Victoria

 

     My mom was the youngest of 15 children. Her first husband died, leaving her with one daughter. She married my dad, who refused to let her daughter live with them. He sometimes permitted her brief stays in our house when she was between places to live.

     Like his father, Dad was a mean drunk—hard on his wife and kids. When he came home in a drunken rage, he beat my mom, sometimes in front of us. One of the few times he made it home for dinner, he threw a hot pot of spaghetti right into her face.

     Dad must have liked hurting us because he did it so often. We were good girls who were too afraid to misbehave, but he would beat us for no reason. He’d hit us with the buckle end of his belt, yelling, “I’m going to cut the blood out of your legs!” He whipped us until he raised welts on our bloody legs. He did it all the time and we never knew why he hurt us.

     My dad would command, “Come and lie down with me,” and he’d touch my body in places his hands shouldn’t be. It seemed like it had always gone on--I don’t even know when it started.

     When I was 5, my dad loaded us three girls into his car and drove to a large, beautiful house. My four and six year-old sisters sat on a couch in the parlor. Dad disappeared for a minute, brought us cookies and ordered us to sit there. We were afraid to move or touch anything—it was so pretty and expensive. After a while, he came back and told us to "Get in the car." None of us had any idea about the purpose of the visit until years later.

     My dad was a womanizer. All through the years, he left us to live with various girlfriends. Mom always muttered to herself, “He’s got lipstick on his collar again.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I figured it was bad. Later whenever I heard the song about lipstick on the collar on the radio, I could visualize Mom diligently scrubbing the red out of his white shirts at the kitchen sink.

     Every night, mom hoped Dad would come home for dinner. She cooked the meal, set the table and cleaned up us girls. We’d sit on the front porch, scrubbed clean, waiting for him to arrive. He usually didn’t and we ate next to an empty plate and chair.

     Dad always worked and had money, but he wouldn’t let the family use it. My two sisters and I shared one doll, a doll buggy and a pair of skates. I felt fortunate when it was my turn to use one skate and overwhelmed if I got both of them at the same time.

     Dad connived and manipulated. He always found a job and finagled his way to become the boss where he didn’t actually do the work. I remember him supervising on a cantaloupe farm. At the end of the day he would load up the cantaloupes he set aside and take them home.

     The next day, he would drop off my sisters and me (ages 6, 7 and 8) to pull a wagon around trailer parks and knock on doors to sell the fruit.

     I recall one woman answering her trailer house door at 7:00 am and asking, “What are you doing out here at this hour?” I shook my head and answered, “I don’t know.”

     Later, Dad would pick us up and take all the money.

     At the end of the day, our dad came home drunk and sometimes passed out. My older sister knew his wallet always contained money and our family needed it to survive. At times, she took money from his wallet and gave it to Mom to buy groceries. She would buy beans along with ingredients to make biscuits, cornbread and gravy.

     We moved all the time because our dad continually changed jobs and didn’t pay our bills—including rent. Dad would wake us up in the middle of the night and say, “Get in the truck.” We didn’t have any possessions, so we quickly and quietly obeyed. I thought everybody moved in the middle of the night, because we always did.

     I remember a trip from Arizona to Texas with two adults, four children and a dog in the cab of a truck that seated three. My sisters and I took turns sitting on the floor. It was so crowded that my dad stopped the truck and threw out our pet dog in the middle of the desert. We cried, but had to cry quietly because Dad threatened us.

     Sometimes our parents left us home alone for days at a time. One time when they were 200 miles away, a drunken woman came into the house and tried to take us. We were 7, 8 and 9. My sister ran to a neighbor’s house for help. The neighbor made the woman leave. We assumed the drunk was one of Dad’s girlfriends.

     When I was 11, our dad got involved in some kind of illegal business. The business unraveled and his partner threatened to kill him. Dad vanished and we were so afraid, we hid in a stack of hay bales all night. My 12 year-old sister held a shotgun and told us she would shoot anyone who came after us. We stayed awake the entire night, terrified.

