I recently got an email from a good friend in high school. His name is Duane and it was less of an email and more of a forwarded article. A newspaper article actually. About a guy who was convicted recently for sexually abusing minor boys and doing it with a dog. Yes, a dog. This guy was someone we both knew at CCNZ, our church high school in New Zealand. This perpetrator was also my boyfriend named Raphael. And by boyfriend, I mean the boy who never held my hand but who wrote a 10 page letter to me saying how he plans to take me to the temple and marry me for time and all eternity. The letter was written on a turquoise blue stationary with an imprint of the New Zealand temple stamped on each page. It's the little things a girl remembers.
When I was in the 8th grade I had to do a "research paper". I had just finished a book from the "Flowers in the Attic" series or some heinous read like that which talked about child siblings in an attic who married each other and lived happily ever after. I'm not sure how I got a hold of such a book but I did and I read it and although I don't remember enjoying it all too much, it did leave me with some questions around dynamics. Healthy and unhealthy.
I loved going to our public library. It had three floors and was right across from a Taco Bell. Somehow I always got enough change to buy myself a soft taco in the middle of my vigorous research activities and then carry on with my academic pursuits. And so one afternoon, after a burrito binge, I began the task of writing my 8th grade paper on incest.
While I don't remember much of what I read, I do remember how I felt. Violated? No. Repulsed? A little. Scared? Not so much. Intrigued? Completely.
Raphael and I were a match made in heaven. He was an effeminate fag. And I was his approval seeking hag. He held the position of Prefect. The envy of all "wanna-be-a-bishop" kids and I was his non-blond, flat nosed, thick eyebrowed American girlfriend. Neither of us got the respect we felt we deserved but both of us were quite talented in the art of acting as if we didn't care. That no matter what others said or did, we were going to embrace the fact that we were "being prosecuted for righteousness sake." This is the kind of denial that I believe gets many people through many hard times and I believe in my case, it did its job as I've come through my high school years practically unscathed. I've become a healthy, educated, socially conscience adult. And a redeemed one as well. I married a hunk.
In retrospect, for Raphael though, denial seemed to be less of an means to a stable, balanced end and more of a permanent escape. Kind of like if he didn't think about it, it didn't happen.
The emailed article said that, "it" actually did happen to Raphael. During the trial, information came out explaining that he had been sexually abused since he was 10 months old through the time he turned 16. "It" was done by family members repeatedly, and now "it" was perpetrated by him towards other young boys.
When I googled his name, a photograph of Raphael at the trial appeared on my screen. I was sickened, disgusted, repulsed by him and the life he had chosen for himself. But I was not surprised. I remember during those short 2 weeks of "dating" Raphael, that I had a few moments of clarity. I noticed that he looked "empty" at times, that his dramatic mood swings seemed unfounded, that he could not look his father in the eye when it was parents week, and that he tried so hard to be good, to be worthy, not unlike a mouse pleading for his life in the face of a famished, unforgiving cat. It's the little things a girl remembers.
For the forth week Relief Society lesson, of which I teach every month, the Bishop assigned the article on abuse by Richard G. Scott. It's called, "To Heal the Shattered Consequences of Abuse." In it he talks of healing. But not before he prefaces his counsel with this piece of insight:
"Some matters are so sensitive and intensely personal and can awaken such disturbing feelings that they are seldom mentioned publicly. Yet, if tenderly and compassionately treated in the light of truth, discussion of these matters can bring greater understanding, with the easing of pain, the blessing of healing, and even the avoidance of further tragedy."
If this talk was given earlier, would life be different for Raphael? for his perpetrators? for his friends who knew there was "something" about Ralph, not knowing exactly what? Now that this talk has been given, will life be different for those poor boys and boys like him who suffered at the hands of him and people like him? What about the suffering of his own family? And what of these strange and all too commonly quoted principles of repentance and forgiveness? Their elusive path is one that feels too complex for my small and feeble mind. Too complex for the 8th grade girl scrapping up change for her taco.
