Have you ever known someone that everyone sees as the person they'd like to be? The kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back, take strangers into his home, worked hard everyday of his life, basically, a good descent person. He married a young mother of 3, they went on to have 2 more kids of their own, but the older 3 were his, always. He raised them with his name, he was never referred to as step-father and he would eliminate family members from his life, if they ever treated the older 3 kids in any way that made the kids feel like they weren't part of the family.
He lived his entire life for his family and would allow no one to hurt them. Years later, when his wife was still a young woman she became very ill with cancer. He stayed and took care of all the kids, while still working, and more importantly, he took care of his ailing wife, who never really got any better. The cancer was gone, but she was always sickly and weak after that, and more than 30 years later, when she passed away the pastor made a statement at her funeral that sums up what his life had always been about: "I remember him carrying his wife when he was too sick to carry himself". That was true, had always been true.
But there was one young girl, and one other she knows about, who knew that he was all of those wonderful things and more. He had a very dark side that no one ever saw, except for her. He hurt her, in awful, unspeakable ways, for many years when she was a child. And she never told. Not because she was afraid he would hurt her even more, but when she got older, he told her that her Mother was sick, unable to care for for her family and if she told, the kids would all be taken away and sent to live with other people, maybe strangers. He told her all the horrors that would happen if he was taken away and her Mother was left to support and care for 5 kids, sick and alone. So, she never told.
He's been dead nearly 20 years, and she's never told. She knows now that it wasn't her fault, she was a child, she never did anything to make him hurt her, that the sickness was his. She keeps her dark secret, still, no longer to protect her Mother, who's been dead for almost as long as he has. He's gone and can't hurt another child, so she doesn't need to protect them. So, who is she protecting? Why won't she tell that what happened to her effected her entire life, made her wary of people, made it hard to get too close. It seems like it's time to free herself of what he did, that there's no one left to protect from the truth of what he did to her, but there are people who would be hurt. So, she doesn't tell.
She has a husband who adored him, wanted to be like him, learned things from him that his Dad never taught him. He became for him, the Dad he always wanted his own Dad to be. He still talks about him and how great a man he was, how he wished he could see the kind of man he had helped him become. How this man had loved him like a son, more than his own Dad, and he felt the same way about him. He's put him on a pedestal because there was no one in his life that ever treated him so well, least of all his own family. It would devastate him to know that the wonderful man he knew and loved, had that dark side that no one ever saw. So, she doesn't tell.
She has children and nieces and nephews and Aunts and Uncles, none of whom ever knew about the dark side. They look at his picture, tell stories of what a great man, what a wonderful loving husband who cared for so long for his sick wife, what a great Pop-Pop he was, how they loved and miss him. They, too adore him. She knows that what they say is the truth, he was all those things to her and everyone else. But there was still that dark, evil side, that no one else saw. Would anyone ever believe he was two different people? So, she doesn't tell.
She can't change what was done to her and it won't ease the pain or the burden of knowing, not for her. What would be gained by telling now? She would hurt the people she loves most in her life, she would shatter so many dreams, she would crush the memories they have a such a wonderful, loving man. It would destroy the memories they hold on to and speak about in reverent terms, and maybe destroy some of them in the process. So, she doesn't tell.
Her life will not be changed by telling what she should have told when she was a child, when she was being hurt. Her life won't be better if she tells what she was afraid to tell so long ago. She kept her silence out of guilt and shame that she knows now was his, not hers, she was a child. She's not a child anymore and she wants to protect her family, the way she should have been protected. So, she won't tell.
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