my grandbunny Fluffy

This is the story of how my grandbunny Fluffy came into our lives. And more.
For a Christmas bonus for me when my daughter was five, I got a gift certificate from my employer for Dayton's, the former local, 'fancy' department store in Minneapolis (and other places). It was only for $25 but I appreciated it.

Over that Christmas, something happened to my daughter. She was very upset after the incident, entered therapy, struggled. She had been one of the favorite kids in her kindergarden class. Her teachers had told me "Rosie is the kind of student every teacher dreams of having. She is well behaved, very interested in learning and she sets an example for the other children."  But after the incident, I heard reports from those same teachers about how she had changed dramatically since her two weeks out of town and, thus, not at school. Note:  this was both a kindergarden and day care business. I chose it because as a single mother with a 9-5 kind of job, half day day care didn't work for me.  So she went to that school on days when there would have been no school at 'regular' schools. It only had kindergarden and all day care. It was a good program, actually.

Her teachers began to report that Rosie was picking fights with other children, disrupting class lessons, refusing to pay attention. Perhaps she was unable to pay attention, caught up in her emotions.

Rosie's Sunday school teacher also began to question what had happened to Rosie. Rosie only saw that Sunday school teacher for an hour a week so when that woman asked me, after one Sunday School class, "What has happened to Rosie?" I decided to sit my five year old down and ask her.

Rosie was acting differently in other venues, too. Once we went to a dinner party with some of my co-workers and Rosie stole a piece of jewelry from the hostess.  When I confronted her, she said, in an angry tone that did not resemble the happy angel I had always known, she said "It was your fault because you didn't buy it for me." She was angry with me. Very angry. I had no duty to buy her adult and 'real' jewerry! She did other things similar to the jewelry theft and when confronted, she always said "It was your fault" and she sneered and curled up her face into an ugly grimace. She was angry. Hurting angry.

I had noticed many changes in my five year old but hearing the Sunday school teacher note those changes made me realize something had happened. I assumed that what had happened was that her father had lost his temper during her Christmas visit with him, maybe he struck her.  I was not particularly concerned when I thought "maybe her dad spanked her".  I read her a bedtime story, tucked her in, tried to create a warm cosy environment before I said "Rosie, something has happened to you."  She hid under her covers, started crying and said she couldn't tell me, that 'he' said he would kill me if she told.

I stopped that conversation right there because I knew my antipathy forwards her father could easily influence the conversation. Plus I was still thinking that he had spanked her, and being spanked had shocked her. Or he had shown her his temper. Once when she was in college and I had paid to fly her to see him for a few days around New Year's, she called me from her cell phone, sitting in the cold in her dad's car, crying and telling me he had been very angry, explosively so, frightening her and she had told him she wanted to go home.  Home, for her, was not with me. I think she flew back to Chicago where her then-boyfriend lived. He was her home then.

I didn't know what to do next about my newly miserable five year old, back in early 1988. I said to her "I am going to find someone to help us."  She said "But how, how can someone help us. The court says I have to see him." Yes, this is how the daughter of two lawyers talk.  And, for all I know, her dad had talked to her about court orders around his visitation which, until this incident, I had always honored, of course.

She was sobbing inconsolably and kept saying "how can you help me? I have to go there." so I said, to sooth my child, "I don't know what I can do but I will find out what I can do.  I promise I will take care of you."  I said such things over and over to sooth her. She cried so hard, she snuffled a bit as she first fell asleep. Her soft breath quivering, huffing, tiny sobs.  I sat with her until the huffy sobbing stopped.

Then, the very next morning, when I dropped her off at the kindergarden/day care place, one of her two teachers asked me if I had a few minutes. Then, when I said I had time to talk, both of the teachers (with assistants in with the children), one wringing her hands and both of them appearing very uncomfortable, silently lead me into the kitchen of the little school, closed the door and we all sat down.

The gal who took the lead was literally wringing her hands as she said "I don't know how to tell you this and it is very hard for me but given the significant changes in Rosie's behavior since Christmas, we believe she may have been molested. We don't see such a dramatic change in a happy child like Rosie except for something like that."

To which I responded, glad, at least, that I could make the moment easier for those two good women, "Well, I actually figured out last night that something happened to her over the holidays, I asked her and she said yes but I didn't press her to tell me."

The two teachers explained to me that, by law, they were mandated reporters and they were legally obligated to report suspected child abuse of any kind. They also said they had the name of a therapist at U. of MN. whose practiced focussed on molested children and if I took Rosie to see her, they would not make the mandated report. The therapist would still have to, they said.

And, eventually, Child Protection of Hennepin County got involved, interviewed my little bunny and made a finding of substantiated child abuse. Please note that I was not present for the Child Protection interview, or the MD interview, or the police interview. Nowadays, child who these kinds of professional suspect abuse interview such a child once but back then, it was one interview after another. Plus we went to therapy.

