more options.
I also have not quite three years, or not quite five years, to figure out how to further detach from her monologues and her self-perceived (by her, in my going second-level theory of mind) protectiveness of me, and beyond detachment, how to speak back on it at some point.
Like a lot of things in life, at this current point, it’s a low-grade frustration.
Back to Walt. Sis says she thinks it’s weeks now, not months. I agree.
