Improving workplace health & safety through collaboration

Create Account | Log in
Articles How To Protect Your Kids From Sexual Abuse
Share Share
Print

How To Protect Your Kids From Sexual Abuse

Principal Author / Publisher:Safetyhow Admin
Article Rating:
Body
One woman shares her horrifying account of childhood abuse and shares ways for parents to protect their children.

This story was originally titled "A Monster in our Midst" in the May 2009 issue. Subscribe to Canadian Living today and never miss an issue!

I don't blame Sporty. He was just another frisky, wet-nosed beagle looking for a tree to pee on, or a stump to sniff. On that summer afternoon in the late '70s, the hapless hound couldn't have understood he was being used as a big, wriggly piece of bait to lure an innocent child. Sporty didn't know his master was a monster.

Life as a kid on Elm Street in Grand Falls-Windsor, Nfld., was pretty much perfect. Planted in a vast bowl of evergreens called the Exploits Valley, my hometown of almost 15,000 was famous for its paper mill, Gordon Pinsent and an illustrious burger-and-chip shack known as Harv's. The summers, extravaganzas of warm breezes and puffy clouds, seemed longer than they really were. The year I was 10, I loved riding my purple bike, pretending I was bionic and dancing to "Disco Inferno." We had orange-and-gold sunsets so spectacular I believed light from heaven was cracking through the sky.

Yes, my world on the Rock was sublime. And then I met the boogeyman.

Meeting the monster
With its china teacups and its black upright piano from the 1930s, my Aunt Noreen's house was a perfect little palace on Queen Street. Mom and I spent a lot of time there, sitting on the veranda, listening to the regal rustling of balsam poplars. To me, the house was the most exquisite, civilized place in Grand Falls-Windsor. It felt safe.

On the day it happened, two cousins I had never met were visiting from St. John's. One girl was about my age and, like me, said barely a word. As the adults sipped tea in the living room, chatting about scintillating matters that seemed, at the time, relevant only to people over the age of 105, I was anesthetized with boredom.

Then, a knock. It was Roy, a man who lived up the street. I knew who he was because Mom worked with his wife. With his goofy grin, fuzzy short hair and glassy eyes, he seemed big and loud for such a refined setting, but I had no reason to dislike him. "I thought the girls would like to come out and play with Sporty," he said, and I smiled. When you're 10 and bored, one dog plus lots of sunshine equals good times. And Roy was counting on it.

Soon, we were in our bliss by the balsams and the white snowball tree. Roy was walking with us, the beagle at his feet. Somehow, we ended up in the small, sloping backyard. The same spot where Mom and Noreen, in their ringlets and hand-sewn sunbonnets, had played in the 1930s. And there, in the daylight, the depraved hunter seized his prey.

Roy bent down behind me, draping his seemingly huge arms over my shoulders and down the front of my pink cotton blouse. I couldn't move. I had never experienced anything like it. I was baffled. He put his hand inside my pink-and-white checked shorts, touching me where a child should never be touched. Trapped in those giant arms, I was frozen as he touched me again. Then he said the four words that have haunted and sickened me for 30 years: "Does that feel good?"
  • z1f056e9576f0359435d843fbf82b8041c.jpg
References
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e9/8a/73 ... c.jpg
http://www.canadianliving.com/relationships/family ... e.php
Article Rating

This article has been read 851 times.

DISCLAIMER: All contents published on this website is for informational purposes only. In as much as we encourage write-ups to be originally written by the claimed authors, we might not be able to control those who will try to copy articles from other authors/writers. In view of the above, the owner and management of Safetyhow.com will not be liable for any loses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of the contents herein. Likewise, the owner and management will not be liable for any errors or omissions in the information stated. Furthermore, we highly recommend that any form of plagiarism or libel committed as a result or implication of the articles written by any specific author in this platform be reported to us immediately so that appropriate action will be given.

BROWSE ARTICLE BY CATEGORY

BROWSE ARTICLE BY INDUSTRY