Just Beginning by Cheryl

 

I just turned 50 and I am tired. I am so tired because I have been running from myself for too long. 34 years and I have just caught up with myself.  I got pregnant at the age of 16. My parents forced me into an abortion. The father had been in trouble prior to this and they threatened to have him sent away. They carried guns with them and told me if they ever saw me even talking to him that they would kill him and then themselves. That was the final straw. I could not hurt him or his family anymore. I gave in. He thought that I miscarried. They let me see him again afterward but only if they were in the room with us. I knew that I loved him enough that I had to let him go. He never understood what happened. I told him that when both of my parents were gone that I would explain.

I went on to get married and had 2 beautiful children, but one had severe handicaps. I felt that this was my punishment. But why did my daughter have to be punished for my sins? I wanted to confront my parents about what they did to me, but kept putting it off. My daughter was 1 1/2 and my mother died suddenly. I never got to ask her why? I had almost 21 more years with my father and never got the nerve to confront him. When he was diagnosed with cancer, how could I confront a dying man with what he had done to me? At the same time I panicked, knowing the promise that I had made with the father of my lost baby.

I lived with the guilt of what I had done alone for years. I finally told a couple of close friends. They would listen and try to understand but didn't really. My husband knew and thought that it was all about the father of the baby. For all those years, I did too. I met with the father of the unborn baby and confessed. I thought that I would feel closure. I didn't. It took telling the baby's father and my dad dying to realize that this pain was about me and all that I had been through. My husband just didn't get it. He heard my words but just didn't listen to and hear my pain. I regret not confronting my parents when they were alive and now it's too late. They died thinking that I was fine and that they did the best thing for me. They were so wrong. I just seemed fine because I got good at it. I wore a mask to hide my pain for 34 years.

Last weekend after nearing the end of all sanity, my husband finally got it. With his help and caring and finally understanding my pain as well as he can, I am beginning to heal. It took me 34 years to get this way and he now knows that my healing won't come overnight. I don't want to broadcast what happened but I am starting to tell the ones that are close to me what happened, I am tired of running and feeling ashamed. I know that God has forgiven me and it's time that I forgive myself. The ones that chose on their own to have abortions hurt enough later, but not having a choice was hell on earth. I just want people that try to convince or force someone into doing this to think again. It changes who that person is for the rest of her life. My parents thought that when it was over that it was over, but it was just the beginning of what could have been the end.