Tag: Victim stories

“Giving a Voice to the Victims: Speaking for the Victims of Freedom, Part II”

On By Tony CassonIn Victims - Their Stories2 Comments

“Okay, this is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up.”   Cormac McCarthy  “The Road”  

” ‘You will succeed’, said the Lord. ‘Go ahead and do it.’ ”   1 Kings 22:22 NLT

“I asked, ‘What should I do, Lord?’ ”   Acts   22:10a NLT     

“Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent!”   Jesus   Acts 18:9b NLT     

      I was gently informed by the woman who wrote so eloquently about healing and forgiveness, that those who have dealt with sexual abuse consider themselves to be survivors of it as opposed to being its ongoing victims. I applaud her, and those like her. I admire their courage and their ability to control things that happened TO them rather than letting those things control them as human beings.

      There is no way of knowing how many survivors are out there, but it is highly likely that there are many times more who are still victims living day to day with the pain of past – or present – abuse. Some published estimates place the number of females in this country who were sexually abused as children at one out of every three. Similar reports also estimate that the number of males who were sexually abused as children is between 1 in 7 and 1 in 4.

      While politicians push emotional hot buttons in a quest for votes, and media outlets sensationalize tragedy and capitalize on fear in their quest for ratings, studies show that the greatest threat to children does not lie among faceless predators lurking in the community. The most reliable sources available estimate that somewhere between 90-93% of all sexual abuse occurs by a family member or acquaintance.

      In her book “A Nation Of Wimps”, Hara Estroff Marano, award winning author and editor-at-large of Psychology Today writes, “In fact, the greatest threat of child physical and sexual harm arises INSIDE the home, presented by family members, often stepparents, and especially stepfathers……Infants and children who do not live with two biological parents face forty to ONE HUNDRED times the chance of being killed within the family as those who live with both biological parents.”

      Why, then, is so much time, effort, and money spent on these misguided efforts to protect our children from dangers lurking outside the home when the overwhelming majority of incidents occur within?

      Quite likely, it is because of tragic stories such as one I read recently in an Arkansas newspaper about a 16 year old girl whose body was found buried in a barrel on property owned by the family of the prime suspect in her disappearance. The suspect was already a ‘Level 3’ registered sex offender who apparently ‘met’ the girl on a social networking website, struck up some sort of relationship with her and ultimately got her to agree to meet him. The evidence points to her willingly being picked up by him, but it ended horribly for her, and her family and friends.

      The fact that this particular individual was a registered sex offender did nothing to help this poor young woman or keep her safe. To compound the situation, he was a ‘Level 3′ offender. Let’s look at what that means, for therein lies part of the problem we face today, albeit a small part since these types of crimes (for all of the massive amounts of publicity they receive) are relatively rare:

      The suspect in this case had been sentenced in 2001 to ten years in prison. He was released in 2008 after serving about 7 years of his sentence. That original crime? He entered a woman’s home through a window, held a box-cutter to her throat, taped her mouth shut, and raped her.

 Seven years.

      Just to put things in perspective, let me say that I am surrounded by individuals serving 7, 10, even 15 years in prison for looking at pictures. I am most certainly NOT insensitive to the fact that the pictures in question involve children. The individuals involved with the production of these pictures should be dealt with severely. Of that there is no question, but so too should the individual who uses threat of physical harm, or death, to take from a woman (or man, for that matter) that which should only be given freely.

      That woman was a victim. Whether she is a survivor I do not know. I pray that she is and that God has given her some peace and comfort and helped her to heal.

SEVEN years.

      For raping a woman after breaking into her home and threatening her by holding a razor to her throat.

      If this individual had gotten a sentence of, say, 30 years, perhaps the young woman he is now accused of murdering and stuffing in a barrel to be hidden away in an unmarked grave would still be alive, doing the things that 16 year olds do. Perhaps the time will come in this country when crime, criminals, and the victims the crimes create will be dealt with in a manner that is devoid of emotion, haste, sensationalism, and political grandstanding, because the truth of the matter is that dealing with crime – even crimes involving children –  in the heat of emotion makes for bad laws and bad decisions that punish everyone, including the victims of those crimes by taking much needed funding away from where it can do the most good, or by clogging courts and prisons with so many people that the truly violent have to be released to prey again.

