It hit like a thunderstorm, our phones lighting up and vibrating aggressively. My screen was laden with notification banners from our cousin about the impending death of the only Patriarchal figure we ever had. It’s strange, you see, Tata, as we affectionately took to calling him, and I had been estranged for about 6 years (since 2007 or so) by then. Worst of all, as you’ll come to find, I had very little say in the matter initially, and the guilt, sadness, and anger still stir up in me occasionally. Unpacking the tempestuous nature of my relationship with my Tata and Tía is like delving into a dangerous, dark cave filled with predators and traps. A cave full of secrets and pain I often try to wipe off my map. I’ll start on this infinitesimal day, which plays only a small part in this story.
One humid summers day so long ago, My Tía and Tata left New York City to be with family in Texas. I remember I watched teary-eyed as I leaned up on my mother’s Mazda Navajo. While not even a block away, they packed their things into a U-haul as the sun went down. I forced my mother to drive me there, where she secretly met with her cousins to quickly say hello and goodbye as they journeyed up to accompany their parents on their way down South. I was angry and hurt, and I only wanted to run up to them and ask them what I did to deserve this. Why were they leaving, and why did they push me out? They were such a pivotal part of my life growing up, and the ghosts of their influence still linger at 26. Revisiting the trauma interwoven into my family, all based around these two people, is not something I do lightly. In all honesty, I avoid the weight of it all.
Many years later, in November 2015, Tata was in the late stages of Dementia, forgetting how to swallow or speak. Tremendous guilt washed over me for feeling that this was a Karmic end. He developed Pneumonia in his final week, vomiting and losing breath, and was eventually forced into a coma and put on a respirator. While Tata was unconscious, my cousin said they would turn off the monitor. Again, it was here the guilt and battle for celebrating poetic justice. Such an intricate and complex relationship with such polarizing opinions all in one human, me. I was deeply saddened and hurt that I could never really say goodbye but celebrate the victorious end of a predator.
I grapple with my sense of humanity and always have. In a sea of people who so easily see things in black and white, I lose myself in the throws of the grey liminal spaces. Here, I sit and occupy much of my time and energy trying to decode my feelings. As I grew older, this complicated process continued to fester and feed my bitterness.
I bet you are still trying to decode my gentle hints about this man and woman for whom, over the years, I began to let control of this pain and guilt. I allow them to take up space, and I harbored resentment that I am still processing. There is no way to ease into reality, the trauma I see hollowing out my mother’s eyes, or even the fragmented memories that resurface for me that I choose to avoid. Tata was a rapist, and my Tía was complicit. He abused my mother, her cousins (his stepdaughters), and other children for years. I write this here because I am only one of very few who knows this truth. I was given this burden, which screams like a banshee inside of me to be set free, a secret my mother told me to protect me from potentially suffering her fate, not that I’m entirely sure I survived unscathed. I was raised to be strong by my single mother and her mother (also a lone wolf) and was told never to let anyone silence me so you can see the conundrum. When this all happened, and he reached his end in December 6 years ago, I was in such a dark place, going in and out of weeping and trying to process what I am not sure I will ever fully be able to. I was angry for how he hurt people I loved, yet mourning who he once was to me and wanting to reign hell down onto my uninformed cousins who did and still praise him like a god.
I wrote him a letter, one he would never get to read. I still fantasize about sitting at a large table across from my cousins, my mother’s cousins and my Tía reading it. With a puffed chest, I recite the story they never heard aloud to them as their jaws drop and they quickly kick me out. I watch it play out so clearly every time. My mother’s cousin’s eyes widen with panic and relief as someone else relieves them of the weight of it all. They stay silent and confirm nothing, and my Tía probably drops dead of fear and shame. Maybe it even releases her from the mortal coil that has kept her here, still alive. Perhaps she would even tell me her side and share her burden hand in hand with me and apologize for how she treated me. Who knows? Without further ado, herein lies my letter which has collected digital dust since 2015.
