partly

Last night my daughter was flipping channels -- something we do rarely in this part of the house -- and she stumbled upon Sybil that was playing on WE. I remember watching is at some point in my life, and thought, if she wanted to, we could watch it together. The only thing she told me about it was that she didn't have any nightmares from it.

Then, today we were over at my mom's house making pancakes for lunch when Mom started talking about what has happened to some family she knew (and we know) who had a very abusive mother. Not just verbally abusive (since we are part of a family structure that tends to lean that way), but physically abusive. Beating the children's legs with belts until they drew blood or locking the two- and three-year-olds in the in the dark, dank basement all night because they "misbehaved". The story was so remarkably like the abuse that was in Sybil and, even though it happened in the 1950's and 1960's, it was done to people that my daughter knows.

The talk wasn't so much about the mother (who a shirt-tail relative of my Grandmother), but about the children and how it is often impossible to overcome such abuse, how it colors your every thought and action, even decades after it happened, decades after the abusers are dead.

We haven't really gotten a chance to talk about it since then... Myr went off with my Mom and Dad to a St. Patty's Day party and I came home.

There are many things I wish she wouldn't have to learn about, but I can't pretend they don't exist. It will be interesting to see if she wants to talk about it more, or if she just wants to let it go.