Brave Surrender Page 3

  Grandma loved to cook, and she often baked pies. She let us eat pie for breakfast “because it has fruit in it.” I often asked Papa to let me count the wrinkles on his bald head. He would scrunch up his eyebrows and lean down while I squished each wrinkle with my little fingers and counted. Even though our legs were starting to dangle far over the edge of their rockers, we loved to crawl up into their laps in the evening and let them rock us. Grandma always made a funny sound with her mouth in rhythm with the rocker, and I often fell asleep trying to mimic the sound. When we struggled to sleep at night, Papa came in and rubbed our heads and sang to us until we dozed off.

  My sister and I saw our dad every other weekend and typically spent the time doing something adventurous like fishing, camping, riding a four-wheeler, or even going to rodeos or the circus. I think my dad was trying to earn our love and was worried that we’d forget about him. It was difficult for two little girls to navigate a relationship with Dad without Mom around, but we did our best.

  During one of these weekends with my dad, I remember having a conversation with him about whether he would have more kids. He said probably not. Then I asked him if he wished he had had a boy. He said that yes, he would have liked to have a boy, but he didn’t get one. Somehow in my young mind, I took this as my dad saying he was disappointed that I was a girl.

  From this point on, an idea began to grow in the back of my mind—the idea that because I hadn’t come out as a boy like he wanted, I was a mistake. I tried to fix this by becoming a tomboy—something my dad often encouraged. He gave me pocketknives for my birthday every year, and when he took us fishing, I forced myself not to flinch when we cleaned out the fish I had caught for supper. I refused to wear dresses and ripped anything lacy off my clothing. In my mind, everything that seemed like something a boy would naturally do was somehow better than what I would do as a girl.

  Stepfather #2

  Toward the end of my first-grade year, my mom married my second stepdad, Greg. When Greg’s job transferred him to a coastal town in Oregon, we all moved into an apartment right across the street from the beach. Though I was scared to leave my grandparents and my dad and be somewhere new, I loved living by the ocean.

  Not long after we moved there, I witnessed Greg throw something across the room in a fit of rage. I had seen him get angry and shout, but it was the first time I had seen an adult become violent. It was terrifying—and it was also only the beginning of the fear he would bring into our home.

  I was devastated at the end of second grade when my mom told me we’d be moving from the coastal town to the small farming town of Klamath Falls, Oregon. I didn’t want to leave the ocean, start over again in a new school, and move farther away from my grandparents.

  The one bright spot in the year was the arrival of our new baby brother, Matt. I was completely smitten with him, and being nine years older, I quickly took up the role of being his second mom. I loved to take care of him. When he cried at night, I would go get him, bring him into my bed, and cuddle with him until he fell asleep. I was happy to help feed him and change his diaper. However, my nurturing role also included a growing sense of protective vigilance over both my siblings, as Greg grew angrier and more volatile.

  The first time I remember being hit by Greg, we had driven out to a lake for the day to swim. On the way home, I got carsick in the back seat. The windows were rolled down, and we were driving by mint fields. The smell of mint was so strong in the car that I could taste it, and it was making me more nauseous. I started complaining that I was going to be sick. After a few minutes, I guess Greg got tired of my complaining because he whipped around, slapped me across the face, and yelled, “Shut up!” My head spun, pain and shock adding to the nausea. I had never had anyone treat me like that before. To this day, I despise the smell of mint.

  From that point on, I walked around on eggshells, unsure of when Greg would blow up or what would set him off. I don’t remember feeling any attachment or connection to him, only a feeling of being on thin ice. School felt like an escape from the uncertainty at home. I was lucky to stay at the same school for fourth grade, and I even got to have the same teacher I had had in third grade. Her name was Mrs. Chamberlain, and I adored her. She was an artist who instilled in me a love for all things creative and the permission I needed to live outside the box. She taught me that sometimes it’s okay to color outside the lines, and if learning math with pictures was easier than numbers, then so be it.

  At home, the cruel behavior and the anger continued to escalate until they occurred almost daily. Greg got mad at us for fighting, and he’d hit or shove us. Dinnertime became scary and hard. We had to sit at the table in silence and eat all our food. If we didn’t ask for food to be passed to us correctly, we might go hungry. If we didn’t ask, “Can I be excused from the table, please?” we might be slapped. I wanted to get everything perfect so I wouldn’t get in trouble, but most of the time I lost my appetite.

  Greg and my mom began fighting more and more. He would come home from work, take her back to the bedroom, lock the door, and keep her in there for hours. When she finally came out, she looked very upset and tired. I was pretty sure something bad was happening in there, and I was furious. I would stand outside the door, knocking, asking to come in, saying that I needed my mom for something, and Greg would yell at me to go away. Sometimes he got mad enough to stomp over to the door, fling it open, pick me up by my neck, and throw me down.