      Cases such as this are heartbreaking to the extreme. They are tragic, senseless, and emotionally explosive. They receive hours of air time on television and days of coverage in the newspaper. Grieving parents are sidled up to by politicians drawn to the cameras and the reporters as moths are to a flame. Fists are shaken like sabers before battle and various new laws are passed in haste that pertain to the unique set of circumstances of that particular tragedy.

      Unfortunately, the nest senseless tragedy will be accompanied by its own unique set of circumstances.

      As we seek to make children safer there are those who would argue that what is being done is having a reverse effect. In a passage from “Perverted Justice”, author and forensic psychologist Charles Patrick Ewing writes:

      “From the research, however, it appears that the emperor has no (or very few) clothes. The consensus of empirical research is that these sex offender registration and notification laws have no statistically significant effect on sex offender recidivism and thus fail to provide the protection upon which they are premised and which they promise to the public. Related laws that restrict the residences, workplaces, and movements of sex offenders also appear to do little if anything to reduce recidivism and may have the unintended consequence of making sex offender recidivism more likely because they engender hopelessness in some offenders, impede their contact with social support networks in the community, and create disincentives for pro-social behavior. Moreover, these laws may make citizens (especially children) less rather than more safe because they engender a false sense of security.”

     In an article in “Prison Legal News”, Lt. Ruben Diaz, who heads the sex crimes unit for the Harris County Sheriff’s office in Texas, admitted that it is “very rare to find a perpetrator of a new sex crime among those already in the registry”.

 

     According to a blog called “Sentencing Law And Policy”, the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children states that there are currently 747,408 registered sex offenders in this country, an increase of 25% since 2006 ALONE. The number continues to grow at an ever-increasing rate and is on track to grow another 10% just this year. Those convicted of possession of child pornography make up the largest number of additions to sex offender registries in this country. James Lang, chief of the criminal division of the US Attorney’s office in Massachusetts was quoted as saying, “There’s been recognition nationwide that there’s been an epidemic.”

An epidemic indeed.

     The Supreme Court of this great nation has unconscionably legitimized immorality and the removal of God from many aspects of daily life. It has endorsed the absence of any requirement of decency in the way that people live and it has paved the way to the creation of this nation’s obsession and preoccupation with sex.

     As America descends deeper into the depths of depravity and degeneracy, those who have become obsessed are now becoming the obsession itself. Society has become so maniacally obsessed with the sex OFFENDERS that the waves of arrests and the flood of new legislation and restrictions on a select class of citizens’ freedoms and liberties threatens to overturn society and capsize the very core of its existence.

     And all because we have the right to use our freedom in pathetically meaningless and depraved ways that contribute nothing TO the good of mankind and take away much that is good FROM it.

     In the meantime, as local, state and federal governments struggle to find ways to pay for services that taxpaying citizens should have a right to expect, hundreds of millions – indeed, BILLIONS – of dollars are thrown into a cesspool of our own making rather than going to the very agencies that were created to protect children in the first place.

     Every state in the union has some form of child protective agency. Instead of using them for their intended purpose, and growing them to meet today’s special needs, we have turned the FBI into a very ineffective, and very expensive child protective agency while at the same time we reduce funding to these very critical, very well-positioned agencies that were designed to do what the name implies – protect children from neglect and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. It is easy to find stories in almost every state about cutbacks in funding. Poorly trained case workers and investigators, and fewer of them in today’s world are things that should not be tolerated by anyone who claims to be a protector of children.

     There is no dispute from any quarter that the overwhelming majority of the dangers that exist to children comes from family, friends, or acquaintances. It should be as obvious as the problem itself that funding for these agencies should be a top priority. More investigators and caseworkers who are better paid and better qualified. More therapists to turn the victims of child sexual abuse into survivors.

     It’s time to take steps that will substantively help these young victims become survivors through education, treatment, and therapy. It’s time to spend money where it will have a positive impact on someone’s life rather than using it to paralyze an entire nation, filling its citizen’s with fear and paranoia about dangers that comprise a small percentage of the damage done to children through sexual and physical abuse and neglect.

