An ah-ha moment

I learned. I will do better.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
—Maya Angelou

Dr. Maya Angelou photo courtesy of the Associated Press

I felt so good about my last post, and my struggle and eventual ability to let my father try to make amends to me. ¹ Until, a few of our subscribers, asked me further questions. Poignant questions, that caused me to pause. Reflect. Wonder and adjust.

I have long held a deep believe that victims/survivors of sexual assault need to heal, regardless of what their perpetrator does. I still believe that, but with a new insight.

My father fell on his knees and begged my forgiveness 5 years after I left his lucrative financial company, and 4 years after the first edition of Paperdolls was published.

Two of the questions, that gave me pause were:

• Would your father have begged your forgiveness if you had stayed employed at their² company?
  My hunch: I doubt it. Nothing would have changed. Maybe they would have stayed involved in AA, so maybe, just maybe when he realized the limits to his mortality, maybe he would have tried to make amends. But, I doubt it.

• If you had not co-authored Paperdolls, would your father have tried to make amends?
  My response: Ouch, I don’t think so. There was such a fever in Utah and the Intermountain West when it was published, I don’t think so. On the day it was first published, a local news program lead with, “Shockwaves are reverberating through-out the Wasatch Front as a new book is published….”
  
  The book sold out the next day. Everyone knew about it. And, everyone in my childhood neighborhood knew who wrote it³. My father was aware. Did that cause him to reflect? Was the shock of the waves of publicity a catalyst that helped him take his own emotional inventory?
  
  I don’t know. But, it has given me great pause. Enough, that I didn’t write last week. I had to review my own beliefs and take stock.

I still believe that survivors can and should heal regardless of their perpetrators actions. But, I’m pausing. I’m revising.

To my beloved survivors, please know, you do not have to write a book or speak out. But, I am going to add an amendment to my stance:

If you speak out, confront, and/or join forces with other survivors in a more public way, it could help other survivors. It could help alleviate the shroud of silence of this travesty in our society. And, it might even be a catalyst to perpetrators to change.⁴

In my pause and reflection, I’ve come up with a couple of other amendments and guides for survivors. I’ve done my best, and tried to stay true to my authentic self. Now, I know better. And, I’ll do better.

My ah-ha helped me develop a 3 part series:

This is a 3 part series. Stay tuned for the “broken bone” metaphor, and my guidelines on how to navigate a snake pit.

1.

2. I say “their” because it was both of my parents’s entrepreneurial spirit that launched and built the company.

3. Which is quite compelling since we changed all identifying details. But, the events were quite well known in that area. Not public, but well known. It seemed everyone knew, untold numbers of other survivors reached out to me and my co-author.

4. But, don’t you dare speak out FOR them. Do it for you.