  We moved to a different house and school district the summer before fifth grade. My grandparents came to visit us at our new house that summer. It was extremely hot outside. Our new house was a manufactured house on an undeveloped lot, so there was no grass, bushes, trees, or shade. Greg sent us outside and locked the doors. At first, we were happy playing, but after a few hours, we got sweaty, thirsty, and overheated. My lips felt swollen and chapped. We begged Greg to let us come inside and get a drink of water, but he refused. We started crying, pleading with him through the window, but it was no use. My grandparents finally couldn’t take it anymore. They loaded us into their car and drove us to the public swimming pool. After that, my grandma purchased an 800 number so my sister and I could call her for free from anywhere. I memorized that number.

  I was miserable at my new school. I was shy when it came to making new friends, and I was struggling with the cruel way I was being treated at home. Apparently, someone noticed the signs of my struggle, because I was put in a counseling group at school with a few other girls. We played games and talked about our emotions, but I never wanted to talk about what was happening at home.

  My mom and Greg started taking us to a church. In my mind, this was part of some unspoken ritual of life. If you’re a good family, you go to church. My mom was the one who pushed for this, as she was raised in church and wanted all of us to participate in various church activities. I joined a girls’ class on Wednesday nights. I quickly came to love and trust my teacher, so one night after all the other girls left, I went to her, took a deep breath, and told her that my stepdad was hurting me. I showed her a couple of bruises on my body and through tears explained that he was very angry and hitting me. She looked stunned and unsure of how to respond. I don’t remember her saying much of anything except that she was sure “it will all be okay” and that she would pray for me.

  I felt confused by her reaction. In the depths of my being, I knew that what was happening to me was not okay. I also knew that a loving adult should not stand for that kind of behavior. I had expected her to do something to help me. When she didn’t, I felt hurt and sad, like she had let me down. Because I loved her so much, I convinced myself that she must have been scared, just like me. I knew it wasn’t the right reaction, but it stirred something inside me that said, If no one else will be the adult and the protector here, I must. This moment caused me to walk further away from childhood and take on the responsibility and role of protector with my siblings and mother.

  One Sunday, my mom left early to go to choir pract
ice at church. I woke up feeling sick to my stomach, so I told Greg that I didn’t think I could go to church. He ignored me and continued making breakfast, soon setting a giant pancake the size of the dinner plate in front of me. I told him I wasn’t hungry and repeated that I was going to be sick. He got angry and told me to eat what he had given me. He sat next to me at the table and forced me to eat every single bite of that giant pancake, each of which I threw up after gagging it down.

  After breakfast, he put me in the car with my siblings and drove us to church. When we got there, I could barely walk because I was so sick and weak from throwing up. Greg opened the janitor’s closet next to the women’s bathroom, put me on the floor, and walked away, shutting the door behind him. I just lay there in the dark, too weak to move or even cry. After what felt like hours, the door swung open to reveal my mom. She seemed very upset and panicked, as if she had been looking for me. She picked me up, felt my head, said I had a fever, and then rushed me home to take care of me.

  Greg had children from a previous marriage who were close to my age and who lived with us off and on. One time I was wrestling with my stepsiblings, and I picked up my baby brother’s plastic T-ball bat and playfully bonked one of them on the head with it. My stepsibling didn’t like it and ran to tell Greg what I had done. I heard him stomping down the hallway and knew it was not going to be good. He got in my face and yelled, “Did you hit your sibling with the bat?” I tried to explain that we were all playing and wrestling and it wasn’t meant to be mean or hurt anyone, but he wasn’t buying it. He leaned over to pick up the bat. Knowing what was coming, I turned to run, only to find myself trapped by a chair right behind me. I jumped into the chair and curled up into a ball, sobbing, while Greg hit me with the bat. He only dropped it when my mom came running out and asked what had happened. I could barely talk from choking on my tears.

  An End in Sight

  After enduring years of Greg’s mistreatment of me, a new emotion began to rise in me—anger. I was done. I was done walking on eggshells. I was not going to be picked up by my neck anymore. I was not going to be hit or thrown into a wall anymore. I was not going to live in fear anymore. I’d had enough. For a long time, whenever he went on a rampage, I hid my sister and my baby brother and put myself in front of him or provoked him so he would take it out on me.

  One time I had even taken a bunch of knives from the kitchen and hid them around the house while Mom and Greg were gone, convinced that at some point soon, he would try to kill me. But as the anger grew in me, I began to fight back. One time I got so angry that I charged at him and went flying through the air to attack him. With one big swoop of his arm, he blocked me and slammed me against the wall. I can’t remember feeling any pain from the shove, only frustration that I hadn’t succeeded. He walked away like nothing had happened, and I just lay there thinking about what I would do differently next time.

  I called my grandma with increasing frequency. “That’s it,” I would tell her. “I’ve had enough! I’m calling the abuse hotline!” I had found a phone number at school for kids to call if they were being abused and always carried it in my pocket. Each time, my grandma cried and begged me not to do it, explaining that if I called, Child Protective Services would come in and remove us from the home. They might separate us, and it would likely be a little while before we were back with our mom. Then I would start sobbing because I felt so hopeless. I never wanted to be separated from my siblings, because I felt obligated to protect them. I didn’t want to leave my mom for the same reason. These calls always ended with both Grandma and Papa in tears and unsure of what to do.

