The Long Silence

This is a true story about a part of the author's life that changed everything. This is a story about her early childhood on her grandparents' farm and about all the stolen years that came after. A story about betrayal, sex, pain, fear, anger, hatred, alienation, redemption, and love. This is a story about the ways in which unthinking acts of sexual abuse and emotional cruelty can change an otherwise eager, loving, and creative child into a terrified, secretive, and silent creature: a child who, by the onset of puberty, was so filled with desperation that she had contemplated her own non-existence and plotted the execution of another person. The author takes us on a journey through the years of abuse, through coming of age in the turbulent 1960s, through motherhood and beyond, into uncharted territory. This story is also about the burden of secrets and lies and how it can corrupt a life and percolate through the generations. The story of the author's pilgrimage is meant as a gift to readers who have experienced sexual abuse. It is not a how-to or a recipe for sanity and success. It is a call to action. It is also an affirmation of our lives, of the hard-won ability to move beyond pain and mere survival to lives of meaning and joy.