Ghosts not dead

Can we be haunted by those who are not yet dead?I wake up to a recurring nightmare weekly. I am back in NY...I am being followed by a man, I try running, but in a flash we're back in my old apartment, someone is hurting me...I turn around its Mark...

I open my eyes, I'm awake but shaking. I reach for a cigarette, thinking that will calm me down. I notice I'm sweating..Why is this happening again?! Why is it things that have happened in the past, are as close to opening your eyes?

It happened October 7, 1986. He was drinking again, that wasn't new. It seemed as if I had been living a colossal existence since we met. Never knowing if he was coming home drunk, sober, or in an abusive state, accusing me of having sex with everyone in the neighborhood, or not having his food on the table at 5:30, on the dot.

This night felt different, I couldn't shake it off. A feeling my life was going to change, or something worse.

My heart was racing, Sean and Ashley were asleep, but Mark wasn't home and it was 8 o'clock. Why did I have this foreboding feeling?

Ever since Mark and I married on February 4, 1981, I always had a "sense" well before he came home. Mark would stagger in either stinking like alcohol or sex. I would know it before he touched the door. Yet tonight, felt different.

My mom hadn't called me tonight. I found that odd too. She always called me once a day, either to speak to the kids or ask how I was? No call, in fact the phone had barely rang. "What's wrong?" I started to think I was either going to hear he's dead, got another DUI, or worse. I felt as if something was wrong with my mother? I couldn't push it away..

Suddenly the doorbell rang.

"Doorbell?", I said to myself . "Who is ringing the doorbell at nearly 9 o'clock".

I hesitantly opened the door to 6 men, all in suits. The first thing I said was, "What did Mark do?"

Nothing he did was going to shock me. Did he get arrested? Was he caught in NYC buying drugs? Did he get caught fucking a prostitute? I was visibly shaking. Then the 6 men who showed me their badges asked if they could come in.

"Absolutely!" I remained calm with an actual smirk on my face.

The head detective asked if we could all sit down. At this point I was standing. "No sir I don't want to sit down, please tell me what's going on!"

"Mrs. O. I have terrible news". At that point you could have heard a pin drop. I noticed my breathing was shaking. With every breath I exhaled, a fluttering noise was escaping.

"Please don't drag this out anymore, tell me WHAT IS GOING ON! Mark abuses me monthly, weekly, whenever he feels like it. I'm a big girl, I can handle it. What I can't handle is you're trying to tell me something that's s delicate issue but you're having a problem saying it..please just tell me!!" I was shaking so much I nearly fell onto the sofa.

"I'm sorry Mrs. O, your husband, Mark, sexually abused your mother at 4 o'clock this afternoon with an empty gun. She didn't fight him. He forced himself on your mother and afterwards...she ran next door for her neighbor to call the police. I'm sorry, I just didn't know how to tell you. He fled and we came here to see if he was home, obviously he's not. I'm sorry, is there anyone you can go to? If he comes home, he will be arrested." the head detective seemed to care but his job was to arrest my husband, not to help me fill in the gaps.

I found myself screaming and the tears just started streaming down my face.

"On my GOD!!!" Oh my GOD!!" I started yelling. I didn't care what happened to him. I waited all day for him to come home, when I could have been on the phone hours ago to check in with my MOM!!

I was shaking so hard and visibly emotionally upset, that the second detective ran to the kitchen to look for tissues, instead found paper towels. I was forced with a wad of paper towels in my hand. No one offered to put an arm around me, there was no woman detective to have a shoulder to cry on, nothing happened in the '80's geared towards feeling bad towards the suspects wife or kids. We were just by-products of the event & the only thing they cared about was arresting the suspect, not hearing me fall apart.

"Mrs. O. we need you and your children to leave, so when he believes it's safe to come home, we'll be here to arrest him."

I glared at this "non emotionally " man, and the comments coming out of this detective. At that exact time I thought of every single TV Detective show. The comforting actors who played them had no clue that in real life their ONLY concern was their suspect, not the family. I remember the next biggest thing I said stumped them all.

