Never Ending Pain

Yesterday, my daughter and I talked for a bit on the ride home.

The ride home from her therapist.

She is 23. Beautiful. Intelligent. Witty. Artistic. Just an amazing young woman.

But the conversation turned to something which just ripped my heart out.

She told me, finally, that that the counselor she is seeing is a woman who deals with childhood sexual abuse.

Now, I know (now) about the rampant and pervasive incest in my ex-wife's family. I found out way too late about all of it.

But to make a very long story short, she (my daughter) had questions for me. About that family, about the people involved, what I knew.

So I told her.

And I had to sit in that car and listen to my little girl tell me of the weird dreams and memories she has. And of some very specific memories she has of some former in-law family members.

From when she was all of fucking 5 years old.

You have no idea how much I hate the fucking world right now.

How I wish to god I could dig them up just so I could kill them.

And some still live. Protecting their "secret". Their fucked up, warped, and dysfunctional existence, based on incest.

And I sat there for all those years oblivious to it all.

For me, the word in my life now has been "powerless".

I could not nothing then, because I knew nothing. I couldn't see.

And I failed.

I could not protect my children.

I could not protect myself.

For all that I have suffered. For all the losses I have absorbed.

Nothing on this Earth can heal the wounds of not being able to stop hell. To be able to do what I needed to, in order to save my children. And myself.

I sit here now screaming at God and the fates and trying to make sense of it all.

Trying with all I have to find the good. To persevere. To fight the good fight.

I have never felt more like Rocky Balboa.

A shot at the title. If I could only beat the champ.

I have the heart.

I have the strength.

I can win.

But it's too late.

I can only survive the onslaught.

And I watch and I see. Pain. Suffering. Loss.

Not just in me. But in the lives of those I hold more dear than even my own.

And it kills me.