Taken Innocence, Yet Unbroken

Family Summary

However unfortunate it is I must begin this retelling with some background information for the sake of understanding. My parents, J and M, met at a garage party in Puerto Rico. M immediately caught my J's eye, and they began to get to know each other as friends. Time passed and my J began making advances towards solidifying a relationship with my M. M was dating his best friend at the time. He seemed supportive at first but quickly showed his true colors once his friend wasn't around. M was uncomfortable with this but couldn't resist the allure of a well-built soldier with an almost guaranteed life of luxury. The life she was never given. She had kept the secret of her experience with sexual abuse a secret from everyone for her entire life thus far, but longed to distance herself from the abuser and her naïve mother, Ive, who was unaware and unable to stop it from occurring. Even though she kept this a secret, she resented Ive for not being smart or alert enough of the signs of abuse.

The abuser, her father Chan, was an absent father. He abused her sexually one of the many times got home drunk. She cried as he fingered her and sucked on her still developing breasts. She was 15 years old and growing into a well-endowed woman at the time. After that incident, her Chan would avoid her at all costs, perhaps out of shame for what he had done. Up until now, she had had few relationships none overly serious. However, after the incident, she fell in love with a police officer and moved in with him a week after beginning their relationship. He was controlling, jealous and abusive in an entirely new way.

She tucked her tail in between her legs and moved back in with her Ive. After another year she met a strong-willed artist and once again moved in with him. A few days after she moved in with him he too abused her, she went to the police covered in bruises, cuts, and lacerations and filed charges against her lover. He was arrested, but she dropped the charges for the sake of never seeing him again. At the age of eighteen, she met a soldier, and they quickly hit it off. After only several months of having a relationship with him she fell pregnant, and they got married. After this, she moved in with him and traveled to the United States of America as an ARMY wife.

Three months after her nineteenth birthday she gave birth to deciplets on the eighteen and nineteenth of September. J and her divorced when their children were one year old although they continued to live together for some time for the sake of money and their "business". Three years passed, and she moved back in with Ive. Her now ex-husband sent five hundred dollars a month in child support and had visitations every summer as per their civil agreement as neither wished to involve the courts and lawyers. Regardless of this he intervened in their lives much more and for much longer a time for the sake of the income their "business" produced.

During all this her younger brothers still lived with Ive. One known as J. A. worked in a warehouse and later moved out with his girlfriend while the other, C, began his delving into drug addiction and a criminal lifestyle. He would go missing for weeks at a time until he finally moved out with his pregnant lover. J.A. was betrayed by his lover and he left her and moved to a small apartment refusing to burden Ive. A few years later he met the love of his life and moved in with her in a house on top of her parent's home. Shortly, afterward, when she fell pregnant, he made the decision to join the ARMY in order to give his children the luxuries he was never able to have. They moved to Hawaii where he was stationed and had three beautiful children. Several years later however, they divorced and struggled to make an agreement on visitations. He has to pay 1200 per child in child support and struggles to this day to afford it all.

While J.A. was meeting the love of his life, his brother was on trial for theft and possession of narcotics. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Ive was in shock having been unaware of his dealings in the underworld until then. Her heart broke for him but she refused to bail him out stating that he was responsible for his own actions. He was released after just two years for good behavior. Once he was released he moved in with a woman he was exchanging mail with and eventually married her and even bore three children with her. However, it wasn't long before he returned to the underworld.

When she found out she asked him to pick her and the children or his precious drugs. He replied that he couldn't leave the drugs; she packed their things and moved away with the children raising them as a single mother. He would rarely visit and continued to go deeper and deeper into addiction. At my age of sixteen, he was murdered. They said he had committed suicide via overdose but his children and their cousins knew better and mourned their loss heavily during the funeral. Seeing how their father had ended up they straightened their lives and grew into respectable men. Ive's naivety continued even as her son was convicted stating that he was framed. Her denial and naivety only fed M's resentment.

M was the one who identified C's body. It was a shocking experience for her as his body was unidentifiable it had become blotted and was already decomposing even in the freezing temperatures of the morgue. It wouldn't have been identified were it not for several unique tattoos found on the body. A few years later she found herself becoming a born again Christian. She committed to this new life and demanded from all she had hurt to immediately forgive her transgressions due to her new status as a child of God. However, she had ten secrets she kept from her pastors and religious leaders. They are what this recollection is truly about. For their stories deserve to be heard in order for their spirits to be free.