Daughters of the Shadow Men

GRANDMA:I was so agitated when I read this account of my stay in Phoenix that I asked LaRae to bring me over and see if I could not speak to you.

GERRY: I would be happy to speak to you.  Don't you think this is a fair account of what took place? 

GRANDMA: There was so much going on with your mother that I did not know about.  I realize that part of this was my fault, but I had a terrible time getting your mother to tell me anything.  She was very secretive when she wanted to be. 

GERRY:  I think that would be fair to say.  I was just in a position to observe her behavior a lot more than you were after she married and left home, as her oldest daughter, born within a year after their marriage. 

GRANDMA:  I have had a lot to learn about the effects of our religion.  I must say heaven was a big disappointment to me.  I did not find it to my liking at first at all.  Nothing was like I thought it would be.  I just seemed to crumble for a long while.  My son Crae who went missing in World War II helped me a lot.  He answered all my questions because he had been there a while.  He convinced me that heaven was reality not fantasy, just like earth is. Crae is a great spirit who has helped many when they have passed over.  He is spending a lot of time with your mother as she attempts to get better from the severe mental illness she suffered for a number of years before her death.  She withdrew into herself and would not speak.  She no longer knew what to say. 

GERRY:  That's the way she was acting for some time.  Both Ann and I thought she was mentally ill.  I suppose your brain atrophies, too, if you no longer use it.  But I did not think Mother dealt with reality well for a long time before that.  Her mind started to go in her marriage to Daddy.  She was so frustrated with him.  She could not understand his refusing to let her go and still not caring about her.  Of course, I thought he was mentally ill, too, which is why he wouldn't let her go.  I thought he was chronically unfaithful to her but he seemed to think that since she didn't know that, he didn't have to account for it.  It was a terrible situation for her.

GRANDMA:  I just don't understand it even yet.  I know I was quite ignorant about men like him.  I just tried to avoid him. 

GERRY:  That did not help Mother since she had to deal with him all the time.  She got no help, except what we daughters could give her.  I did not dare tell her or my sisters what I thought was the main problem.  It just wasn't done in those days. 

GRANDMA:  Oh no, you could never have talked about that.  People would have thought you were even more mentally disturbed than they already thought.  I knew something must be terribly wrong in the marriage but I had no idea what.  I think Crae must have gotten some idea when he went down to work for your dad before he went into the service.

GERRY:  Crae had such a gentle personality he did not disturb my dad, but trying to be a partner to my dad would not have made him happy. 

GRANDMA: I have had to try to wrap my mind around something I knew nothing about to help your mother. It was very important for many reasons that I understand. 

GERRY:  I agree.  My dad is not the  only one in the world to have this problem.  It is fairly common, so people need to study the problem and be prepared to deal with it.  Total ignorance is the worst.  I just got the idea that most of my relatives who were normal never gave the idea of homosexuality a thought at all!  While I was running into it so often.  And when you must deal with a homosexual capable of molestation, you are really in territory where few will willingly go. I am trying to build up the strength to write about Raymond falling into the hands of a very dangerous teen pedofile when he was seven years old, he and two of his little friends.  I still think of it and shudder.   It was every bit as bad or worse than when I was molested at the age of five by a homosexual pedofile I believed to be having an affair with Daddy.  Their affair did not last more than two years and there were others in between on the weekends, I thought. 

GRANDMA:  It was no wonder you seemed old and wise beyond your years.  And nobody knew quite what to make of you. 

GERRY:  It was up to me to protect Raymond and I slipped up.  I was fooled. I thought I knew a lot but he was so young and so cunning.  This is so hard for me to write about.  I wish I did not have to.

GRANDMA:  Of course  It was a terrible thing. 

GERRY:  I just got through writing about Bruce who everyone knew had molested his daughter, which is a terrible thing as well.  She virtually lost her father when that happened.  She has always refused to come home.  I do not know that they have ever been reconciled. 

GRANDMA:  I know I have to be strong if I am to help your mother after her long retreat into silence.  I feel she was very angry. I feel very bad to think she had to become so mentally ill.

GERRY:  I think it was when she realized she had to die and she would see all of you again. 

GRANDMA:  She is still not talking to me.  She says she can't, so as long as she can't talk to me I know I have to work harder to try to understand her.  That is why I asked LaRae to bring me here today, to tell you that I care for your mother, my oldest daughter, and I know it is part of my salvation to help her.  I go to see her because she says I never paid any attention to her, I never listened to her.  Part of this was Dad's fault.  I have told him that I owed more to the children than he allowed me to give.  He competed for my attention all the time with them, and I am afraid since he was so powerful he won.  I have separated from him so I can connect to my children.  He has to find his own salvation.  I have to grow and develop in spite of him. He understands that now.  I had better go now and let you sleep.  Good-by now.      

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