     When I was 12, our family took our only camping trip. I thought it was really strange because Dad never took us anywhere. Before we left for camping, He suggested putting Mom’s chest of family photographs and keepsakes in the chicken shed. The chest had been passed down through the family. We all wondered why he made such a crazy request.

     When we returned from camping, we couldn’t believe it—our house had burned to the ground. Only the refrigerator and stove remained standing. We just stood there in disbelief--we had only lived in that nice, new home for one year. The Red Cross put us up in a motel. Years later, I learned my dad hired someone to burn the house down for insurance money.

     At 13, I learned a new word—repossessed. Our cars never ran—they were always broken down. All of us teenage girls were so proud when Dad brought home a new car. We figured people gave us respect when we rode in it. One day we came home and the car was gone.

     The next year, we upgraded to new furniture. We hadn’t enjoyed it very long, when we came home to an empty living room, dining room and bedroom. Another repossession!

     I’d always obeyed my dad when he made me lie down with him, but it had become uncomfortable to me. I didn’t know how to make it stop.

     One of the times Dad was living elsewhere, my mom took us to church for the first time. She “got saved,” gave her burdens to the Lord and didn’t have to carry them anymore. All of us girls said a prayer asking Jesus into our hearts.

     Our dad moved back in and commanded, “Come and lie down with me. God gave me the courage to stand up to my dad’s manipulation of me for his sexual gratification.

     Somewhere in my innermost being, the words came: “You can’t ever do anything to me again.” I was 16. I never told anyone about this abuse until I confided to my husband after 36 years of marriage.

     At church, I observed the dynamics of families. Men spent time with their wives and children. My friends from church had families that functioned as units, working together to support each other.

     I resolved my life would be better. I set goals: I would marry a Christian man; raise my children in a caring, supportive, Christian family; become a teacher and never get divorced.

     We continued to move, sometimes when our dad was home, sometimes after he left us. I don’t know how many times we moved--20-25? I changed schools 13 times in 12 years, including five high schools.

     I left behind friends and boyfriends. In high school, I auditioned for the cheerleading squad. I really wanted to be a cheerleader, but it took a lot for me to try out because I was so shy. Each girl needed to perform a solo routine in front of the whole student body. I made the team in the spring, but we moved to another school district during the summer. The other cheerleaders kept calling me asking when I could practice. I kept hoping to move back and fulfill that dream, but we never did.

     During my senior year of high school, our dad finally divorced Mom. I truly wanted to graduate with my class, but my mom moved us only six weeks before graduation. I did what I needed to do to meet the new district’s graduation requirements, graduated on time and stayed on schedule to start college to become a teacher.

     Graduation turned out to be a non-event. My dad didn’t attend the ceremony and I didn’t even know my classmates.

     After high school, with no money for college, I moved in with relatives. As I washed a car in the driveway, the boy next door called, “Hi neighbor.” I ran inside the house and hid, but sneaked a peek out the window.

     As time passed, I got to know Bill and his family. I loved Bill’s dad because he became like a real dad to me. He spent a lot of time at home, talking and playing games with them. It amazed me how he interacted with his family in a kind, respectful, loving and calm manner. He seemed genuinely interested in me as a person, asking me questions about myself. I never heard him raise his voice—there was no anger in that home. He ate dinner with the family each evening and took them for a ride every Sunday.

     Another astonishing discovery was that none of them, except for Bill’s mom, had ever moved or changed schools. I had no reference point—I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like!

     Hoping for a family like Bill’s, I married him.

     I loved my husband and we had a great marriage, but I didn’t get the stability I hoped for. Bill joined the Coast Guard and toured the world for 20 years, so my life pattern of moving constantly continued. I actually enjoyed going with him as he moved around to different bases.

     Someone called and asked if I would like to adopt a baby. Bill was out to sea, but I called the Coast Guard and told them what I wanted. They patched me through to the captain and he ordered Bill to the bridge. Bill agreed to adopt and we soon gained a baby girl. Two years later, I got another call and another baby girl. Bill became the husband and father I’d envisioned.

