I learned not to be alone with him. He would spy on my sister when he showered. We told my mother, usually my sister screaming at the top of her lungs that he was spying on her. Mom kept a watch on us, told us to stay away from him, and lectured and punished him. I made sure that my kids were never alone with him and if there were other kids around when he was visiting, I made sure they were safe. As adults, we didn't talk about what happened when we were kids. We got along and I even helped him when he went through a trucking school. He moved out of state, and we'd talk on the phone. This was early 90s. People were just then talking about abuse and I was working on understanding how I felt.
I knew my brother liked a woman where he lived. He called me one day, when I was at work. He said that the woman thought he should apologize to me for what happened when we were kids and he was calling to apologize. I was floored. I was angry. I was stunned. I kept the call short. Whatever healing I had for being molested when I was a girl was seared away. Knowing my brother, I knew he had made that call not because he was sincerely sorry, but because he wanted to have a relationship with the woman. And he had told her something that shamed me, without evening thinking how the violation of my privacy would affect me. It took me time to continue healing, but I never felt the same about my brother. It is like I put a wall up and stopped even wanting to love him. I think he sensed the distance, but we never spoke of this again. I wanted to confront him, but there was never a time and it was finally too late.
A few years later, he was driving a truck and something in the steering failed. He was paralyzed from the neck down and was in intensive care for 9 months before he died. I saw him a few times while he was in the hospital. After he died, I was in the shower and I collapsed on my knees, overcome with the grief of the loss of our entire lives, what we could have had, what we should have had, but because of his nature, we never got.
My opinion is that the victim should be the person who chooses the time and place of a confrontation. I did feel like I had been abused again. Calling at work? For something like this? And his motive? Even if an abuser has all the sincerity in the world, don't add to the victim's violation.
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