     I look forward to one day being able to write about the SURVIVORS of freedom rather than its victims, but until we re-focus our energies, intellect, and resources on solutions that can actually fix problems, we will just continue to incarcerate more people and make their re-entry into society a near impossibility, thereby effectively destroying MORE families and creating hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of victims of another kind.

     It’s time to stop the madness and end the sadness that comes when this nation’s children are victims of freedom not used well.

     I thank you for your time. God bless you and your families.

‘Giving a Voice to the Victims – Speaking for the Victims of Freedom’

On By Tony CassonIn Victims - Their Stories2 Comments

“A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes”   Thomas Henry Huxley

“As life unfolds, it is difficult to understand the consequences of our decisions and actions. We start from the right principles, having the noblest of dreams and, in time, we come up against our own monstrosity, the vile and cruel consequence of what we have done.”    From “The Last Pope”   Luis Miguel Rocha

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”  Galatians 5:13 NLT

 Chiseled words of inspiration adorn a low wall on the campus of Penn State University:          “USE WELL THY FREEDOM”

      A federal prison such as the one I am in is filled with individuals who have failed to do that. However, one does not have to be in prison to fail to use freedom in a manner that honors the lives that were lost in obtaining it in the first place, or the millions that have been lost in battle to preserve it since.

      I am sure the Penn State campus is quite large. But still, one has to think that Jerry Sandusky could not help to see those very words many times in all of the years that he was associated with that fine institution. If the charges against him prove to be true, it could safely be said that the meaning implicit in them totally escaped him.

     When freedom is not used well, there are victims…..and far too often, those victims of freedom are children.

     Children inevitably bear the brunt of many of the bad choices and decisions made by adults in the exercising of the freedoms to which we think we are entitled. In many ways, we certainly are entitled to those freedoms. But the freedom to make our own choices and decisions should also carry with it an obligation to make mature, responsible ones that take our children, spouses, friends, neighbors, and society as a whole into consideration as well.

     If that sounds like a lot of responsibility, it is simply because freedom IS an enormous responsibility. Far too often, freedom becomes centered around ‘me’ to the exclusion of anyone else. That is when the victims begin to accumulate, piling on top of one another at a constantly increasing rate until there are so many victims of freedom that is NOT used well that it becomes impossible to count them all or hear their individual cries for help.

     In past articles I have written about what I believe to be the over-use of incarceration in this country and I have expressed my opinion that it would be more prudent to implement more effective ways of dealing with the majority of those individuals who do not use their freedom well.

     In many ways, those of us who are incarcerated are victims of our own decisions on how to use – or misuse – our freedom. This does not exonerate us, excuse us, or render us innocent. Nor does it alter the fact that we are still victims. We are just not the most important, the most affected, or the most damaged ones.

     That distinction, unfortunately, lies with children. The smallest, most innocent, and most vulnerable among us are always the first to fall prey to morals that are pushed aside or freedom that is abused. They are the primary victims of our own selfishness, self-indulgence, and self-centeredness.

     Children are also casualties of constant legal battles engaged in to expand the rights of individuals to act in a manner that ignores the basic responsibilities of human decency, human dignity, and human nature; battles fought to prove that we have the freedom to live our lives as we see fit, with no thought or consideration given to the effects our actions have on our children or the children of others; battles fought to give us the legal right  – the freedom – to ignore the messages we are sending them as to what constitutes appropriate dress, demeanor, morality, or the respect of themselves or others.

     Society today is obsessed with sex. Sex sells everything, so everything must be about sex. We glorify and reward bad behavior and the famous bad men and women who indulge in it. We pay homage to individuals with empty hearts who marry publicly, reap millions in rewards, then shed themselves of what should be a sacred union with the casual attitude one might display in discarding a pair of soiled underwear.

     They are the ones who use their freedom in the most empty, immoral, and meaningless of ways and they are the ones we emulate and try to ‘keep up with’.

     Society whips itself into a frenzy of misplaced morals, improper thoughts, and questionable behavior which ultimately results in lines being crossed, opening the door through which unspeakable horrors enter.

     The children then become the victims of freedom. They are robbed of their childhood, raped of their innocence, and subjected to emotional and physical pain that is impossible to fathom unless one is unfortunate enough to be a victim as well.

