Journal Entry…

March 18, 2020…

It is early morning, still dark enough to hide the line between the mountains and the deep black water that is is our Salish Sea…. my heart is heavy as I hold pen to paper… remembering what I wrote about time…. and so very aware that time has not even come close to healing the wounds of childhood trauma that run so deep.

I struggle with the role that my mother played in the abuse of the days of my childhood. She was always the victim. Always needed me to be there for her. When I was scared I was told to be strong, when sexual abuse became open I was silenced, when I cried I was told to stop. I can hear her voice ringing in my ear as she threatened us with our father… “you wait till your father gets home… .” I can see her, even now, as she starts at him the moment he is home, unloading every childish thing we did all day, until he finally takes off his belt while sending us both to our rooms. Sound of leather on flesh still makes me sick. Welts create intense heat and we would be covered from our legs up our backs. Oh how I remember hating her….. but as I grew she continued to convince me that she was the victim and I was part of her problem.

Today is Feb 8, 2023.

Time….. a great deal of it has passed since the writing I started above. Please note that a couple of years has passed since I started this particular piece. I knew I was still in the anger piece and had to leave it alone for awhile…. So, Why start from where I left off?? Because I never want to write what is easy or feels good just because…. I want to always write from my heart, candid, honest, unfiltered where possible.

Life is about picking up where we left off. It is about choosing and remembering, it is about starting again without being false to ourselves. It is about discovering who we are in the midst of the struggle, the battle, and the war. It is about coming to terms with the past, it is about forgiveness, it is about choosing to grow through trauma, it is about asking, seeking, and knocking on every door until one opens…. it is about believing that who we are matters if even only to ourselves.

My mother was a wounded woman. Her story left to the darkness of her mind…. never revealed to anyone who could help her walk through it. Instead, she chose to succumb to the darkness. It overtook her heart and mind, it shut her off from the world. She built walls around her that became impassable by her from the inside and others from without.

I have spent many years hurt by her words, angry with her choices, reeling from the pain that her unreachable sorrow cast upon my brother and I. I watched her suffer in silence. Wounds left unattended like gapping holes her flesh…. never being tended, never being cleaned, never being soothed and never being healed. When we leave our wounds untouched they fester and infection grows and moves through the whole body. Sepsis reaches to the brain, the heart, the lungs, the very cellular structure of the body and it does great damage.

I know such wounds. The road has been dark and lonely. I have searched high and low for one who had the courage to join me even for a short time. Companions have come and gone. The road is not well travelled and most cannot endure. Yet I must keep going. To give in now would be foolish on my part. If I desire freedom for my children’s children then I must not stop. I must choose to fight the demons that are entrenched in the story of my forefathers and mothers. I must get back up after falling and choose to return to the arena. I choose to fight blind in the dark now so there may be hope for the generations that follow me. Hope that my family pathology will not forever write its code in our DNA. Hope that the sins of my fathers will find their end and not continue to destroy the innocent of this bloodline. Hope that my children will see an example of never giving up, that they may choose to pass that along to their children’s children. This is Divine Hope I speak of… this is the only Hope that endures.

If we hope to see change in the world then we must first fight for change in our family. If we hope for change in our family the we must first fight for change in ourselves. I cannot step out of the arena of life. The battle may be great but the outcome of fighting to make a wrong right is worth the price that must be paid. And how do we make a wrong right? By choosing the right way instead of repeating the wrong.

To be clear, I am not talking about vengeance, for that belongs to God. What I am talking about is choosing to stay alive even when everything in me says I am not worth the air I consume, it is about choosing to find the right therapist that knows how to navigate the world of the developing mind and the impact of trauma upon it, it is about choosing to stay present with the grief that washes over me without warning, it is about choosing to override the hyperactive adrenaline/dopamine rushes that won’t let me be still, it is about choosing… every day… and every minute to stay in.

