I Stood Up

I had a chance to speak briefly to a trusted friend back in KC about the situation with my brother. She offered me a different perspective that was incredibly profound.

By the way, this is why deep relationships are so vital for me. Without trust, without them understanding me, without a consistent stability and faith, I would never believe what they say.

After I explained exactly what happened, there was a brief silence. She knows how hard this is for me. She knows how difficult it is for me to once again require separation from my family and how alone I will feel in the weeks, months and years to come.

She said to me that I had to know exactly what I had done.

I did know or thought I did. I had angered my brother and put myself in an impossible position.

No.

As she went on to explain, maybe those things were true but there was a bigger truth that I hadn't seen.

She said I had done something that had never been done for me. I had done something that I had dreamed for years that someone would do in my life.

I stood up to my brother, an abuser and in front of his children.

This was the exact conversation that happened with my brother and in front of his family after he had finally stopped hitting his kids.

Me:  There is no hitting in my house.
B:  Oh that was me doing the hitting. *giggle* (I already knew this as I had seen it happen.)
Me:  I know and I said there is no hitting in my house. It isn't allowed and is unacceptable. We do not allow hitting in the house.
B:  I'll hit my kids when and where I want. They are my kids.
Me:  I said there is no fucking hitting in this house.

The kids heard. His wife heard. He heard.

I know in my brother's mind, he had the upper hand. He had spoken and that was final. However, my brother went and laid on his bed for hours too. Not sure why, but I have to think he didn't appreciate being told he was wrong.

And that is exactly what I had done. I had told him in front of four other people that he was wrong for hitting his kids.

Nobody ever did that to my dad.

My dad was a bit more restrained and never hit us in front of anyone, not even extended family. He had once. He hit me in front of my grandma when I was 1. The story she always told me was that I had gotten in his way and he backhanded me hard enough to throw me three feet back and smacked my head on the floor. My grandma didn't stand up to him but later told my mom that if she ever saw that again she would take me away. She never saw it again.

Obviously, my brother didn't have the same kind of restraint or he assumed that since I grew up in the same house then I had the same values and would be ok with it. I wasn't.

In front of my niece and nephew, I stood up to their abuser. I planted a seed that being hit and hitting children is wrong. If they've never know this before now, I hope they know now. I hope that if it happens again, they will know someone loved them enough to say no. I hope they understand someday that I loved them so much that I traded a relationship with them at a chance for their safety.

Don't mistake what I am saying, I am not a hero. A hero would have clobbered their dad and had him arrested on the spot. A hero would have done far more than have a verbal confrontation. A hero would have made certain it never happened again.

I'm not a hero. I spoke up and then placed my faith in hope. A hope that seeds were planted with all of them. A hope that it would miraculously never happen again. A hope that my painful loss would have bigger gains for my niece and nephew. A faith that our God is far bigger than me and can work in the most hopeless of situations.

When I was a kid, I didn't have any hope. I had a far fetched dream. We lived close enough to Oklahoma that we only got Dallas Cowboys games. I would watch on Sundays as the big huge guys would take each other down. My dream was that some of those big guys would come in and take  my dad out. That was it. The closest thing I had to stopping the abuse, a crazy dream.

I want my niece and nephew to have something bigger to hang onto than a silly dream.

I will never regret standing up to my brother. I do, however, regret not talking to the kids afterward. I wish I would have told them now that they should not be ashamed of what their dad has done. He is wrong and they have not deserved what has happened to them. That there is a difference between punishment and abuse. That they don't have to keep it a secret. That if it doesn't stop, they always have a safe place here.

Realistically, my abuse didn't stop until eight months ago. My dad continued the physical abuse well into my adult life and I am not exactly certain when that stopped. I do know that he continued the emotional abuse until I moved 14 hours away from him.

It took exactly 39 years to live an abuse free life. While I don't see my brother as a monster equal to my dad, I definitely don't want my niece and nephew to live in fear until they are 39 years old.