Thursday, June 11, 2015

The Re Encounter with "him"

I attended a funeral recently for one of my long time friend's mothers that I met as a small child in this polygamy church.  Throughout all these years we have stayed close and I knew her mom well.  It was sad to hear she passed away.

My drive to the funeral caused me a lot of discomfort, and my stomach was in knots.  My best friend's oldest brother was the one that asked me to marry him 24 years ago.  I figured he would be at his own mother's funeral.  I haven't seem him more than a handful of times since the proposal.  It was uncomfortable to see him, and to think I may have to speak to him.  What would I say?  How would I act?  Do I pretend it never happened, and act as normal as I can?

After sitting though the funeral and talking to the family afterwards, I somewhat avoided him.  Later as I was trying to leave I saw him talking to my mom.  I took a deep breath and put on my big girl pants and walked up to them talking.  I was polite and cordial making small talk as I told my mom it was time to go.

In the car my mom tells me that he apologized to her for what went on years ago.  He felt bad for asking me to marry him and cause tension among me and my life.  This was refreshing to me to hear he apologized.  I'm glad it wasn't to my face.  I don't think I would have liked saying it was OK and I was over it.  That would have been a lie.   I have moved on, but the disgust is still there.

The worst part is that many years later, after the proposal, I hear of sexual abuse that happened between him and his little girls.  Seriously, this was the lords plan for me?  He wanted me in this family with little babies being sexually abused by their dad.  This was an uproar for me.  I can't believe my mom let this pervert ask me to marry him.

I never really talked about "Joe" to my best friend, his sister.  He left the church and divorced his 3 wives and probably went to jail.  I don't know the legalistic of it all, but I knew I was glad for following my boyfriends advise then, and not my "Dad's" wishes.