12/1/2015
Tata,
How do I handle the passing of someone both loved and hated? Someone who nurtured me as a child but abused my mother and others. It is hard to deal with the guilt of never being able to say goodbye to you because, for the most part, I never quite wanted to. The deep-seated anger I feel for all you have done is nothing compared to figuring out how to deal with the emptiness, rage, and sadness all jumbled inside. You are a man who lived a double life and affected so many negatively and positively. A man who went to the ends of the earth to make me, my sister, and my cousins endlessly happy. The same man brought so much despair, trauma, and anguish to my mother, cousins, children, and your wife. How has it been kept under wraps for so long with no questions, and how do I handle the anger of knowing that any mention or glimpse into this side of you will spark outrage, disgust, and nasty debates?
How the fuck does anyone deal with that and not handle being disgusted for being sad that you are soon to depart from the world you do not deserve to live in. Is it because I saw a glimpse into a man trying to be better, a troubled man who had been through his own struggles? Do you deserve that thought? I can not be sure. Knowing you won’t physically be on this earth is for the best as you terrorized women and children in and outside our family, and you used, manipulated, and made them feel like worthless and empty things. You left deep emotional and mental scars that I see my mother carry, along with my mother’s cousins, who have had to fight through most of this alone. I live with fragmented recollections I try to avoid piecing together like shredded files in my mind. I have lived with the burden and the silence for quite some time, and I wish I could say something, but I struggle to do so because I am not sure it is my place to cause chaos and unearth old news.
Now that you are close to passing away, as I type this, I don’t know. I don’t know if you are still with us, and I fight with the complex feelings of sadness and regret for feeling that same sadness. I wish I could have said goodbye so that I could ask why you stopped answering my phone calls and what the fuck you were thinking when you raped my mother and her two cousins repeatedly from age 11 on; better yet, what stopped you from repeating the same cycle with us?
The paranoia you engrained into your wife because of what she had seen is heart-wrenching. I experienced her mental abuse firsthand as she sexualized and chastised me for what I wore while growing up. At that point, I was unaware that her anger towards me only reflected her unresolved trauma towards you. The way she used to look at me when we would play hide and seek caused me so much confusion and pain when I was just a child. All the cruel things she said to me as I got older that I did not understand at that time, all these things I struggled with shaped my perception of my body and myself. I am Desperate for answers I will never get and dying to speak out, but I am unable and afraid. I can not even describe the pain down to my bones as I see my mother cracking from the inside out when she talks about you. The strength she always has just isn’t quite enough when it comes to all the things you did to her. How could you verbally, physically, and mentally abuse one generation and then be so kind and giving to the generation that followed?
Tata, how do I deal with the lump in my stomach knowing I won’t be able to see you or say any of this to you? I fought with knowing what I would do. Would I give you a good slap, spit in your face, or a long hug if I saw you? Is it normal for feelings to be split down the middle like this? I am happy that soon you will find rest and peace, but I am unsure if you truly deserve it. You raped my mother and my mother’s cousins so many times it hurts just typing it here. You told my mother she was disgusting and no one would ever love her before and after raping her. You pushed your wife into a mental breakdown, somehow lived with it, and continued doing the same disgusting, cowardly things you had always done. You made your wife afraid that you would do the same to disgust her by seeing You made her disgusted by the sight of you near anyone of the opposite sex despite their age. You are the source of a bitter rivalry between sisters that will go on till they are both dead,
Tata, I can’t cry to my mother without feeling disgraceful because of you. I can not tell my mother because if I did, my mother would not understand, and I do not blame her for not understanding. My mother buries what you did to her so deep in the earth of her soul that she forgets it exists until some movement or growth forces it up. She is a single mother who has been through much more than just the hardships and atrocities you put her through. Yet I still wonder how the man I grew up with could share the same soul as the monster my mother and her cousins had to deal with.
Do I pray for your peace or damn you to hell? Either way, this is goodbye, Tata,
Jessica
Thank you to anyone who read this, and I am so sorry for the shared secret we now have to hold together. When people say, “my family is crazy,” I bet they don’t mean it like this. Of course, this will likely never transpire since my mother swore me to secrecy. I can’t ever say anything which used to eat away at me. Now, this secret is my constant companion; she is also yours.