"I am not moving, I'm not getting my 4 and 2 year old out of bed because you don't want me to see my husband getting arrested. The one thing is.." I hesitated, "is..I'm fucking 8 weeks pregnant!! Do you have an answer for my family and what's going to happen to my mother!! You seem to care what time I'll hide so you can do your job! No I'm not leaving! My only concern is my MOTHER! You don't think I blame myself for this piece of shit called a husband and father to my kids, who RAPED MY MOTHER!!" I started shaking and crying again.

"I'm sorry", one of the silent detectives said. "The only thing on your moms mind is you and her grandchildren. Not what physical or mental damage she was feeling. In fact your sisters are very emotional right now, worrying you're going to blame yourself, as you are right now." He said and bent down to face me. "Your mom and sisters want to talk to you when you're ready, it's not your fault. Your husband has a problem. He desired your mom, there's no two ways to say it. He sexually abused her because he wanted her. It wasn't a rage of anger. I know this may be hard for you to understand..."

I interrupted the kind detective.."No sir, I completely understand. He's had a sick obsession towards her. It's nothing he did, just his sick looks at her....I just can't believe this." I started crying..."I'm so sorry he did this...please forgive me for marrying this man, forgive me for everything!!"

"Mrs. O..please don't blame yourself. It's not your fault! You just said he was a piece of shit and you're not taking this on?!" The kind detective tried to make me feel better. "He has problems with alcohol and sex, he needs help, you cannot take this on as if you could have saved him."

"You don't understand!" I started to talk loudly in sputtering sobs. "My mother has blamed me in..in..no uncertain words, always in innuendo words, when she sees how he has never kept us except in nearly poverty...I know she loves me, but in years to come..this will eventually come out in fighting words..I don't know what kind, but I'm sure she'll say, "If only you hadn't married Mark!" She has every right to say it, I deserve it"....I started crying hysterically. I had noticed my anger at Mark had turned inward, and I did start blaming myself.

"Do you want to call her now?" The detective asked.

"NO, NOT YET!! What could I say? I'm so ashamed..." my words drifted off and I was exhausted.

About 2 hours later, Mark indeed, came home, and was arrested and given his rights. I saw him outside, looking at his drunken state. Did he know this was not just a DUI that "Mommy" could get him bond? Did he truly understand what he just did to not just one family, but his mother & father, his children, and as usual I always put myself at the end of that list.

An abusive woman always put her on the end of the line. She always heard comments like, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!?! Why didn't you leave him when he first abused you?" Or.."Why didn't you take your children and just run!!!"

I would tell them.."Have you ever been abused? Have you ever been pregnant and had an alcoholic man run after you with a steel chair, hitting you so hard that you woke up to "crimson colors" from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, beaten to a pulp because he was in mourn for his grandfathers passing..did you?"

I would continue with words to my critiques. The Christian ones would sympathize with me and pray. The passing friends ignored me and said I should leave the state. To be the woman and mother I had to be and wake up. I didn't have a lot of loved ones caring for me at that moment. It didn't matter, the only ones I cared about were my mom and kids, and in time, "because time heals all wounds", we would learn to be a family without Mark.

It took years to make amends with my mom. My guilt was so heavy, I carried it for years. It's taken a long time, and many things haven't been added to this, due to the memories that plague me monthly, something weekly, that is still hard to write about.

Yes...we are haunted by ghosts not dead yet. It's happening more than I'd wish, but I also know..

I've grown into a woman that took on 3 babies and raised them by myself. I was blessed by so many people I never met again, as did my mom. God is so good. You wonder why I'm saying that? Because without the realization that I could and did get along the rest of my life without Mark, and leaned on my higher power, instead of Man. I knew I could do anything...

I may be having a ghost interrupting my nightmares a few times, but I have overcome serious abuse. I have known closing my eyes doesn't make something go away, but I also know, He no longer controls my life..period

My dreams will never end..but I can get past them too