     Anyone who doesn’t think that television shows such as ‘Shameless’ promote immoral thoughts and behavior is sadly mistaken. Anyone who doesn’t think that the instant availability of ‘adult’ pornography through 4.2 MILLION websites highlights a serious problem in this country is kidding themselves.

     Forty MILLION United States users visit pornographic websites daily because that is how they choose to use their freedom and their time. There is a website that promises ‘affairs guaranteed’ by connecting people looking for sex outside their marriages. The site proudly boasts 12.2 million members. There is a Smartphone app that uses GPS technology to facilitate instantaneous no-strings gay hookups in 192 countries.

     Are these behaviors what is meant by “USE WELL THY FREEDOM”?

     If you think that these pursuits do not contribute to an immorality that promotes child sexual abuse, you are very, very wrong.

     As our collective moral fiber decays and disintegrates with each blow to decency dealt by an increasingly permissive society clamoring for still more freedom for ‘ME’, an ever-growing number of children become victims who spend lifetimes in hell – trying to climb out – trying to look in a mirror and see goodness and purity after it has been stolen from them by people who have become obsessed with sex and the pursuit of pleasure because that is what society exemplifies as the best way to use our freedom.

     In searching for words to use to convey the nightmare of sexually abused children, I was led to these words written by author Greg Isles in his novel “Blood Memory”:

     “Children suffering prolonged and repeated sexual abuse are living in concentration camps. They’re under the power of despots on whom they depend for their very survival. They suffer terror and torture on a daily basis. Their own siblings, and often their mothers, betray them in the struggle for survival.”

     Harsh, uncomfortable words, some might say. But I suspect that no one who has been sexually abused would think that this even comes close to the reality he or she is living – or has lived – on a daily basis.

     My own insensitivity, immaturity, irresponsibility, and immorality in looking at and possessing child pornography is a personal horror and shame that I live with each day that I wake up in prison. I will continue to live with that shame for the rest of my life, but it pales in comparison to the horrors that the children in those pictures experienced. Perhaps, with proper therapy they can be renewed. Without it, they will doubtless serve a much longer and much harsher sentence than I.

     So then, what am I saying, exactly? Am I calling for harsher sentences for those who have viewed child pornography? No, actually – quite the reverse. This effort to imprison the people who have viewed child pornography only diverts billions of dollars throughout this country from where it can actually do some good. The only winners the way this problem is currently being addressed are those who profit from the illogically harsh first-offense sentences this country uses to solve its problems.

     To try and keep children safe and stem the flow of child sexual abuse in this country by filling our prisons and sex offender registries with misguided individuals who have viewed child pornography can be compared to the approach the government used in the infamous ‘war on drugs’.

     Nationwide, government officials tried for decades to stop the drug trade by ‘picking the low-hanging fruit’ – the drug USERS – and filling our prisons with them, clogging up our courts and costing the taxpayers untold billions of dollars in the process.  However, the drug problem remains a bigger business than it ever was. The only lasting impact in that ill-advised ‘war’ has been to leave the victims of drug abuse with no money to fund treatment or provide help.

     If you pay close attention to what is happening throughout this country today, you will see that the exact same ‘low-hanging fruit’ mentality is at work once again. This time, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ are the viewers of child pornography and the victims are the very individuals who self-serving politicians and law enforcement officials claim they are trying to protect: sexually abused children.

     I’ll explain how this is happening and how sexually abused children can be better protected, better helped, and better healed next time.

Forgiveness – A Choice and A Process

On By Tony CassonIn Victims - Their Stories1 Comment

Dear God,

Something came to my heart and I felt a strong desire to write it down in my journal. Lately the word “forgiveness” has been running through my head, and specifically towards a someone who stole my God-given innocence many years ago.  It has been a long process, but I just couldn’t get this out of my head. Is it because it’s a process of mending relationships? Realizing that we as people have our faults and fail on a day-to-day basis? Forgiveness is an every day thing, big or small, and it plays a huge role in all of our relationships. If I could actually grasp the concept and the true identity of forgiveness then just think about how much easier loving people would be. There is so much love to be given, and yet it’s masked with the bitterness and anger that we carry around as baggage. It does not take away pain, or undo the done, but it’s a process, and it’s a choice…

Thoughts on Forgiveness:

First of all there is no such thing as “forgive and forget”. It is impossible for us as humans to do, and those principles are usually taken completely out of context in the bible. My “Someone” is a lost boy and as a believer I should not turn my back on him. The love of Christ that he will see and feel through me (after sinning against me and hurting me terribly) might be the only thing possible for him to find the right path. And I may only be able to maintain positive feelings about him due to the grace of God, but that’s okay.

