The year was 1982. I was 23 years young…

“Do you remember that time we lived in Great Lakes, Illinois, and your mother took you girls to visit her girlfriend and sons?” my father inquired, “Do you remember what you saw in their house?”

I shook my head yes.

He looked me dead in the eye and said, “I believe you.”

Silence.

The year is 1965. I was six years young.

My mother had taken us on a journey to visit her friend. Something my father had done hurt her very bad. She was very sad.

The house was two stories, with a basement and crawlspace. The kids were laughing and playing upstairs with my big sister. I wasn’t included, so I sat at the bottom of the stairway pouting. I heard someone call my name behind me inviting me to come and play upstairs.

The kids were talking about the crawlspace and daring each other to go in there alone. If I would go into the crawlspace alone, they would play with me. Would it hurt if I took a peek? I took the dare.  

It was pitch black inside. No big deal, until a screaming skull appeared in front of me. I freaked out and screamed, which scared the crap out of the other kids, who joined the chorus! Everyone scattered, except me. I couldn’t move. In front of me a vision unfolded, of two men brutally killing and cutting off the head of another man. I had never seen anything so brutal and violent.

When they walked right through me and down the stairs, I tried to warn everyone they were coming. The men walked straight right through everyone outside. They were dragging a bloody, decapitated body across the snow. (It was the middle of summer, there was no snow on the ground!)

I was quite vocal about every detail.  

The adults tried to calm me down, “It’s your imagination. See?! Look out the window, there’s no snow.” They said to me. I looked out the window. I saw snow and a trail where they dragged the man’s body.

When my father arrived. He spanked me. He spanked me in front of everyone – the boys, my sister, my mom’s friends. He told me to quit lying or he would make me stop. He didn’t ask why I had screamed, he just spanked me, and reminded me I was a visitor in someone’s home, and my lying was disrespectful. He demanded I apologize for lying. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t lying.

He took me upstairs to the crawlspace and made me look inside. “See?! There’s no screaming skull! Quit lying!” He hit me again in the head. 

We left after that. All the way home, my father said he would keep hitting me until I stopped lying. He did. Over and over again. Each time he would say, “Now tell me the truth.” Each time I would tell him exactly what I saw. BAM! Another knock to the head. I was seeing stars for sure, but it didn’t change what I had seen. My mom told him to stop it. “You’re killing her!” my mom said. He stopped, but he withdrew any affection and refused to acknowledge me for a long while.  

Seventeen years later…

“What you don’t know, and neither did I at the time, there WAS a murder committed in that house. A man WAS strangled and his head WAS cut off. It WAS in the winter time, long before you were born. A trail of blood WAS left in the snow. I had to research the library archives to find the newspaper clippings. There’s no way you would have known! Little girl, you scare the hell out of me…”

He was serious. With tears in his eyes, he said with great sincerity, “Please forgive me. I believe you sweetheart. You weren’t lying. I believe you now. I beat the shit out of you over and over again. How could I? And still you wouldn’t budge. I’m so sorry.”

Many Blessings,

Mamakeeya