I am not afraid of dying. I know there is no literal hell. What were my sins anyway but the stumbling and failings of a woman surviving a lifetime of abuse and lies and loss? There are the sins people who will deny my existence have placed on my shoulders, but they do not count. They are not fact, but only the assumptions of people who do not know and refuse to see me.

I do not want to die yet. It’s ironic really, as it seems death lay before me like a last resort for decades as I struggled through life in increments of one day. But I fear that I will pass before I bring my struggle to a close, before I lay my truth before the people I love most. Even so, truth is so often too unbelievable to believe. Truth is also incredibly easy to deny when so many voices have silenced me for so long and found such believable alternative explanations of my incoherent life.

What blocks me is the empathy and kindness and love that some say I do not have in me. To tell the whole truth means exposing other peoples lies and in the end hurting my children more. Where is the balance and why am I in charge of this decision when all I really want is for those I love to know who I am?

There is a circle I twirl inside with no beginning or end. I know what I want to say, I alone am willing to say it, and with the research I have done, I can begin to explain me to me. But it is not about me alone, the mess has been passed down to my children and grandchildren, and I ask myself if I have the right to strive for their respect, at the least, and love, at the most, by tarnishing a heroes shiny armor who deserves no adulation.

It is also ironic that I denied myself for almost half my life, terrified that people would find out what a “bad” “evil” girl I had been and still must be, and when I found the courage to speak was demonized by so many.

Where do the lies end and the truth begin. And can I accept the labels put on me by people who have no truth in them, accept my losses, and say no more?

Such a martyr I would make of me, and to what end? The only thing I would pass on to the next generation would be the lie that I was just “crazy” just “bad” just “hate filled” and just did not love them enough to do better.

I cannot leave my children thinking I did not love them enough.