1989

Calvary Chapel church was hosting a women's retreat in the Arrowhead Mountains in early 1989.  I would not have gone except for the urging of a new friend I had made in the fall when I began teaching at a local high school.  Teri was a beautiful woman with massive amounts of curly hair cascading everywhere around her lightly freckled face.  She was the secretary to the school counselors and had a real heart for the students, as I did.  We connected almost immediately and found great commonality in our beliefs.  I had only just begun to wander with trepidations into the territory of speaking about my father.  I could say that he was a child molester, but not without stomach cramps and tears.  At least I could say it, though.  There was some relief in even that.

I know that I wore on my face and in my countenance the strain of carrying Daddy's difficulties and Mother's death.  I had put 1985, for the most part, on some interior shelf, and it stayed perched there until occasionally a light would shine on it, exposing anew its presence.  Teri noticed this posturing of mine and asked me questions.  That was a gift. So, I told her and waited for the descending shame.  There was none.

"Come with me to women's retreat, Kay," she pleaded.  "You will be refreshed."

There are so many preparations to be made for a busy mother to leave home for the weekend that the thought of driving up to the mountains to retreat sounded daunting.  Bill encouraged me, however; so, I decided to go, though I did not really relish the idea of being with a gushing group of women I did not know.  My pain had introverted me somewhat.  I was living over it as best I could, but the stream was always flowing just beneath the surface.  It made me uncomfortable with myself as though something intrinsically wrong with me encouraged the discord that kept my heart and mind out of sync.  I did not call it shame then because I did not know its name at the time.  I just understood that whatever the debris was floating in that river of hurt, it made me want to run away.  How can a person run from what one takes with her?

While I was packing the old peach and green colored comforter and folding my jeans and sweaters, I remembered a counselor friend of mine telling me I should write a letter to my father.  The contents of this letter would ultimately be healing because I would tell him how he hurt me.  This letter I would not mail, but simply burn, shred or pitch.  The point was to articulate. I put my shampoo, curling iron, and hair dryer in my suitcase atop my clothes and thought writing the letter would be a good idea for me.  I determined to get alone on the mountain and regurgitate pain onto paper.

I picked Teri up at her home and we set out late on a Friday afternoon.  The air was chilly and my big fluffy blue sweater felt soft and comforting.  We talked non-stop through the weekend southern California traffic until we finally exited and turned left onto Highway 18 to Lake Arrowhead.  The dusky pink light of the closing day fell softly on the large arrowhead that adorns the face of the mountain.  The tension in my body began to fall away as we wound through fir trees and sheer rock walls up and up, four thousand feet to the retreat center.  Clouds scented with pine hugged the sides of the cliffs and slowed us down as we passed through their misty frothiness.  Our headlights were turned on by then and cars approaching through the fog seemed like ethereal balls of brilliance pressing in on us as if from some alien siege, starting small then shooting us past us in the night.

The main hall of the retreat center was, by contrast, too bright.  It hurt my eyes at first and seemed to slam itself up against the promising peace of mind that had been growing in me as we ascended into the forest.  It was loud, also.  Two hundred women away from home, all talking at once.  I knew only one of them.  We found our room, which we shared with two other women, and began to unpack.  We did not get far before there was a call to dinner.  The cafeteria was literally packed with chewing, speaking, laughing women.  It was hard not to notice the joy present; joy seemed like an old firend I had not seen in a very long time.  I watched it more than partook of it; but, it was pleasant to be in the midst of such happiness again.

I did not sleep well that night.  I rarely do my first night away from home, but that night my mind kept inviting me to pre-write the letter to my father.  However, I would just get started and the entire endeavor would go dead - my mind, blank.  I had still never cried about Mother's death or Daddy's arrest. Too ineffable to acknowledge tears.  Articulation might be a dam breaker.  Even my subconscious was afraid of the flood.  I tossed and turned, anxious for dawn.  I could not wait to get into my little black Pontiac and find some quiet, isolated place to talk to God.