My brother and I paid for the sins of our forefathers, as our forefathers paid, and they paid, from generation unto generation….. but it is in my power to choose to make space, through the ACTION of forgiveness to allow the blessings of my forefathers and mothers to come forward…. and maybe one day the blessings will be greater than the curses.

I have made so many mistakes as I have walked this road without signs and without example. We live in a world so disconnected from one another that to ask for help is to reach into the void….. so many new issues present themselves almost daily. So many new reasons why we have become a fragile society. We are all spread so thin trying to find our way in a society that grows more challenging by the day. Trust is no longer free as each one serves their own needs and becomes blind the failing collective. We have fallen short.

I walk the streets of whatever city I am in and I wait…. the lonely are always there. They walk past with downcast eyes believing they are not worthy of being seen, or they have grown weary of searching for eyes that will notice them. I reach out. Suddenly the world stops as my eyes tell them that I see. We all know pain. We all know rejection, abandonment, abuse, loss, grief…. I can set mine aside for the moments required to see and hear another. Everyone has a story to tell me, a life unnoticed, a pain unresolved, a love lost, a childhood stolen…. everyone knows pain. Sometimes, there is a moment of relief when one can share their burden or their story, but more importantly, when one is heard there is always a renewal of hope.

I look back to my own mother…. She lost her hope. She is a shadow dweller haunted by her past and the past of her father and mother…. and they were haunted…. and the story goes on. But her story is not mine to tell. I can only tell my own story and I can give permission to others to tell their stories. Maybe then, if I listen, and they listen, and the next ones listen, and the next….. maybe we can become a people who will grow in Hope and Faith and the belief that we are not alone. With all the stories I hear from others, I hear pieces of my own. I have learned that we all share in one story. My mothers pain became my pain and my brothers pain. And we both had children and spouses who we then passed on our pain to them. The math is simple to do. One persons pain became at least fifteen other peoples pain in only three generations of immediate family. This math does not include the many others who were also impacted, it is just one woman who did not face the raging fire of demons in her story, rather she left those demons to her children, who carried those same demons to their children.

Today, I speak of the pain I have carried in my heart and have passed on to my children. I see it. The evidence of abuse and the trauma that I endured was forced upon those who cannot actually see what demons they fight. But I can see. I can see behind me and I can see in front of me. I will not cease until the way out is found. A Sacred scripture found in many holy books, including in the Bible I read, says to find the ancient path and to walk in it. I seek to find the ancient path, to forgive and release those who came before me that drowned in the darkness of what they could not see, to hold out a flame and light the way… one candle at a time. There is no darkness in the heart of mankind that can overshadow light. This road to recovery and the breaking of silence is not easy, but if one person can light one candle, then many can light the way.

I seek to find the path my forefathers and mothers once trod… the path of stories shared, of battles won and battles lost, where family bonds were worth more than gold, where we honoured our elders and cared for our sick at home, where we were not born alone nor died alone, where faith kept hearts alive…. we were never a perfect people but maybe we could find a way to step outside of ourselves and look ahead to the road we are building. Does that road lead to more separation and isolation, to more repeated abuse and future brokenness? I want to build bridges that cross the churning waters of mistrust and anger and rage and trauma… but I cannot do it alone.

I carry on in this journey toward wholeness. I carry on because I have hope that one day my children will see that freedom comes to those who relentlessly fight for it. I carry on because I hope my grandchildren will learn by watching. I carry on because if I stop then I suffered without purpose. I have learned that trauma is a part of human growth. Trauma builds resiliency and builds within us the capacity to endure for a greater purpose. Count it as gain when life delivers struggles for if we can see without filters then we will know that struggles strengthen us. If I never cause my muscles stress then I will never be able to lift when I am needed. The same is for our brain, and our heart. I am grateful for all those who carry on. May we collectively help to bring healing to a wounded world.

And to those of the generations before me…. I choose to stand in the gap for you and for those who come after me…. and I will continue to learn how to build a bridge that begins with the structure of forgiveness, secured with mercy and grace, and the path laid toward healing.

Kim Lehmann