Second, forgiveness is not a “one time” thing that we do and then move on. True forgiveness is an attitude. Forgiveness does not involve “excusing the act.” In fact, forgiveness is about the inexcusable. Forgiveness does not involve turning a blind eye toward sin, or ignoring or denying it, or even pretending it didn’t happen. That type of response would be indulging in sin rather than dealing with it through the work of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting to remember—it means remembering to forget. I will remember the offenses, probably every time I see that “someone”.  But when I declare, “I forgive you” I am really saying that I am committing myself NOT to treat “someone” on the basis on what he has done, even though I remember very well what it was. Time is likely to dull the pain, but it is unlikely to ever completely erase the memory.

Third, forgiveness involves both choice and a process. I have made the choice, and now I am involved in the process. The first step in forgiving anyone is by dealing with the sin honestly. I still am confronting the sins committed against me, however Luke 17: 3 says “if your brother or sister sins, rebuke them and IF they repent, forgive them.” The goal of confrontation is to bring about repentance, then forgiveness, then restoration/reconciliation. True forgiveness really requires “someone” to “own” the sins committed against me and to repent of those sins. True repentance goes beyond/deeper than an apology or expression of regret. The biblical definition of repentance describes a change of mind that produces a change of direction. Repentance is more than a feeling of wrongdoing or regret and more than just an apology. Without repentance the process of forgiveness is broken. True forgiveness flows toward true repentance. If “someone” has truly repented (which I’m not certain) then it is more than understandable that I want to forgive and be reconciled with him. And my feeling of that is a reflection of Christ’s love shining through me.

Fourth, Jesus requires us to forgive the repentant. To forgive is to win one’s brother, to reclaim him from the bondage of sin…right? It basically means to release the desire to “get even” or the “right” to require him to pay for what he has done (and specifically done to me).

Fifth, I have to remember that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Forgiveness is given. Reconciliation is earned. Forgiveness and reconciliation are related, but quite distinct. Forgiveness cancels all debts, but does not eliminate all consequences of it. To be reconciled with my “someone”, they must demonstrate a clear and convincing way that over time they have has changed their attitude and mind about the sins committed against me. They are not to be trusted until his actions reflect his repentant words.

Forgiveness is ultimately an act of the will, not a stirring of emotions. For a flower of Christ, it is a choice to obey God and let it go. So when I say “I forgive you” I have to promise myself to not rehearse in my mind the evil that occurred, and declare that the issue between us is dead. When the painful memories, surface (which they do and always will), I promise myself to take it to the Lord and lay it at the foot of the cross.   C.S. Lewis says “to forgive for the moment is not difficult, but go on forgiving, to forgive that same offense every time it recurs to the memory- that’s the real tussle.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes said “forgiveness has many layers, many seasons. The important part of forgiveness is to begin and to continue. The finishing work of it all is a life work.”

The bible says “God can restore what the locus has eaten.” No matter where I am or what has happened, I am not damaged goods and I am a very special and precious child in His sight. God will use my pain to refine and strengthen me and to sharpen me and to give me compassion and understanding so that he can use me in a mighty way down the road. I just have to trust for now, that God is in control and he has a plan. I cannot let Satan let me suffer twice for the same evil—first what happened to me and what was done against me, and second by hardening my heart towards God.

God works in mysterious ways. A friend told me that taking a step back these last few weeks would be good for us (not pertaining to this) but by doing that I have been able to really focus on myself and fix the things that were going on my life and refocus. Little did I know God would lay this all on my heart and really make me face the facts. This situation took a toll on me these last few months and I was looking for an “out” in all the wrong places. Made me become someone I was not and dependent and needy upon others. It ruined relationships with friends, parents, and even people I cared about in other ways and potentially love. If only I had taken a step back and listened and wasn’t so stubborn, I could have stayed true to myself.