By the time my three roommates awakened, I had showered and dressed and made my bed.  Sitting atop the flowers of the comforter, I tried to read my Bible while they took turns in the bathroom and flitted about the room preparing for the day.  I could not seem to quiet my mind or still my body.  When the four of us were ready to go to the cafeteria, I bowed out, telling Teri I would meet her for lunch.  She was a little disappointed, but I explained I needed time alone.  We arranged a meeting place outside the eating area; and, I all but ran to the car, digging in my purse for the keys so that I could get into it quickly.  I felt like I was about to make an escape, although I did not know "from" what or "to" what.

Once inside the car, with the heater blowing warm air and my heart racing, I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back out toward the highway.  I was looking for a quiet, undisturbed place to ultimately pull over and be alone.  Just before Running Springs, I noticed a small campground and drove into it.  Hidden among the trees was a solitary spot just big enough for the car.  I parked, turned the motor off and sat there taking deep breaths, wondering what to do next.  I knew this was going to be an important moment for me, but I was not quite sure how to proceed.

Reaching over to the passenger seat, I grasped the pen and paper I had brought along with me.

"Dear Daddy...." I began.  "I wish.."  No. Erase that.

"Dear Daddy.." I tried again.  "My hands look like yours, so I have acrylic fingernails now.  It masks the shape of them - makes my fingers look longer so I do not think about you when I look at them now.  Why did you keep your fingernails so long?  It kinda made me sick."

I was crying by then, and nauseous.  My reactions when it came to Daddy always surprised me.  I looked at my hands and cried quietly for a while.  Then I wrote again.  "I have made some poor decisions with my own life, Daddy, because ..."  I had to think why.  What had driven my actions - was still driving them?  I was barely hanging on emotionally, trying to function above the undercurrent of grief.  I was about to reach down and touch that current, and I knew it would shock me.

I continued. "...because I think who I am changed when I found out who you are.  It seems the weight of  understanding all of this is so heavy sometimes that I want to escape it and find a place to be where this pain does not exist.  I have run away from God, I think.  I have hurt my husband."

Then I just felt dirty.  Marred and useless.  I could not get this right and had no idea where to begin.  I sobbed and sobbed and the well became a prayer.  I honestly did not know who I was anymore.  Though it made little sense to me at the time, I understood that my father's pedophilia had somehow redefined me.  He had covertly passed the gauntlet of shame to his children, and it had so clandestinely floated down upon me that until that moment I had not recognized its presence. I loathed a part of myself that I could not even find!   Intrinsic, bottomless shame lurked about, an enemy too formidable for me to conquer yet.\

I cried out to God, throwing the useless missive to Daddy onto the floorboard of the car.  I did not need to talk to Daddy; I needed God to talk to me!  I crossed my arms in front of me on the steering wheel and laid my head against them, bowing before the only One I felt could give me any clarity.

"I don't know who I am anymore, God!  I don't understand how to recreate my present in light of the redefining of my past. I have failed You in the process of coping."

As the words spilled out of me and onto God, it became clear that what I really wanted was His opinion -His acceptance.

"I feel unclean and ugly, Father," I cried.  "It is as though I have been placed on hold or set out in the hall because I have been bad.  I am a wanderer looking for home, disoriented and confused."

A question was forming itself as I prayed.  It seem rhetorical - unanswerable save for some miracle.  But I could not hold it back.  I nearly screamed it!  "God, how do You see me?"

It bounced off the car windows and seemed to echo around the interior for a few minutes.  Then I became extraordinarily still.  Spent.  The question had gotten to the bottom of it.  Did God still love me?  I sat in a vacuum waiting for an answer.

I glanced at the clock.  How it could already be time to meet Teri was beyond my understanding.  I wiped my nose and my face with the tissues that were in the glove box, then started the car and left.  The question still hung in the air as though freshly asked.  How could I expect God to answer such a query?  How foolish to ask it.  What did I expect? An audible voice? "This is how I see  you."

When I arrived at the retreat center, the morning session had not quite ended.  I slipped through the back door and took a seat on the back row just as the leader told everyone to rise and sing the last worship song.  I stood with the group and sang quietly, arms lifted up to God.  The atmosphere was sweet and in it I felt a great sense of peace.  My heart was focusing on God and not myself for the first time that morning. I was unaware of the women standing in front of me, and they seemed equally unaware of me; so, I was taken aback when one of them whirled around and grabbed my hand as soon as the singing ended.

"God told me to tell you that you are beautiful!"  she proclaimed. "And you are!"