Author's Notes: To Forgive a Predator
Author's Notes: To Forgive a Predator
For someone to attempt to forgive a predator, it's one of imposition. Here is a controversial subject, and by far, the most challenging to write about, if you ask my opinion.
It is challenging to find yourself when such acts happen and to be caught when this act happens, especially by the father. One reason is that it's so hard, and I will go on a limb here. It's because it's so personal, a hush in more households than one would imagine.
Truly enough people should speak about it, but because of the shame like this one here, it represses. Repression isn't any good, not for the parent's mental health or the child who fell prey and is now a victim.
There isn't a day that goes by that this very subject enters my head.
Not a place I would ever want any other child, or parent, to have to experience. Because it will tear you apart, and some people take their lives because of it. I feel ugly, for my children's sake. I may never get over it and must go to my dying day living with it.
They say changes begin from within us, and that sounds about accurate! Well, it is up to me, and me alone, to forgive such a heinous lude act towards our children, which is a starting point here. It is a very deep emotional backset for me, and I wouldn't say I like it, not one bit. There's one question that remains within me that I find myself unsettled.
How can I forgive a predator when I cannot forgive myself?
So, I've placed myself in self-conviction, knowing I was responsible for not being assertive enough to tell my wife no, damn it. "Look, Hunny, I care about what your mom has been through, but not at the expense of our children's well-being and welfare." That's what I should have done.
I would've, should've, and could've, but I didn't. So, see why I've placed myself in conviction to some of you out there?
Because we knew her little brother was capable of this, he's done this to a little 6-year-old boy and then to his 10-year-old female cousin. He was 12 and 1/2 years old then. If you were to ask the mother, it "never" happened!
That's a lie!
That's why they haven't been around our children; I wouldn't allow it. But my mother-in-law pulled a fast one and showed up, with no announcement, with that kid. I didn't like him because of what he had done to that little boy and his cousin. "I do love him, but you don't have to like someone to love them." The Lord knows my heart. `
I was supposed to draft this story of the tragedy. But I don't know how to begin authoring this story. But every time I relive this tragic event and begin to write, I freeze. Emotions come deep, I am not ashamed to say this, and tears start flowing. So, I can't see how to type it, and it is hindering me, and therefore my muse is missing.
So, I took this to God and said: how can I do this when rivers of tears come up, where I can't even see the keyboard? The image that haunts me is of my daughter in this heinous act of perverseness. As I ripped her away from her horrors, my son lays sodomized. Am I starting to lose my faith in drafting this story?
But I promised you that I would write it, you said, to let the public have a say, and judge yourselves whether I was right to be self-convicted. The Lord said, "where you lack faith in yourself, I have enough faith in you to find a way around an obstacle.
So, I thought about it, and this non-structured poem I tried writing isn't something I can write poetically! At least not at this point, but I have another poem about this issue on the other side. It's called "The Darkening Other Side."
So, I'm ashamed of what I thought I was accomplishing. What I did twenty-six years ago, and perhaps I will find this forgiveness for myself before I pass over to the afterlife.
Best Wishes,
William Darnell Sr
Source - PoetrySoup™
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