     He was a good man, but not the Christian man I’d resolved to marry. I’d express my anger when he drank a beer or smoked a cigarette. Bill smelled like my dad and the odor brought back painful memories.

     Many years later, I understood I was really mad at myself. After resolving to marry a Christian man, I wasn’t strong enough to wait for one. It was what I wanted most of all and I wavered on that. I got discouraged at the end of high school because so many bad things were happening to my family: divorce, moving just before graduation, nobody even caring that I graduated and no money for college so I could prepare for being a teacher. I hadn’t followed through with my life with Christ and I had stopped going to church.

     Life took an abrupt turn for the better when I was 27. I found Christ as my personal Savior as an adult in a church service and I was able to forgive myself. As a result, I was no longer mad at my husband.

     Even though I never went to college, I got the opportunity to teach children. While praying, God told me to teach the nursery Sunday School Class, even though the pastor’s wife was teaching it. I talked with the pastor’s wife and she began crying, “I’ve been praying for God to send someone to teach this class if he wanted to guide me in a new way to serve people in the church.”

     I didn’t know anything about teaching children, but I did what God wanted me to do. It gave me the purpose I’d been lacking.

     After 17 years of marriage, I received the desire of my heart: my husband decided to become a Christian.

     In my 30s at a Christian women’s retreat, a speaker suggested we write a letter of forgiveness to someone we needed to forgive. I wrote a letter to my deceased dad.

     He had reappeared in our lives every few years with a new wife or girlfriend. In between those times, we never knew where he was. Before he died, my mom, my sisters and I were taking care of him. I wanted so badly to ask him why he did those things to me and to hear him say he was sorry. I couldn’t find the courage and he couldn’t speak.

     I wrote the letter and burned it, as the speaker requested. As the smoke departed, so did my bitterness and anger toward him. Something barreled out of me and I felt clean inside.

     I also got the opportunity to raise children. Two years after adopting our second daughter, I found out I was physically unable to bear children. I consider our daughters a special gift from God. He knew I couldn’t have babies before I did and He set me up with children before they were even born.

     Even with a horrific childhood, all my dreams have come true. I taught children, lived with a Christian husband and raised our children in a caring, supportive, Christian family. As far as never divorcing? We celebrated our 50th anniversary a few years ago.

     I think with God, all things are possible. Without God, I would have been more like my dad—I had the same anger in me. A psychologist relative told me, “You’re off the charts—you should be an alcoholic or a prostitute.” God is the number one reason I’m the wife, mother teacher and person I am.

 

Victoria’s Advice for Kids

●Find an adult you can trust and depend on and ask them to mentor you. Ask

   kids at school, church, YMCA or Boys/Girls Club to introduce you to an adult

   they respect.

●Find a church

●Read a lot

●Be a good student

●If someone touches you inappropriately, tell them “NO.” Don’t even let it get

   started.

●If someone’s already been touching you, it needs to stop NOW. Go to a

   policeman, nurse, teacher or pastor. Tell them what’s happening and that you

   don’t like it.

●Don’t just wish the abuse will stop. You deserve better than that. Take action.

●Know that you are strong. You’ve survived so far and you can make up your

   mind to make your family work better when you grow up.

●Believe you can make it. I did and so can you.

 

Victoria’s Advice for Adults

●Forgive your abusers. You can’t carry the load of bitterness. It’s like being

   attached at the hip with them. Carrying the weight around wears you down.

   You can be free of the weight, bitterness and anger when you forgive.

●Write down your feelings and your words of forgiveness. Burn the paper and

   watch it leave. You’ll be free and not have to carry it around anymore.

●You have to let go of your feelings or you will carry them around forever. It’s

   not worth it because it affects your relationships with people you care about.

●God can take tough situations and turn them into strengths for you. I was

   extremely shy. Because of all the moving around my family forced me to do, I

   now have the ability to talk to anyone.

 

Bill and Victoria recently built a new house on their 30-acre ranch where they have lived for 18 years. Their three grandchildren are being raised in caring, supportive, Christian families.