I remember being incredibly angry, all the time, at my mom for not putting an end to this, my dad and mostly myself. Angry at myself because I could not come to terms with the fact that my father was doing all these horrible things. There were days that I could not even face my niece. I tried to avoid her because I felt ashamed. I felt powerless. By that time I had married and had an 8-year-old daughter to think about.

I remember having open conversations with my dad, begging him to stop, to think about what he was doing to our family. I vowed to never speak to him again and I didn’t. But days would go by that I just cried because I missed him. I missed the dad I knew. I mourned him. And on these days I’d feel guilty because I still cared.
I once asked him a question that burdened me for years.

“Papa, will you force me to protect my daughters from you one day? Is my daughter still too young and you’re just waiting, praying for her to reach the age of my nieces?”

This frightened me more than it hurt. Because it did hurt. So much so that it felt as though I could not breath, the ache in my chest too much to bare. Strange how it had hurt me as a daughter more to talk to my father about these things then the truth of what he’d already done. He gave me the assurance that he would never and this made me sick. Because by then I knew I could not trust him. All the blinders had fallen off and I saw right through him.
I would be forever weary of the man I lovingly called dad.

My mother was a wonderful, loving and caring woman, torn between a husband she loved dearly, her grandchild, her
sister’s daughter and us. What strength and burdens she must have carried. Torn between what she believed the right thing to do, what others expected her to do and what her husband wanted her to do. What hard decisions she had to make?

As a young woman I asked myself many times what sacrifices I’d be willing to make. Had the roles been reversed? What would I have done? My mother and I were soul mates. We laughed about the same things, cried together about a lot of things and shared more than any mother and daughter I know. Through all of this I tried to always be there for her and never to judge. She suffered from depression and I allowed her to depend on me, share with me her feelings regarding my father as well.

I tried to remember that above all, she was also a woman and he was breaking her down piece by piece. I could see it in her eyes. She too was hurting and it broke my heart. I reckon she also felt powerless, not sure what do to anymore. She became this warden. Always watching my father’s every move, sleeping with one eye open. She was in hell and he put her there. Until one day, everything had changed. She had had enough.

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