Too Little to Understand, Written By Bambi Lynn

There were never any words to describe how I felt when my grandfather came into my room at my grandma's house and opened up his bathrobe to rub his penis on my knee. I was scared to the point I couldn't move, and I froze like an ice cube in a freezer. I didn't know what to say, when I was told I would be sleeping in the middle of my grandparents because my grandma's guest room was occupied with my uncle for the weekend. A weekend that all the family would be together. I didn't understand when my grandpa reached over in the night and touched me in places I knew weren't supposed to be touched by grownups. I felt dirty and the need to never tell what happened to me to no one.

 My grandma's house was my safe place. The place where I felt special. My grandma's house was a place that as a little girl I knew I was loved. I knew how special I was by the apple jack's cereal and orange juice I would get for my breakfast and toast with homemade jam. I knew the feeling of love when she taught me how to clean a house and take a shower with dove soap. A smell that still brings me joy when I smell it in the air. We would have our special talks where I would plead with her to be my mommy and let me live with her. She was my safe place, and her house was a haven to me until…

I was born into a family that normally was screaming and yelling. Normal was a daddy that drank all the time and pushed my mommy around. Normal was a house with no peace. We were either running from my dad and his abuse or running back to him to give him another chance to make it right with my mom and his children. I had one sister and two brothers. I knew right away who was a favorite and who wasn't. I knew what a black sheep felt like and knew the emotions that came up every time my father would point his finger in my face and say," you aren't mine” I didn't belong, and I knew it and felt it. I longed to belong somewhere; I longed for the love that every little girl dreams of. I just wanted to feel good inside. I felt that with my grandma's house and with my grandma, until my grandpa took that away from me. My grandma was a safe haven to me until...

When I was ten years old my mom became a single mom for good. No more going back and forth with my dad. But that led to some very hard times and a kind of dysfunction that would affect me into my early thirties. I never felt any emotion from my mom. Not sure if emotion is the right word, but I didn't feel loved. I felt like a burden. I felt like she was mad all the time that now she really got stuck with these kids of hers. I do believe a lot of it had to do with what she lived through. But I wouldn't understand that until I had done some of my own healing. My mom cooked because she had to, nothing special. No use of the phone, or she would change the number. Bathes were once a week with sharing the same bath water with everyone, and the hot water and shampoo would be hidden for the week. When I worked, like babysitting three kids at the age of twelve for .75 an hour, strawberry picking, that I walked to every morning. About four or five miles away from my house. I didn't leave until I earned twenty dollars because any money, I earned half was given to my mom to do what she wanted to do with it. But it never gave me any “rights” to anything in the house. The cabinets were locked so we couldn't get into the food. We never could have anything without permission. So, the refrigerator was always off limits. Still paid for my own laundry, school clothes purchases, and supplies, and anything else I needed. The money was just given to her for what she felt was a need. So, when I got a job at thirteen for 3.00 an hour, I was excited until...

I was asked if I would watch an elderly woman, who had dementia while the family went out on Saturday mornings. This family was part of our community, and I thought nothing of it and definitely said, ‘Yes” Three dollars an hour was almost minimum wage at that time. I just had to sit with her and follow her if she went anywhere. One time she went outside and down the road before I realized she was gone. I knew then that even going to the bathroom was off limits while with her. She also got mad at me once and chased me with a frying pan. But, for the most part the job went well until two weeks in, the pickup and the ride home became very uncomfortable. The son of this woman began to ask me questions that made me feel very uncomfortable. He was an older man and I at first just thought, “what a dirty old man and man he is a pervert” until he started reaching over to try and touch my leg. Each week it would get worse, and the touching began to scare me, and he would reach farther into my shorts and touch me in ways that only a pervert would. I would ask my mom each week, if I could walk home or can I please quit? Using the excuse that the elderly woman was getting worse. The answer was always no, my mom had no idea what was happening to me. But, as a thirteen-year-old I thought she would know by my behavior. To be honest we didn't talk about those things during those years. A Lot of things were hush hush when I was growing up. I started wearing pants, so it was harder for him to get down my pants. I also saw his wallet out every time I got to the house, and I started taking money out of it. I don't know what I was thinking but, this dirty old man was touching me, and I couldn't tell anyone, and I couldn't stop working until finally the elderly woman was too hard to take care of, and they had to put her in a nursing home. I was no longer needed, and I felt free. Whenever I go home and drive by the house, the memories haunt me, and the secret is still kept in my mind but does not control me anymore. I don't even remember his name. Just his son's name that I went to school with. I never told a soul until I wrote my memoir forty years later.