  The beginning of the end finally came one night when my mom and Greg were having a terrible fight. Mom told me to load my siblings in the car so she could drive us to a friend’s house. I had a horrible feeling in my gut, and I didn’t want to leave my mom in the house alone with Greg. I walked to the door, opened it, and then shut it, making it sound like we had gone outside. Then I sat my brother and sister down by the door and motioned for them to be quiet as I crept down the hallway toward the living room. Suddenly I heard Greg say to my mom, “If you come back here, I will blow your head off!” I screamed, rushed into the living room, and jumped in front of my mom, shrieking, “I’m going to kill you!” at the top of my lungs. Mom, upset that we had heard what he had said, grabbed me and my siblings and ran out the door.

  Soon after that incident, Greg began working out of town—and one day he didn’t come home. I asked my mom repeatedly if he was coming back, and every time she said no. I was relieved but also terrified. I just wanted to get out of that house as soon as possible in case he changed his mind.

  Greg left during the harshest winter we had experienced in Klamath Falls. School was closed for weeks (much to my delight), and we didn’t see pavement for months. The snowplows couldn’t keep up, and the wind created snowdrifts up to our roof, causing us to have to dig our way out of the house.

  One evening we came home, and as we stepped through the door, I gasped: It was freezing cold. I could see my breath in the house. I looked at my mom, and she burst into tears. We soon discovered that none of the lights turned on. My mom walked to the refrigerator and cried even harder. When I asked her what was going on, she said she didn’t have enough money to pay the bills, and now the power had been shut off. She was crying because there was nothing in the house to eat for dinner, and she didn’t have any money to buy food. I begged her to take us to Grandma’s. I wanted us to go live there again anyway. Instead, she loaded us up in the car, and we went to a friend’s house to spend the night.

  Thankfully, Grandma and Papa sent my mom some money to pay the bills and buy food. Shortly after, we moved into a little duplex. The floor in the bathroom was so rotten that mushrooms grew out of it, and the whole place was infested with giant spiders (to this day I’m deathly afraid of spiders) and mice. My mom was terrified of mice, so I had to empty the traps for her every day. But it was all my mom—now a single mother—could afford.

  The following summer and year were very hard. I stayed at home through the summer, watching my sister and brother while my mom worked. One day at lunch, there was nothing but a can of green beans to eat, and my brother, sister, and I all shared it for lunch. I wanted to talk about what we had just endured, but my mom wasn’t ready. I still lived with fear that Greg would show up again, but as the days passed with no sight of him, I gradually began to relax in the hope that, poor as we were, at least we were finally safe from the man who had brought so much fear and torment into our lives.

  Chapter 3

  CHURCH GIRL, INTERRUPTED

  The summer before my sixth-grade year, my mom sent my sister and me to a church camp. I’m sure she, as a single mom, needed something for us to do in the summer while she was working. The church we chose was one we had only visited a few times. My mom had some friends who attended there, but Amy and I knew nobody. We were so nervous to be around new kids, and our anxiety doubled when we got to the camp and had our first charismatic church camp experience. Up to this point, my church experience had been more conservative. When my grandparents took us to church, we sang out of hymnals, listened to a choir, and sat on a pew.

  I had once been to something called “camp meeting.” At camp meeting, the kids were sent to fun classes that were very similar to Sunday school. Every now and then, I caught a glimpse into the Great Hall where the adults were meeting. It was much livelier then the regular Sunday morning services! Ladies were dancing with colored flags and tambourines; men were praying in a strange language; and people were falling over when someone would lay a hand on them in prayer.

  These experiences taught me the little I knew about God. I understood that we prayed to Him and that He created the earth, but He often seemed to be more of a distant concept or idea that I couldn’t fully wrap my little brain around. I knew about Jesus because He was the man who brought me to tears every Easter during my grandparents’ church production. As an actor with long brown hair
came down the aisle carrying a cross, bleeding from having been whipped by Roman guards, I would bury my face in one of my grandparents’ shoulders and tearfully ask why they were hurting that man. I wanted them to stop. I don’t remember hearing about Holy Spirit or understanding the Trinity at this church.

  Suffice to say, my experiences up to that point had little in common with what I encountered at this camp. The first night, there was a meeting that began with worship and ended with a worship leader coming back onto the small wooden stage and playing a few songs on the piano. The speaker invited anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart or receive prayer to come to the front. Other camp counselors and leaders stood waiting at the front to pray with those who came forward. Amy and I watched as kids flocked to the front, lifted their hands, cried, and prayed. Some of them fell over and began to speak in some kind of gibberish when one of the adults touched them.

  Amy and I thought these people were so weird! We had never seen a church service quite like this before, especially one with children. When we learned that such services were planned for each evening of the camp, we decided to play hooky. When ministry time started the next evening, we snuck out the back and headed to our cabin to wait it out, and we returned in time for the end of the service when the candy shop opened.