A Brick to the Face

 A Brick to the face is really the only way to describe how I felt when my daughter in-law called on a cold December night.  I'm always amazed at people that can remember exactly the date and time their life changed forever.  I can't do that.  I can tell you I was sitting in my favorite chair watching a movie with my absolutely wonderful husband when the phone rang.  It was our daughter in-law.  Oh Fuck here we go again.  Toby (not his real name) our son and her must have had another fight.  Hubby had the phone on speaker and in a split second our life changed forever.

Toby had sexually abused their 4 year old daughter.  Sound disappeared.  Vision got cloudy.  But it felt like having a pro baseball player throw a very large brick strait at my face or perhaps better put, to my heart.  In that one sentence, I knew life would never be the same.  With that one phone call, my life, their life, our families lives imploded.  An atomic bomb went off soul wise.

On that night we started our long walk. A journey that would and is taking me places I never thought I would see or be a part of.  We weren't "those' people.  We weren't those kind of individuals that know the justice system, jail, crime.  We were safe.  We were better than that.  We lived our lives cleaner, healthier, safer.  We didn't hang out at bars all night, and do drugs, or run around with riff raff.  This doesn't happen to people like us.  We're educated, high economic class, midwest Christians.  Well the universe/higher power sure showed me.  Sit on a high horse, you're gonna fall off.  I have been humbled many times on this journey so far.  I have been brought to my knees many times so far on this journey.  This was just the beginning.

Toby wasn't arrested that night.  The police had to do "investigating" first.  So although, my daughter in-law had the kids and the house is in her name, she had to leave.  I was angry.  Oh the mom in me wanted to call those cops and give them a talking to.  Thankfully Sara (not her real name) had members of my husbands family living in the next town over that she could go to for a few nights.  I will be forever grateful to my husband's brother and sister in-law for taking them in when this first happened.

My son opted to ignore all the phone calls from us and borrow a friends gun.  He then decided that he would check himself into the Psych hospital to get help.  I'm very happy he chose to not kill himself and that he recognized that he needed help.  I don't think the latter decision worked out the way he thought it would though.  I personally feel he made this chess move to hopefully get out of trouble for what he did.  He spent a month in the Psych hospital for Sexual Deviant adults and then was promptly arrested.

I should add, this all came about because he had his daughter fondle him, took a picture of it and sent it to a woman.  The woman promptly called the cops.  Regardless of my love for my little boy (no matter the age, he'll always be my little boy), I am very happy she came forward.  Too often children are taken advantage of, abused in many ways and people stay silent instead of protecting the child.  I am glad this lady saw something and said something even though it meant our would would implode.  That four year old child, my grandchild deserves that.

That first month is hard to describe.  Pretty much everyday was an emotional roller coaster.  Anger, pity, sadness, embarrassment, shame, guilt....and on and on it went like a horrible wooden amusement park ride that you can never get off of, but you truly feel it will one day kill you.