Thank you God, for giving me this opportunity and for the man (who I admire so much) for telling me to “chill”, even though he has things he has to figure out as well. Without that, I don’t know if I would have ever come to this realization. Relationships take work, and the most important one is between you and I. My family, that ‘someone’, my love life, and my friends will all fall into place once if I stay true to the person I know and the woman you have created me to be. I will fail you and others on multiple occasions, but I ask for your forgiveness in that, it’s a process and its one I’m willing to take head on. I love you.

Love,  A Forgiving Victim

Giving A Voice To The Victims

On By Tony CassonIn Victims - Their Stories, Volume 22 Comments

“My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God.”   – Cormac McCarthy , “The Road”

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him.”    – Psalm 127:3 NLT

“But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the sea. – Jesus Matthew 18:6 NLT

I pray daily.

I pray from the depths of my heart. Often my prayers go something like this:”Lord give me the wisdom that will enable me to write words that will somehow make a difference in someone’s life. Illuminate my path and lead my heart and my hand to a way of communicating that will help me to do my part to leave this world that you created, and the people in it, in a better way than I found them.”

I struggle with that concept, for the world and the people in it are in dire need of God Himself. What can a mere man do – a man who is in prison, no less – to change or improve anything for anyone?

Praying for an answer to that question, the path is suddenly made clear and I am led to the words of Helen Keller: “I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything. But still, I can do something. I will not refuse to do something I can do.”

With the encouragement of my editor and inspired by the courage of a very special individual who wrote to me and wishes to share thoughts about their own struggle with being sexually abused, I have decided that I can do this: I can, in a very small way, give a voice to victims of sexual abuse.

Some cannot or will not speak for themselves, so I will humbly – and most likely inadequately – endeavor to use my voice on their behalf. Others, like the young person who I am sure God is using to help me find my way, will speak for themselves.

That is my hope.

That is my prayer.

That collectively, all of our voices will be heard clearly around the world with the knowledge that, together, we are more than one and with God lighting the way, the something we can do can change things, if only just a little.

We cannot change the whole world. We cannot change everything.  But we can change something. We simply must not refuse to change the something we can.

WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?

–  According to an Associated Press story I read some time ago, forty eight women are raped hourly in the Congo. The article went on to state that 400,000 women were raped in a twelve-month period between 2006 and 2007.

–  A more recent· AP story showed a horrific photo of a fifteen-year-old child bride in Afghanistan who was viciously tortured and sexually abused in her in-laws’ basement for six months. They ripped out her fingernails, broke her fingers, and tortured her with hot irons – all in attempts to force her into prostitution

–  According to a report by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network, in which statistics from the U.S. Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and various others quoted, there are 207,754 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in this country. That’s the equivalent of one every two minutes.

– Also according to RAINN, in 1995 (the only year for which I had statistics) local child protection agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse. Of that number, 75% were girls. 30% of them were between the ages of four and seven. Of the assailants, 34% were family members, 59% were family acquaintances. Only 7% were strangers to the victim.

The first person to lend their voice here knew the assailant very well. While the victim does not offer specifics about the abuse or the individual responsible, the victim’s Christian-based thoughts are centered on healing and forgiveness – a healing and forgiveness made possible by a strong support system and the understanding that sustained, professional counseling will help with the pain and suffering, the life-long wounds sexual abuse leaves on a person’s soul.

As society struggles to determine how best to deal with the perpetrators of sexual abuse, the victims struggle to deal with recovering from the abuse itself.

How does one go about reclaiming something that has been taken in a way that leaves the victims feeling responsible somehow? Leaves them feeling less than whole? Leaves them feeling alone, isolated, abandoned and ashamed?

Here, then, is the voice of a victim:

I applaud the courage and determination of the person whose words you find in the next article in this series.  I applaud the commitment to heal and help the one who wronged.

If anyone would like to share a story in a future article or comment without your e-mail address being published, please write to: oakdaletoc@gmail.com.

We did something at least. We can do more.

I thank you.

Send your stories to:      oakdaletoc@gmail.com