It’s been a bit since I’ve blogged. Life has just been a roller-coaster of emotions. I’m doing my best to keep it together and stay positive…..it takes a lot of effort but I’m getting through it. In a previous blog, The Road to Forgiveness, Part I, I basically directed that towards my childhood molester. I was 5 years old, he was 15 years old.

I received a FB message on Thursday last week from one of the cousins that he also molested. He reached out to inform me that our molester had committed suicide. It wasn’t immediate, he was on life support until Wednesday and he died Thursday morning. I had just gotten up to get ready for work. I had no idea how to respond. Literally after reading what he sent me, I felt a weight lifted. I didn’t feel sad, or happy. I didn’t know how to feel. I told him thank you for telling me. He said he struggled with whether or not to tell me b/c he wasn’t sure how it would affect me. He was numb. He felt bad for his parents but other than that he felt nothing. We both agreed that we were thankful that he could no longer hurt anyone else. We have no idea how long he continued molesting kids, or how many there were. I knew of 5 including myself but did he continue through the years?

I felt like I was in a haze all day that day. I felt like I was supposed to feel SOMETHING. Of course, the events of my molestation played through my head. I was reliving the whole experience all over again. At the same time, it was like breathing fresh air for the first time in 41 years. Should I have felt guilty? I didn’t. I told my friend that I would probably cry later that day, once it set in…..not for our molester but for all of us kids that he hurt. Was it Karma? I don’t know…..I know we all say “Karma is a bitch” but even in this case, I just don’t feel right calling it Karma. I guess because I don’t have that kind of hate in my heart.

I asked if he left a note. He said he wasn’t sure but he was going to ask. Why did he do it? Was it because he never amounted to anything in life? Was it the guilt of all of the kids he hurt in his younger years? Did he continue to molest kids into adulthood? I prayed so many times through the years that he didn’t but I can’t imagine he just stopped. I have so many questions. In this quest to find peace within myself, one of the things I was trying to decide on was whether or not to confront my molester. He’d changed my life in ways I could never imagine. I had such a fear of men for so long. I’m still leary of men I don’t know.

So, with that, the decision of confronting him was taken away. He took the cowards way out of life. I can’t say that I’m too upset that I didn’t confront him as I know deep down that I’d never have gotten the apology I deserved much less him even admitting to what he did. I’m learning that every day. You can’t make someone apologize for something they don’t want to. You could, but it wouldn’t be something that was sincere and what’s the point of that?