Dear... Taker Of Innocence
Imagine my surprise when I came on this website to write to you, expecting a bounty of other letters like mine, full of hate and sorrow, only to be presented with letters to future-selves, unrequited loves, and endearing words of adoration. In a way, it made me happy. Happy knowing that my letter is only one small stain in this small society of clean unspoken truths. That there are not many like me who have dealt with such a heinous occurrence in their lives. That the likelihood of my girls facing such an occurrence again is slim, and it's more likely they'll have secret admirers of love than secret perpetrators of crime.
Although this website has brought solace in knowing that the world has more love than hate, it is also going to bring me relief in expressing my own hate so I can fully feel love again. And for that, I am grateful. Although therapy is helping and painting is allowing me to express some emotion through visuals, words will better convey what I have been feeling for the passed 2 and a half years and more so the passed month and a half.
You took their innocence. You took their trust. You took the faith in myself in knowing I did better, even just temporarily, and made me question myself all over again.
But despite what you did, the girls are doing wonderfully, and I am in awe of their strength. Heaven could not have blessed me with more amazing daughters than it did. Their zest for life and love has never ceased and their want to move on is something to be valued by even the oldest and wisest of peers. I look at them more now with admiration than I do with love, with more love than I do with sadness, and with more sadness than I do with fear, because they are not only going to be okay, they are going to take this world by storm, and teach it love and forgiveness and strength, in a way that's never been taught before.
I, however, have not been as strong. When they revealed to me what you did to them, I felt myself break. Pieces of me started falling and I couldn't move fast enough to catch them. A mother's heart is never as broken as when the heart of her child breaks. You broke two hearts many years ago, and subsequently two more. Because along with theirs and mine, a fourth loving heart was welcomed in our lives not long after your secret was revealed, and his heart has beat with ours since he became part of our home.
I've spent the last month or so seeking help where I can, expressing any emotion in any form in any way, and gradually picking up whatever piece I see to put myself back together. I may be cracked and parts of me are shattered, but I am not without breath. I am not without want. I am not without drive to move forward from this. The glue that holds me together is the very thing that separates you and me: love. Love for myself, love for my girls, love for my partner, love for my life. Someone who has done the atrocities you have committed is someone without love. Someone who can never be their full self. Someone who has to hide what they are, so love will never be able to fully put them back together if and when they break. And break they will, because someone without love is the weakest vase holding the more rotten of flowers. Your cracks will eventually show, and those around you will not help pick up the pieces. And you will not help yourself either, because I know deep down that you have no love for yourself. And for that I both pity you and am thankful. You've made yourself into a monster of your own doing, and living a life of insufficient love for yourself and love from others based off of what you only portray yourself to be is a cursed life only given to those who have cursed themselves. You will never have true peace, and I can't think of a better punishment for you than that.
I began typing this thinking that this letter was going to be riddled with words of hate. I thought I was going to angrily tap at the keyboard with the ferocity of stinging rain hitting a window from a dark storm. Yet I am calm. My breathing is steady and the hairs on my arms do not stand on end. The pit in my stomach is not from ire but from relief. Relief in the knowing that I'm going to get through this. That down the line, if the girls have any issues, they have support around. That this storm I feel inside me is just that, a temporary storm passing through a climate of peace calm. However, your weather will never cease. You've created your own climate of darkness and light fades more and more with every person you keep your secret from. The sun will never fully shine in your life and it's your own fault.
So this is not a letter of hate. This is a letter of strength. A letter telling you full well that you have not broken us, that no one can break us. That your life, however great you think it is, will never be as amazing as it could be because of the darkness inside of you.
From the girls, from me, from my partner, we leave you behind, in the dark pit of inhumanity you put yourself in, and we walk toward the light, something you can only ever hope to catch a glimpse of.
We will not be taken, we will not break, will not stop, we will grow. We will live.