As entered in class:
As a child, I was very extroverted and talkative. I knew no
stranger, and loved everyone. If you sat down beside me, I would strike up a
conversation with you over anything. I trusted everyone. As I grew up, I may have
become a little more selective about whom I conversed with, but I cannot say I
ever judged too harshly a book by its cover. As an adult, I could be standing
in the line at the grocer and just start talking to the person or persons in
the line next to me. Everyone has a story, after all. But, many things, big and small, have occurred
to me and around me which influenced my openness to others. My trust has been
shaken to its foundation on many occasions; but, no event quaked and blew up as
hard as the day my son told me “Mr. Porter and I kissed each other’s willies”.
Trust? It, like the ash of a volcano, flew miles and miles from me in a split
second. The heat of anger would and probably did singe a few people that day,
and in the subsequent days and weeks to follow. I was thanked by school
officials for my composure and my demeanor throughout the process of accusing,
arresting, and questioning which followed my son’s outburst. If they only knew
of the turmoil boiling inside me, they would have kept their thanks to
themselves. My heart and my head knew not what to believe or who to trust, and
my arms wanted nothing more than to surround my children and never let them out
of my sight ever again. My core beliefs, my faith, and my love of people seemed
to have been buried in ash that day; and, I have been digging my way out ever
since.
I fell away from my church, I questioned ever action that
had lead up to this event, and I questioned and doubted every friendship and/or
relationship I had at that time. My life fell apart in a blink of an eye. Work
became unbearable, school became a struggle, bills piled up, and my life became
one trip after another to doctors, psychologists, and therapists with my son. I
felt deceived, angry, lost, confused, heavy (just weighted down), and
abandoned; but, I knew I had to put my mask on around the kids. There was a
grieving process, because my son had lost his innocence at seven years old, but
there was no reality, anymore. It was as if I was going through the motions,
and none of the emotions. But the greatest emotion I felt during that time was
distrust. This, in hind-sight is a puzzle to me, because my life had not been
that sheltered to have not known monsters existed. But, I guess in my world,
these things did not happen to me or mine. Especially, when we were good
people, we paid our tithes, read our bibles, and worshiped God as we were
instructed. I thought, God had already brought be through the fire!
This event changed my life, my son’s life, and the lives of
so many other people. But, we survived the volcano, even though we are still
cleaning up the ash and soot. Plants are growing through the soot in places,
though. Trust is finding a foot-hold once more, and the volcano lies dormant,
at least for now. I realize that there are many children like my son, and many guilty
and weighted mothers like me out there in the world. Is my story of trial,
tribulation, and triumph worth telling and sharing? If it should help one
person, then - yes!
