THINKING OF 'CHERIE'.

Yesterday I arrived home from a holiday. Ten minutes home and the phone rang. News about my dear friend Cherie. Cherie had suffered a severe heart attack whilst out at Bingo with her girlfriend. She was rushed to hospital, but had a second heart attack a few hours later and died.
Cold.
Clear cut.
Sudden.
Completely without warning.
The FINALITY of it all echoed and jarred in my ears.
My soul froze.

Why, you ask? This happens every day. Yes, it does. But my friend Cherie was something special. Really special. Not the person you would see in the street and have your heart flutter over. Oh, no, you would probably have dropped your eyes to avoid looking at the downcast, drooped shoulders, the baggy clothes, always clean but somehow shabby even the day after they had been bought. Hair disheveled and covering her eyes. Only one tooth on the upper jaw, right in the front. Never any makeup. Sneakers were her only footwear.

Had Cherie spoken you may have noticed a slight speech impediment. She would have made no eye contact. Probably would have rushed away as soon as she possibly could, spoken the minimum. You would most likely have thought her to be rude, as she puffed on her cigarette.

Let me tell you her story, and you attempt to walk in her shoes for a time - if you dare.

Cherie was dumped at the steps of an orphanage in a large town. Her parents only wanted sons. They actually had seven children, the first a girl, then a boy, followed by five more girls. Cherie was the second youngest in the family. The parents (I feel like saying 'child-bearers' as to me they were no parents), deposited their first baby girl at this orphanage when about three months old.

They kept the boy.
That is what they wanted.
A son and heir.
Gave him a very good life.

After that, as each successive daughter was born, each was dumped at the orphanage steps somewhere between six weeks and three months old. Cherie was six weeks old,the youngest age of any of them. The orphanage provided for the six little girls, placing them all on adoption lists after all the legal work of trying to trace their parents failed. But in 'their wisdom', they decided it best to never tell the children that they were in fact sisters. Cherie found that very hard to bear. She felt it would have helped her to gain a sense of belonging.

Every week, people would come to the city-based orphanage to 'pick out a baby' to adopt. Cherie was a difficult baby. She never fed well. She was not a good sleeper. So the prospective parents always overlooked her. She remembered when about two years old that folk thought she wasn't "pretty enough". Prospective parents, if they wanted a girl, wanted a pretty one, a dainty little girl with blonde curls and dancing blue eyes. So Cherie's dark, thick, straight hair, her dull slate eyes, bulky build and shy disposition meant that week after week she was overlooked.

One time, however, when she was nearly three, a family decided to choose her. They said she would do for what they wanted. When she was placed in their car, she discovered that she had an older brother in her new family, who had also been adopted. They treated him wonderfully.

Cherie was chosen by this family, it would appear, for the sole purpose of abuse. Her mother beat her, tied her hands behind her back, her feet together and her knees locked with fencing wire, and then would tie her to a chair. Cherie knows of no reason why. She was frequently tied up in the hen house, and forced to stay there all day, amongst the odor and filth of the hens, who would peck at her legs and bare feet till they bled. At meal times her brother would be fed steak, while she would not be offered anything so delicious. Once she even recalls that she was forced to eat dog excrement!!

The adoptive father sexually abused Cherie. Began to rape her at about eight years old, and if she refused he would punch her in the face. Consequently, over time, she had all her teeth, apart from that front central one, wrenched out of her mouth.

He told her school teachers she was dumb, because she did not speak clearly. I suspect that not having any teeth was probably the reason why!!! But the teachers believed him, and placed her in the 'dunces' seat, and treated her that way. In those days teachers often did not individually assess children, and consequently, with large class sizes and strict discipline the little Cherie was constantly overlooked, and treated as a 'dunce', until she believed she truly was one.

At fourteen Cherie became pregnant with her adoptive father's child. She desperately wanted to keep her baby; to run away and begin a life of her own. But the father forced her to have an illegal abortion at a shoddy run-down joint somewhere in the inner suburbs. He said it was because she was too dumb to raise a child!

Eventually Cherie left that house - I would never call it a home - and made a life for herself. But she feared to have another child while her parents were alive, in case they talked another doctor into aborting that baby too, because she was so dumb - you see by this time she believed their lies.

When she was almost forty, her parents had finally died, so Cherie decided it was safe to have a baby, without the fear of having a termination forced upon her. She had a little boy, Jeremy. She adored Jeremy. She was the best Mum any little boy could ever have. She loved him like no other Mum I have ever known.

She decided to trace her natural origins, and showing just how intelligent she really was, she negotiated all kinds of legal red tape until she was indeed able to discover her natural sisters and brother. One of her sisters lived overseas, and was just eleven months older than Cherie. Two years ago Cherie and Jeremy visited her sister and spent two glorious months catching up, sharing stories of their life (together but unknown to each other) at the same orphanage, and of their adoptive family situations.

Cherie found that ALL of her sisters had been placed in loving homes except for her. The one from overseas had an especially beautiful adoptive family. This actually sharpened Cherie's pain. Why did her adoptive parents choose her? Why did they treat her the way they did? What did she do to get all this trauma and abuse? All she ever wanted was love.

She found that love through giving her own love to Jeremy. She never spoke of Jeremy's father, so when she died this week, Jeremy who is just in Grade Six in Primary School, searched through Cherie's mobile phone directory and personally rang all her friends to tell them his Mummy had died!!! She was only fifty-one, but the stress her heart and her body has been through was probably just too much. What will happen to Jeremy I do not know. My heart bleeds for him.

She was an innocent victim in an horrendous life of suffering and torture - mentally, sexually and physically, emotionally and psychologically. There are folk just like Cherie in every part of this world. Women, men and children from every strata of life ~ wealth, religion, race, and nationality ~ can be victims to suffering similar to this.

Cherie was working really conscientiously with a trained therapist, and I met her in a support group where all of us gained strength and coping resources from each other. She was courageously facing the pain and attempting at the same time to make some sort of life for herself. She was particularly concerned that Jeremy be raised in a loving environment ~ and he was. She was determined not to repeat the patterns she had been modelled, and was doing a brilliant job.

It is a great shame that her life ended so suddenly, because she was making such huge strides ahead. Cherie was forging along, creating a whole new way of thinking about herself and beginning to trust others.

One of the joys of being an abuse survivor is that I was privileged to know Cherie, and many like her. It is a great honor that God has allowed me to journey with Cherie, and I count her as one of the greatest examples of survival anywhere. She truly was a Woman Of Worth!

(c). 2004. Julie-Anne Wingate.
Note: Names in this real-life story have been changed.

Women Of Worth: http://womenofworth.blogspot.com.

Maybe you are also making a new path for yourself following a history of domestic violence or childhood abuse. If so, I would welcome you to contact me at: j_anwin@yahoo.com. You may write using your real name or any name you like.
If you are right now struggling with issues of this sort, please also contact me at my email address and I will support you privately. We're here to support each other in the growth to wholeness!