I was thinking the other day, how many of us are there, that have lived adverse lives. Not until I was really thinking of how we are affected by our traumas and how it has affected our lives, I saw a very extremely skinny, pretty young lady, in her early 20s. It reminded me about my trauma and my kids.
As she smiled, I saw she had only one front tooth. She had a very worn-out face. I had been studying up to give a talk on how trauma affects our young. I decided to mention her, thinking, “what kind of pain has this little girl been suffering?” It turned out she was looking for her mom.
It just happened, her mom was visiting neighbors and was assisting with some home repairs and doing a good job, I might add. When I saw her mom, she looked just like her. They were both very skinny and looked like they could use some good dental work. It was so sad that her mom was also using. What had happened here?
When we suffer from trauma ourselves, what can our children expect? Sometimes as parents, we are not good examples ourselves. I wanted to provide some advice to them, phone numbers, people to talk to. But I did not feel very comfortable with offering anything. So I just send them the white light of protection. I felt so bad. I prayed for them and sent positive energy, thinking this was the best I could do.
While I was thinking of them, I had a flashback. I would place a quarter in my oldest little girl’s pant pockets when I would wash her clothes, because on some evenings when I would get a feeling that my husband was going to come home drunk. When he was drunk, I knew I was going to get a beating.
I always would get a feeling that he was going to drink that day, just by the way he walked out the door. I was so well trained or something inside me, “just knew.” I was very devoted to my church. I was very Religious’ back then. I was always told, “God hated a divorce”. What was I to do? Let him kill me and my kids?” I later quit that religion.
Anyway, that night, sure enough, my husband came home drunk. I told the children if they heard us fighting to escape out the window, and run to the neighbors. I told the oldest (who had the quarter in the pocket) to leave the kids with the neighbor and call the police. I had hidden all the knives early that evening. He had already tried to slice my breast off at one time and I did not want to take any chances with the knives on the counter.
My poor kids. I thank Our Heavenly Father for his protection on that evening and for all the other times. I did get out of that marriage. I am now learning all about how traumas affect children. God works in mysterious ways; my precious children were some of the strong ones. It brings tears to my eyes while escaping and we were all scared and crying.
I looked in the back seat and my 3-year-old son had his eyes closed and I asked him “Why are your eyes closed?” He answered, “I am praying to Jehovah to protect us mammy”… “Of course, HE did.” Oh…brings tears to my eyes!
I take a closer look at children, now.
I was at the store a couple of years ago. I saw this lady walking and pushing a baby cart. I looked at this child and saw a very cute baby like maybe one year old. I bent down to say “hello,” and he had the coldest still look in his eyes. He did not look at me or smile, just like he was not here on this earth. Gave me the chills.
Mom was pregnant again. Next to her was a young man. He said he was excited about this baby coming soon. Mom had this weird look on her face. Didn’t know her name, or his, to just have someone like the police or someone perform a “welfare check” on that child. All I could do was to pray and surround this child with the white light of the Holy Spirit. What could you have done?
I pray for all the children in the whole world. The children are all safe in my heart…my heart will keep them safe and my heart and prayers will go on and on.. and…