I have debated writing this post for so long. One minute
I’ll feel good about writing it and then 10 minutes later I’ll think, what’s
the point. Why do I need to add my story to all the ones that have already been
shared? Why am I sharing this now? At all?
What good do I want to come from it?
Even now as I sit typing this out in a word doc, part of me
wonders if I will end up sharing my experience. I keep trying to think of what
holds me back from being more open about this encounter. I know I did nothing
wrong. And for how things could have gone, I know I got very lucky. So maybe
that’s my goal. For someone to read this post and help someone else before it’s
too late. Help someone else to be one of the lucky ones.
* * * * *
When I was in elementary school I had a paper route. Every
day after school I’d hurry home, roll up my stacks of newspaper, load them into
the newspaper bag hanging off my little bike, and head off to deliver the newspaper
to a couple streets up the road from my house.
I grew up in a small, quiet town where you knew everyone who
lived on your street and just about the entire neighborhood. It also helped
that a lot of the people in the neighborhood went to our same church. It felt
safe.
One day (my heart just started racing so fast when I began
typing this part) a friend and I were playing outside her house. Something we’d
done many times before. I don’t remember why, but we ended up at her next-door
neighbor’s house. A man and his wife lived there. I know they had a couple of kids
that I think were grown and out of the house at this point. They went to church
with us. They were on my paper route. They were just like any other parents in
the neighborhood.
That first time I went inside his house with my friend his
wife wasn’t home – it was just him.
I only remember a few things from that first trip inside his
house with my friend that day. I remember they were very friendly with each
other. Nothing overtly stood out, but it did seem quite obvious that she had
spent time there before and was comfortable inside his house and with him.
Which I’m sure made me more comfortable there too. I remember my friend and I
were in his living room with him and for some reason the topic of us doing cartwheels
came up. I vividly remember telling him that I couldn’t do a cartwheel or else
the shirt that I was wearing would come up. I was in elementary school so it’s
not like there was anything to see if that happened, but I had the
understanding to at least know it probably shouldn’t. I remember him casually
blowing off my comment by saying something to the effect of it wouldn’t be a
big deal. And I must have believed him, because I did end up doing cartwheels
in that living room. And, as I had suspected, my shirt did briefly come up
while I did them. All these years later, that’s all I really remember from that
first interaction. We left his house and nothing else came from it. At least not
that day.
Part of my papergirl duties involved going around once a
month and collecting the monthly subscription fees from the people on my route.
Some time after the cartwheel visit, I went around “collecting” and stopped by
his house. He was friendly when he answered the door and, like many other
people on my paper route did, he invited me inside to wait while he got the
money to pay me. Again, it was just him in the house. I don’t remember much
about this visit except for the very end. As I was getting ready to leave,
standing just inside the front door, this man gave me a long, lingering hug.
And while we stood there with him hugging me, I suddenly realized his tongue
was inside my ear. It was warm and wet and weird. I left his house right after
that.
I knew licking inside my ear was strange, but I didn’t
really know what to do about it.
Not too long after this experience I was helping my older sister
with her paper route which was also near our home. She is two years older than
me and we were very close as kids. We had just started her route and I told her
what this man had done to me. She was the first person I told. And the only one
I had intended on telling.
I feel like I have to pause the story for a minute, because
even now, as I’m typing this out, I have a hard time not feeling ridiculous. It
was an ear lick. I wasn’t groped. I wasn’t raped. I was hugged too long and he
put his tongue in my ear. It could have been so much worse. Having said that, while
I sit here letting my thoughts ramble on and my fingers type them out, I’ve
listened to enough true crime podcasts to know now that this was more than just
a long hug and an ear lick (which is still gross in its own right) – it was a
pedophile testing the water.
In what I have always felt was the greatest thing she’s ever
done for me, my sister told me right then and there that if I didn’t tell our
parents what I’d just told her she was going to tell them.
We got home later that day and I told my parents what had
happened.
They instantly believed me. They made it clear I was to have
no interactions with that man. The next time I had to go collecting to his
house they were both in the car in his driveway and made sure I stayed outside
the front door.
Around this time the newspaper also switched to morning
deliveries, so between that and this experience, it wasn’t too long before my
days of being a papergirl came to an end. My friend who lived next door to him
moved away very suddenly and we lost touch. I’ve always wondered if she was one
of his victims who had a worse fate than I did.
Years later his wife (then his ex-wife) would go into the
store my sister (the one I told first) worked at and apologize to her thinking
she was the one something inappropriate happened to. While I don’t blame her
for the acts he perpetrated, I do wonder if she knew what he was doing. I hope
not.
Initially my parents and I determined we weren’t going to
tell anyone about what happened to me. I found out years later they had in fact
told our local church leader to try and ensure this man didn’t have any church
positions that allowed him access to children. In hindsight, we all wished we
would have called the police and reported the incident. I’m not sure what
could/would have been done about it, but maybe he would have been discovered
sooner and another child would have been spared.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. You weren’t groped. You
weren’t raped. Why make a big deal out of it.”
As those thoughts continue to swirl around in my head even
now, I can’t help but think – what if my sister or parents had thought like
that? What if they failed to take those small, strange acts seriously? If they
had, I am sure there would have been a totally different ending to my story.
And I guess that’s the reason driving me to post this and share what happened
to me and how the people around me responded.
It’s about taking those little actions seriously to help
prevent something far worse from happening to the children around us. Not to
gloss over the warning signs and wait till the disaster has happened before we
respond.
I am forever grateful for my sister that day telling me that
if I didn’t tell our parents what happened that she would. I’m so grateful my
parents unequivocally believed me and took immediate action to ensure my safety
and protection from that man. I was a lucky one.
* * * * *
Years after this happened to me, my family and I heard he’d
been arrested on charges related to sexual abuse of a minor. After typing up my
experience I recruited a friend to be an internet detective and
help me track him down and find his criminal record. When she was able to find
him, but not a criminal record I thought about canning this entire post. I felt
like without a conviction my experience would perhaps be less impactful. But
how is that any different than acting like what he did to me was no big deal?
I sincerely hope he has lived the rest of his life and never
hurt another child. Sadly, I think it's much more likely we were just unable to find his arrest than the other scenario. There
are many pedophiles out there without a criminal record. But even if I was his
first and only victim, what he did to me was wrong. Just because he wasn’t
convicted of a crime, doesn’t mean what he did to me didn’t happen. Or worse, that
it somehow wasn’t wrong. Conviction or no conviction, it was wrong.
Me & my sister holding our dog Coco.