The first day we saw that therapist, btw, she asked Rosie if she knew what a secret was. The little honey said "Yes,  a secret is something you tell your mom."  I cheered up to hear that. I interpreted her words to mean she trusted me. Then the therapist asked Rosie if she ever dreamed when she slept. To my surprise, Rosie, who has always had superb verbal skills, even at age 5, said "Yes. I had a dream last night." Then the therapist asked her what the dream had been about. I was surprised that that therapist had moved so fast with Rosie, surprised at her questions. The therapist had asked me to keep quiet and let Rosie do the talking until the therapist drew me into the conversation so of course I kept quiet.

The therapist asked Rosie to tell her about the dream. "In the dream, I was in our house in Omaha, inside with my dad and my mom was outside the house running around because she was being chased by a monster."

Then that therapist asked Rosie if she could draw a picture of the monster. Rosie said sure. She liked to draw and that children's therapist had a large white board and many color markers all set up. I suppose the therapist used such tools regularly.

Rosie drew a picture of a penis. The penis was the monster and she filled up almost the entire white board with her drawing. She made a long, cylindrical shape, with bushes around the bottom and little spurts coming out of the top. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would probably not have believed that therapist if she had tried to describe it to me. Nowadays, I suppose I'd take a cell phone photo of it. Sometimes I have wished I still had the picture Rosie drew that day because several years later, she erupted in anger and repeatedly angrily denounced me for making up the whole thing.

I still have a copy of the child protection report. I so didn't make it up.

I've never had a lot of money, even when I worked. I was working a job job when Rosie was five. I had saved my Xmas gift certificate, planning to use it to buy myself something new to wear. In those days, I usually bought myself a new, cotton knit, summer dress each spring and I had planned to use the $25 towards my new dress that year.

So Rosie continued in therapy. Sometimes the therapist would call me in for a bit, mostly not.

Easter approached. I began to talk to Rosie, and talk to myself, about how to keep her safe during her next, court-ordered visit. I was afraid to withhold a visit because I had already faced years and many tens of thousands of dollars, fighting over custody.  I did not want to withhold visits and become embroiled in more legal battle with my ex. So I said that I would confront her dad and once he knew I knew about the abuse, he would not do again for fear of being charged.

This triggered new anxieties in Rosie. She must have talked to the therapist about my, I see now, poor plan to confront the ex and send her for Easter visit because the therapist had me sit in for part of a session. She had Rosie talk about her anxiety over going to visit her dad. She told me that I was naive if I thought telling an abuser that I knew about his abuse would stop him. And I was not naive, just blind. No one knows better than I do how abusive her dad could be. Our marriage counselor testified in his deposition that my ex was the cruelest human being he had ever met and that was in over 20 years of marriage counseling.  I was slipping into my abused victim mentality when I tried to convince myself I could stop my child's abuse by just telling her dad to knock it off.

Then the therapist asked me the perfect question. She said "what did you tell Rosie that night you first confronted her about the changes you saw in her?"

Bingo. She had me. So I said "I told her that I would protect her."

Therapist asked, "Do you think she feels protected if you send her for this Easter visit?"

And I knew in that moment that I had to withhold the visits.

There's a lot more to the story. Tears are streaming down my face and have been throughout this.

I actually sat down to write about my grandbunny Fluffy. I always called her Fluffina. "My dear little Fluffina" I would say in a silly, arched tone, playing a goofy impression of talking fancifully.

I decided to spend my $25 Christmas gift certificate on a Gund, white, fluffy bunny.  Easter. A bunny.  Made sense. Gunds are great because you can toss them in the washing machine and keep them clean. Cleanish. They do wear out if your kid makes her the favorite doll. Rosie slept with Fluffy always, even took her when she left for college.

I sometimes made a fuss about Fluffina, my grandbunny, to make Rosie laugh. I would ask if Fluffina, my dear little Fluffina could spend one night with me.

At Christmas, Rosie gave me small note cards with 'gifts' such as "I promise to tidy my room when you ask without complaining." The most important gift guard, which she gave me for Xmas many years, was "This coupon good for one night with Fluffy." But whenever I tried to cash in the Fluffy coupon, Rosie would tell me she just couldn't part with Fluffy, not even for one night, not even to honor the coupon.

I had good maternal instincts when I decided to buy Fluffina for Rosie. My Rosie needed something to comfort her. I was always very aware, when we struggled to cope with the incident (whatever the truth of it may have been, I never fed her ideas and I believed what she told all those experts. With the child protection interview, they gave Rosie anatomically correct cloth dolls and asked her to show what had happened to her.  I was not present, although I was in the building. Her play with the anatomically correct dolls was videotaped and I saw it later. I had no input into what she said to that child protection worker. And I had never asked Rosie to tell me what had been done to her. I read the reports. I read what she told child protection, the therapist, the doctor, and the police officer but I never asked her to tell me. Watched videos of her with child protection, a doctor, police. The only reason I know what she did in that child protection interview is because, yes, the child protection worker's report included it.