I had a lot of trouble at school being bullied, try walking around with a name like mine. Sprinkle poverty over it and add I just didn't fit in. I was bullied a lot and even had a fight with someone who thought I wanted her boyfriend, so she pushed me down the stairs and punched me in the face which caused two black eyes and being suspended from school. My mother didn't want to hear my side of the story. The only story she needed to hear was I was suspended. Grounded into my room for two weeks for something not my fault. There was not one schoolboy that would ever like me or date me. My name was too much of an embarrassment to anyone who was in school. The town guys liked me and didn't mind my name because my name wasn't what they thought of when they picked me up in the middle of the night and drove me to the back of a garage and to do whatever they wanted to me in the backseat of their cars. I felt shame and dirty all at the same time. But they told me what my heart longed to hear and didn't realize it wasn't love. I didn't even know what love was but, thought when I was picked up at night that was as close as dirty and poor girl would ever have. My son calls it crumbs on the ground is all I thought I deserved. He was right. I didn't know that I could sit at the table until years later.
 
When I was sixteen, the day after my sixteenth birthday, I made a decision that would change my life forever. I could never go back and the road I chose, I never thought would go to the destination it did. I was forever changed and felt even dirtier than ever and felt I deserved what I got because I was the one that left the day after my sixteenth birthday, never again to be under my mom's roof, where I didn't feel loved and no more getting beat up at my school and being bullied. But my choice led to a nightmare that would be the beginning of the end of how I looked at life ever again

I would move into my uncle's house and with my cousin. He was my uncle by marriage on my dad's side. He had no problem taking me in and being my guardian. He showed interest in me like a dad I didn't have. He bought me new clothes and signed me up to be in a teen pageant and modeling school. I had my first real school boyfriend. I thought I had made the best choice and was so happy with it until he came into the bathroom and opened up the curtain and stared at me. I was so scared that I remember peeing in the shower. From that day on my uncle would come into the bathroom and start going into my bedroom at night, first to stare at me and then to fondle me. I slept on bunk beds and every night I would change sides and the top bunk to the bottom to try and confuse him. I would just be numb and walk out of my mind until things were done, and he left the room. I wanted to go back home but, how could I when I did this to myself. I could never tell anyone what was happening for the shame of leaving home. I made my bed, right? I made two attempts to take my life. One with pills and another with a bag over my head. Neither worked but did get my uncle to put alarms on my window and a tap on the phone, so he could know everything I talked about. He also randomly would show up to school. My mind was going, and my soul was leaving me. I was scared and walked around worried and afraid. Until one day, he tried to come after in the daylight. Something snapped in me because I couldn't hide from it like I could in the dark. I made a plan that the next morning I would run into the nurse's station in the morning. I was going to be brave and find a way to end this abuse. I walked into that office with courage and bravery and ended the abuse that day. When the courts got involved, he did get 100 yards away from me for eighteen months, which seems like nothing. But he spent ten years in prison and had to pay restitution for the other girls he violated and died knowing what he did to us and his legacy is that some of his children are on the registry. 

 Wow, the emotion I feel after writing all of this. The time seems so long ago but, yet like only yesterday I was living this. I could feel some of the creepy feelings, and I could feel the courage I had to walk away.
 “A hero is someone born into a world where they didn't fit in. They are summoned on a call to an adventure that they are reluctant to take. What is the adventure? A revolutionary transformation of self. The final goal is to find that elixir. The magic potion that is the answer to unlocking her, then she comes home to this ordinary life transformed and shares her story of survival with others.”
 A hero is a person who stares at herself in the mirror and realizes she wears a cape of bravery,courage,self awareness, and of beauty. Her story never destroyed her but became a weapon of healing for the person behind her, their first aid kit.
 A hero is a person that can look at their life and see that whatever was meant for evil was turned into something good and that forgiveness flooded her heart, not for the abuser but, so that the abuser had no hold on her anymore.

 A hero is someone that could have destroyed someone's life, even their own but, chose to get up from the pit of despair and dust off the dirt from her and rise above the pain and created a life that brings people to wholeness instead brokenness

Ashes turn into beauty, chrysalis turn into butterflies, oyster shells hold a pearl, fire refines gold, a seed starts in the darkness and then blooms,

Everything I have been through made me the person I am today. I see my reflection as someone with empathy and compassion. I see a thriver in the story of my life. My young self-survived so I could flourish today. I don't want to let that little girl down because of her I am me today. She gave me the courage and the bravery to march tall in my story. She taught me not to back down but to fight for what is true. She showed me that my story is important to tell because someone needed it more than me. My little girl inside of me began to grow as I let go. As I found healing in my faith and in doing the work, when I stopped taking responsibility for something my abuser did to me.it wasn't my fault and I know longer carry the shame of it. I am free and free indeed. My scars tell a story, they tell of a journey that set me free. Now it's your turn. Put on your cape, you are a superhero of your own story.