Dear Editor,
I can’t remember her name, but I will never forget her eyes. They haunt me today, almost 20 years later. She sat in front of me, a sweet and adorable third-grader whose small body had carried an adult-sized secret for too long. Her daddy had been touching her in ways no father ever should; ways that no child should ever know. She loved her dad. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. But she wanted it to stop.
Like many molesters, he had bought her silence with a combination of promises of special attention and threats of not being believed. It worked, until the day I sat with her. We had just presented the Child Assault Prevention Project in her classroom, teaching the kids they have rights to be “safe, strong and free.” We taught them that nobody – a bully, a stranger or someone who cared for them – had the right to hurt them. And, we taught them they could confide in a trusted adult who would believe them and get them help.
So she told me her horrible secret – a secret we hear all too often at Community Solutions, yet one that sears the soul with each new telling. I told her what we have told every child before and after her who has entrusted us with their horrible secrets – that I believed her, that nobody – even daddy – had the right to do that to her and that I wanted her to be safe. I reported it to the school and the authorities. And then I hoped – that it would all work out, that she would be safe and that somehow joy would come to replace the fear in her life.
The memory of that little came back to me Thursday while reading The Dispatch in which columnist Kat Teraji courageously shared her own story of molestation at the hands of her father. Silent no more, she has found comfort, empathy and, most importantly, healing by talking to others. She is a survivor and encourages other survivors to reclaim their power by breaking their silence.
And we can help. Community Solutions is here to listen to people’s stories, to believe them and to help them find their path to healing. It may be a child, an adult who was abused as a child or an adult who was recently assaulted. For everyone, we are only a phone call away – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – at (408) 779-2115.
I don’t know what happened to that little girl or what kind of woman she grew up to be. I can only hope she didn’t get shamed back into silence. It is up to all of us to pay attention to how children are treated, to love and care for them, to be willing not just to listen to their nightmares but to do something to make them stop. It is the least we can do. Otherwise, shame on us.
Lisa DeSilva, Director of Development for Community Solutions
