It’s been said that with the advent of the Internet that you will eventually find something you’ve posted that will come back to haunt you. Maybe you’ll make a comment about an old girlfriend that your wife might stumble across. Even worse, you might post or tweet something that a potential employer might not find palatable.
This could very well be one that blows up in my face.
It would be best if this one never had to be remembered, let alone written or spoken about. But since the therapeutic value of time has been less than rewarding, perhaps writing about it will prove to be helpful. Maybe this time it will be OK to let things go, to not let the bitterness of the past years continue to fester within. Even, maybe, to forgive. Every person who has tried to write is told to put something of themselves into the story. As painful as that is, here goes.
In 1999, my ex-wife moved out with her then boyfriend. In 2000, he was arrested for “Rape 3rd: Victim less than 17 years old, Perpetrator more than 21 years old”. Of course, this does not tell the story. It was not a one-time occurrence. It was continual.
He was a 37 year old raping the 15 year old daughter of his girlfriend. My daughter.
He was convicted, served six months in county jail and is as of this writing still on probation for this offense. His sentence will end in May, 2013. Her sentence will continue for life. Our sentence will never end.
My daughter has not had the best of hands dealt to her. She is the unfortunate recipient of her grandmother’s and uncle’s manic depression – what in common terms is now referred to as bi-polar. With no other outside interference, this disease/syndrome is foul enough. Some learn to live with it. Some have or had to have psychological treatment, as my mother did. Others need medication to ‘round out’ the symptoms so they can lead normal, productive lives. But for most, to one degree or another, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Add into this the trauma of sexual abuse by someone who professes to love your mother. One whom you looked toward as something close to a father-figure, one with whom you should be safe. Secure. Innocent. Instead, you are the victim of evil visited by a narcissistic predator, one with his own girls to raise. Now he has raised the ante to six victims.
The tragedies are manifest. Not the least of which are those aided and abetted by our judicial system. There is an interesting concept in our way of life: you must repay your debt to society. Your actual victim? Nothing.
Oh, his was among the most stringent punishments handed down in New York. He is branded as a Level 2 Sex Offender. It will follow him around. As the assistant DA told us, having a six month incarceration and ten year probation was heavyweight, because the alternative was an indeterminate sentence of from two to four years in State prison. But then his sentence would be complete. His debt to society would have been fulfilled. He was also required to reimburse our out-of-pocket expense for my daughter’s psychological treatment. After a few sessions, she determined that treatment was not helpful.
And then she attempted suicide. Not once, but twice. She was involuntarily committed to a treatment facility. Not once, but twice. She was released upon her insistence on her 18th birthday, because we could no longer require she be treated.
She is now 26 years old. The fact that my daughter has survived this has been a blessing from God. It has not turned out perfectly, but sometimes you need to accept what is as good enough. I’m grateful that I can still talk to her.
You can learn a lot about yourself in how you react to tribulation. I am disturbed to admit that I’ve failed the part of forgiveness miserably. And in some small measure, that’s why this is being written.
When I was a teenager, when we were proving ourselves to each other, there was a joke/debate about what we’d do if we walked in and found our girlfriends in bed with someone else. Of course, with teen bravado, we all claimed we’d maim or kill one or both. As a matter of fact, when that did happen in my first marriage, I merely turned around and left, after retrieving my suit from the closet.
That was an instance that I’m proud of. I didn’t maim or kill. Heck, I didn’t even raise my voice. It would have been pointless.
But I’ve spent a fair portion of time over the last eleven years plotting evil. No matter that his debt has been paid, more or less. It isn’t enough. His sentence should not end until hers has ended. My righteous indignation as a father, my perverted sense of justice, my absolute desire of retribution has not been satisfied. I’ve contemplated various types of torture, from the sublime (interrupting his marriage to ask if the bride knew about his pedophilia) to the ridiculous (injecting bleach intravenously while skinning him alive with a battery-acid soaked filet knife). I’ve learned much from watching Schwarzenegger and Willis films in methods of stopping just short of death while inflicting maximum pain. While thinking about writing this over the last few days, I was going to include his Sex Predator and his Facebook web pages. While grim, there is a part of me that would gladly serve time for having extracted not just a pound of flesh, but enough to level the scale in my warped attempt to make him pay for the damage he has done to my daughter.
Over the years, some have commented on my restraint in not taking revenge. Some have laughed nervously when I mentioned some diabolical way to make him suffer. Actually, it’s my ultimate belief in God that has hamstrung me to the point where he is still walking and able to take food. He did undergo a jailhouse conversion to Buddhism, and I hope Karma is a bitch. But short of that, it’ll be waiting on God’s judgment for me.
It’s too bad there hasn’t been a happy ending to this, yet. Time will tell if I continue to plot pain or not. At least for now, writing this really has been therapeutic to the point that at this moment I am not seething. Sometimes you need to accept what is as good enough.
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