The Lone Survivor

Incest is a particularly cruel beast. I wasn’t just subjected to inhumane treatment at the hands of my family, I also had to choose what side of the road I was going to stand on.

For years, I tried to stay with that corrupt family. It just didn’t work for me. I learned later that I wasn’t staying for myself, but I was staying because I had a love for them.

I wanted them to walk away from the disgusting choices they were making. I wanted them to find freedom with me. I wanted them to know love. I wanted to stand, shoulder to shoulder, in a united front against evil.

They would not.

No matter how I tried to offer forgiveness, they declined my invitations. My attempts to bring kindness and mercy were rejected.

My offer to love them unconditionally was bashed.

So, I stopped trying.

When my mother called me and my father’s mortal body could no longer accept the abuse he gave it, I sat by his side and we chatted. He asked me why I had come. My answer was not what he expected. As I’ve written before, I said to him, “I’m not here for your love. I don’t need it. I’m here because I am worried about your soul.”

His answer was deafening to me. He said, “You wait a lifetime for a love like that.” Isn’t that really what all pedophiles are looking for? Unconditional love? So, wasn’t I still just offering him what he’d tried to take from me time and time again?

You know what I learned? That didn’t change anything. Could I save him from an eternal damnation for the just reward of his actions? Nope. My love couldn’t save a hair on his ankle.

Only God’s love can do that.

I learned a valuable lesson that I keep in my back pocket at all times now. It is not my job to save the people I was born into. Just as I had to find my way out, own my actions and decide which path I would take, only they could choose that for themselves.

Love is not an avalanche of feelings. Love is calculated and protective. What I learned was to offer that kind of great love to myself, first. That love taught me what was and what was not acceptable for me.

I found that love in God was bigger than any demon I’d met and stronger than any pain I had endured. He literally broke the chains of the past off of me. I don’t even hear them rattle anymore.

I am the sole survivor of that sinking ship I abandoned years ago. I won’t be going back.