note- I have changed names and places to protect those who never protected me. It is a dignity they dont neccessarily deserve but one I feel I need to deliver nonetheless.

Dearest Nana and grampy,

Im not sure what to say about what you wrote me. Im not sure what to say for several reasons. The main one being that I know ultimately despite my requests of you in the past to not involve my mother in my life you have ignored those requests out of what you thought was right instead of respecting what I believe to be right for myself. I dont want to upset you in saying this, i know that you have only tried to help, with love, but all you have succeeded in doing is making me not trust you too. This is why I dont know what to tell you about myself, and I have constantly kept you and grampy at arms length since I left my mothers care and was placed by my own request into a foster home.

Seperating myself from family was not easy but when I needed you most you let me down over and over again, passing on stories about me, photos, and passed on letters from her (which I threw away and never read) and giving her and other family members my contact details even though I had expressedly asked you not to. Again, I know you did this out of love and hope but nana there is no hope for our family. We were destroyed too completely. I understood this at such a young age and I knew that the only way I would not become destroyed as a person too was to seperate and try to be free of all the demons that had been pressed upon me, not just by my father, as I know you like to blame him for everything that happened. But EVERYONE played a part nana, each and every member of our family played a part.

Having been sexually assaulted as a child by a non member of your family must have been incredibly hard for you, and I know that you try to build a link between us saying that you understand me because of your own experience, and at times you have also accused me of lying or that if it had really happened I would have come to you about it. Well Im sorry but you are and were wrong to say those things, especially to the child that I was, trying to cope virtually on my own with what had happened to me. Can you not see how in reaching out to you then and you saying those things and going against my wishes was like pushing me away?

You do not understand what happened in that house and mainly it is because you do not wish to see. You, like mum and j*** (for those reading this is my eldest brother) and dad live in a state of denial. I beleive only T*** (the middle brother) and myself have fully faced our demons, come to understand them, not why things happened but indeed how they did. By not facing those demons you have denied yourself the most powerful thing after love on this planet. Truth. It does truly set you free you know. As hard as the facing of it is (and believe me it has taken me the better part of a decade to come through it) I have become an incredible person, one I value and love and believe completely in. Much as the experiences I have had taught not to be those things.

I do not speak to you and grampy, I have rarely visited and as mentioned I do not trust you because in all honesty you put yourselves and my mother before loving me in the way I truly needed at the time I needed it most.

I forgave you for this a long long time ago. I know that helps you to hear it, though in your denial you may rage against it or find me arrogant for saying it thats fine. ultimately I know forgiveness is a gift you actually give yourself. I am only telling you because one day it might mean something to you.

Do I think that with everything that happened in our family you, grampy, my aunts and uncles all could have done more? Yes I do.
But in saying that I also know that the past IS just that. Its what you make with tomorrow that counts.

Am I surprised that you guys are having a hard time with my mother and J*** up there? No. Not at all. I think it was the most wrong thing in the world for J***  to go back to D****** (our home town where we were 'raised') and ultimately things will get worse for him up there. How you can think it would be a healthy environment for him is beyond me. regardless of the love and support you will offer him his memories are in the dust that coats every inch of that town, and I must say I am very happy T*** and his beautiful partner J**** left. I wish them well in V*******. I know that they will be fine.

Am I suprised J***** kicked my mother out? No. I think it was a completely rational thing to do.

Finally. The reason I am writing to you.

I am writing because I know I have told you this in the past many times but like alot of things you refused to listen.

I have had many opportunities to exact actual justice on those who have harmed me in their care. I am not speaking of the courtcases, this world has not proper justice system. It has become a figment orf our imagination. No, I am speaking of the offers people have made to me. I have not only been offered but taught and advised by people who have cared greatly for me in the absence of the right kind of care from my family, I am talking about councellors, teachers, policemen, friends, boyfriends and others exactly how to destroy those who have attempted to destroy me through physical sexual and mental abuse in my chldhood. I, said plainly, could have had them all killed without ever having it brought against me.
I say this with no threat or arrogance or desire to hurt you or any other. Please just hear the rest of what I have to say.

I was taught one very valuable thing in my childhood by someone I loved and respected beyond another I encountered in my youth.
Let me tell you a bit about her. She was a woman who had big fingers and warm hands. But she could teach you the most delicate ways to be creative with cloth or wool or paint. She had a generous laugh, hug and heart. She taught me alot about the world in the most beautiful ways, which was pretty important because alot of what I knew was actually violent and painful and scary.
She taught me about Jesus a man I still dont feel like I know but maybe one day I will meet. She taught me about Aromatherapy, tarot and numerology. She said I shared a birth number with jesus and elvis. It has been my favourite number ever since.
She told me I had magic hands which could heal. She told me I had amazing eyesight because I could find things she could never find. She made beautiful meals that always filled you right up until you couldnt eat anymore. I dont remember feeling hungry in my childhood very much except when i knew I was going to visit her.

But the thing she most taaught me about was peace. She said it was as important as love and it was something else you had to keep in your heart. My decisions in my life have always been trying to maintain them both.

She is you nana. You taught me not to fight back with vengance, that in that there was only more pain. You taught me to be like jesus and let be. Let people choose to come to see the truth, to face themselves for what they had done or not live but exist int he denial of those actions. Afterall what could be worse? jail is not a physical cell, it is a place you go to in your own mind.
That is why I have not hurt another, though I have inside me an ability for an anger so deep it scares me and saddens me to know I have it. To know that I carry still the burden of what has happened to me at the hands of others. That in holding that anger I am somehow like them.

So when I had opportunity to hurt I never took it. All I could do was take from these people the one thing that I could see that might be worth something, more, than anything they ever tried to take from me. I took myself from them. I allowed them to be so that maybe through the course of living with themselves they would see and come to terms with what they have done.
I never asked for much, I only ever asked for the truth.

Until that day comes nana, I will never speak to my mother. It has been 12 years you know? Since I last spoke to her. Until she is ready to be again the mother I am worth having and she is worth being by owning her mistakes and saying them plain truth until then she will only have her denial and you guys faithfully keeping her there.
I know you worry about her sanity, about whether she could take to face herself and what she put us and herself through but you should have more faith in her than that. Afterall, she came from you.

J*** has been striving for peace for a long time and I hope given a few more years he will come to terms with it. I understand his struggle, he started facing his demons when he was 21 or so, I had 8 or so years on him headstart and appreciate his journey will be a little different to mine. I wish him the best, please tell him I forgave him a long time ago too. He needs to hear that I am sure. Let him know it DOES get better, to always remember it could be worse and that no matter what there is something better out there for him waiting for him find it.

I am unsure what to say about Grampy. A man who always seemed more absent from life than ever really in it. A man I never really felt like I knew but wanted to. I hope he heals in his own way and when his time comes I hope it is easy. (he faught in the 2nd world war and has aggressive prostate cancer)

And you nana? The help you need, the love you are lacking as you cannot do it on your own. The heaviness of my family coming full circle to give you responsibility you may feel unable to provide? Its yours. Take it. Own it. It is a gift. If anything, save J***, because he cannot save himself, he is not strong like T*** and I are. J*** was born too peaceful a soul to ever know how to fight for himself.

And for Gods sake forgive yourself. He wants you to. This I am sure.

Goodbye Nana.
I cannot say for certain but I dont think Ill be writing again. At least not for a long while. I have said all I feel needs to be said.

Please know,

Ill always love you.

Jillian