There were two anatomically correct dolls in the room. The child protection worker asked Rosie if she could show the woman what had happened to her using the dolls. And she did. She demonstrated the male doll placing his penis in the anus of the female doll.  I had never before had a conscioius thought of anatomically correct dolls. After that interview, I felt a little violated, thinking I should have known about the dolls. I guess they don't tell parents what they are going to try in such interviews so the parents can't plant ideas in their child.

The incident ruined my life. I believe it is the root of why my daughter has shunned me for sixteen years. When she was in the fifth grade in therapy with a man named Paul, she got to a point where she angrily denounced me for making up the incest. Paul said child predators count on the children's memory erasing what happened.

And about Paul. When Rosie was in the fifth grade, she was having serial panic attacks, was very anxious. Her pediatrician referred us first to a psychiatrist for meds. Rosie and I walked out of the appointment with that psychiatrist for he reeked of cigarette smoke and he wrapped her up in a bear hug upon coming to the reception area to call her in for the consultation. He did not get permission to touch her and my little OCD wretched as he actually lifted her a bit off the floor in his bear hug. Both the unpermitted hug and the reeking cigarette smoke had both of us reeling. She looked at me with so much panic in her eyes. I said "Let's get out of here. This is not the doc for us." And on the way home, we decided meds were not the way to go. So we'd try one on one therapy for Rosie.

Rosie said she would only do therapy if I agreed that I would never talk to Paul about the therapy, never ask him about anything she said. And I never did. I wonder if she ever realized, then or later, what a huge thing she asked of me. I agreed to let her see a therapist that I could not talk to about her therapy because I thought my little girl needed to talk to someone and if honoring her demand would get her to go to therapy, I loved her enough to do it. She was only ten. She needed to talk to some adult, I believed.

Paul agreed to Rosie's terms with one exception. He said he had to interview me once to get her social history. Which he did.  That was the only time I talked to him. She saw him for several years, if I remember correctly. I recall that when she developed anorexia and started to see someone, also a male, who specialized in anorexia, she had to let go of Paul. I went  to Paul's office to get her records for the new therapist and, sure, we chatted briefly. He said "I never thought she'd take starving herself so far." "Neither did I." And that was all we ever said to one another except during the initial social history.

I disclosed the incident in the initial social history, the only time I talked to Paul about my daughter. He disclosed that Rosie had not mentioned it to him. She got around to it somehow. Maybe Paul brought it up. I don't know because, coming from a place of profound love, I never asked Paul, not once, about what she talked to him about. And I never asked her about her work with Paul.  I sat in his reception room for all her appointments. He'd say hello when he came out to get her. But it came up at some point and she was cold fury . . . at me.  She screamed, so many times, that it didn't happen, that I had made it up. And I would try to remain calm and remind her that a child therapist, her kindergarden teachers, her Sunday school teacher, a child protection worker, a medical doctor and a couple cops had all concluded the incident had happened. Some of them saw it before I did because, as I learned in this hellish experience, mothers often don't see that their child is being abused because to surface abuse is to surface trouble. It can be a Pandora's Box.

And our incident sure was a Pandora's Box for me.  It cost me my only child. And he, her father, is not only her FB pal but also her boyfriend's FB pal. Her abuser gets to have a relationship with her. And I, who gave her so much, including things she knows nothing about, am shunned. And she lies about me to folks in her life, perhaps to explain why she shuns her mother. She tells people I am severely mentally ill. How sadly funny, eh? Our marriage counselor testified under oath, and he was a man who had initially studied for the priesthood and was a very, very good man, that her father was the cruelest human being he, the doc, had met in 20+ years of marriage counseling. That doctor said her father needed extended psychiatric hospitalization, at least five to seven years, and even then, the doctor testified under oath, her father would likely never be well. The doc said he didn't think her father should have any visits with her, at least no unsupervised ones.

But she has a relationship with her father and not with me.

She can think whatever she wants, but I saved her. And I gave up a very great deal to save her.

And I never got to spend a single night with my grandbunny, Fluffina. Fluffina was wearing out last time I saw her, when Rose set off for college. Like all truly loved bunnies, she's probably not around anymore. Just like I am no longer around in my only child's life. I'm all worn out, bled dry. And her father is part of her life. What? Did she want to show up at some event having a parent and she is ashamed of me but not him?

I'm not surprised she still loves him. She never stopped loving him. I learned that one of the cruelest aspects of a parent abusing their child is that the child goes on loving them anyway. A child's love, like a mother's, does not stop because someone has hurt them.

Well. That's how I came to have the one grandbunny, Fluffy. She had a pink threaded nose for a long time but the pink faded. And so have I.