I'm not taking your secrets to the grave!

 

I am not taking your secrets to the grave!

 

I know you don’t want anyone to know. I know you have worked to hide it well, but I have no intention of hiding the truth for you. I have been keeping your secrets for all these years. You promised you would never hurt me; you said you loved me, then you became just like everyone else, maybe worse.

I was a child, and you lived with us, helping mum to take care of my sister and myself. You called me into your bed with words of reassurance and love. I trusted you. My mother’s favourite brother, her only brother. She thought the sun shone out of you. We hoped you would bring the best out of our hard and uncaring mother. You were young and fun, you seemed much better than my father, but in time that became a lie.

I don’t remember much of what happened in your bedroom, in my childhood house, I just remember that it hurt. I had no control, and you took every part of me. No, it wasn’t my first time, there had been many times before. But you were the family’s favourite. The one us cousins loved; you were a fun kind of country larrikin. You were our uncle, mum adored you, and you had a special place in our hearts.

We moved into our new house as puberty was hitting me. You called me possum; I seemed the only one with a pet name. I never really wondered why until a few years ago. It’s always nice to feel special. But it wasn’t really. At 14 years old I got my period; I remember it clearly to this day. I also remember getting pregnant twice that year. There was no way mum was ever going to let you face any backlash for that. “He shouldn’t have to deal with this” were her exact words to me. Like it was my fault, and I was responsible for your actions. Three months pregnant and an abortion was forced on me. Before my next birthday I was pregnant again. You hadn’t even learnt your lesson. I didn’t want to tell anyone what was going on. I remember telling a friend I was pregnant, and she asked me what I was going to do. I said there was no way they were going to let me keep it. I must of hid it for a while, in the naïve hope that maybe I could keep it. There was no way in hell I would ever have kept that baby either. That would have brought too much shame on the family and on my mother.  At 5 months pregnant another abortion was forced on me. But this one was different, I had felt this baby kick inside me. I knew its movements and it had become very real to me. To this day, over 40years later, I still grieve the loss of the two babies you made me conceive, and the guilt I have lived with for all these years for having to get rid of them.

It has taken me years of therapy, to even be able to face this pain and begin to realise that it is actually not my fault. I was a vulnerable child you took advantage of, and a terrified teenager whose life you irreversibly destroyed.

You cannot continue to hide in the shadows hoping that I will not speak. That time has long gone. I am a woman now, stronger and not willing to let such hideous behaviour kept secret.

You are my uncle, you were my favourite uncle, you were such a strong part of my life, but now you are only another pedophile who didn’t know how to leave a child alone. I haven’t had the ability to speak of this before now, and I hope that you have not attacked any other young girls because of my silence. It is not a life I wish for anyone. May you live with the shame of what you have done.