little "sister" (niece) Rosie.
Rose Ellen Jones
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were closer to my age than they were. When I was five, years old, one of my older sisters was shot and killed by her husband. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of memories about her,....but I do remember vividly how much I missed the presence of my Mom, for quite a length of time, as she mourned the tragic loss of her 2nd born child. Even though physically she was still there with me everyday, emotionally, she was grieving an unspeakable loss. As selfish as it may sound, while everyone around me was trying to deal with losing my sister, for me, at five years old, it was more like trying to deal with "losing" my mom.
A little over two years later, my oldest brother welcomed a baby daughter; Rosie, into the world, and we grew to be great pals. I had other nieces much closer to my age,who I was also buddies with, but Rosie was different than the rest.She was a friend for me to play with, yet, at the same time, because she was several years younger than me, I also babied her, and mothered over her as we played. Years later, my husband says that he thinks I invested all my love and energy into Rosie, in order to subconsciously make up for how much I had wanted those moments with my own mom after the death of my sister. Subconscious or not, all I know is that the love I felt for Rosie, was 100% genuine.
Over time, Rosie's mom and dad divorced and her dad remarried. Eventually, her mom's new boyfriend,was suppose to babysit Rosie, ...but instead....he took her life!
I still remember when the call came that she had been taken to the hospital. I begged and pleaded with God not to take Rosie. Actually, the term "whaled" may be a little more descriptive for how desperately I prayed that night, but still, the awful news came the next morning anyway. My mind went into to some sort of emotional overdrive! It was as if my brain soaked in every detail of those next few dreadful days, and I still remember it, as if it were an hour ago. Many of the adults around me spoke of feeling anger towards God, but by becoming familiar with grief at a young age, it actually seemed more or less "normal" for me to simply always be on guard, and be prepared, because I thought God could always do whatever he chose to do, whether we wanted it that way or not, ...so I never questioned why my prayer wasn't answered. I did however feel a tremendous amount of guilt. At some point before Rosie died, (I'm not sure whether it was weeks or possibly a few months) but after suspisions were rising that she was being abused, I remember wanting to get to the bottom of the issue once and for all, so I began asking her if someone was hurting her, but she was too afraid to
talk about it. Eventually, I told her that if she could just tell us, we could get proper authorites involved, and make sure it would never happen again. She finally told
me that it was her babysitter. I didn't understand it all at the time, but of course,
by that point, my brother, (her dad) had already been reporting his concerns to social services, and for whatever reason, he was being ignored. Worse came to worse; proper authorities, and social services did not make sure that it wouldn't happen again like I had told her they would! It DID happen again, and now she was gone! The guilt that I just couldn't shake was from the memory of that day, when she didn't even want to tell me in the first place, but in a last ditch effort for help, she managed to muster up the courage to trade information, in exchange for safety, because that's what I had told her,.....that's what I HAD PROMISED HER!
For years and years to come, The idea of those I loved being taken from me, was almost constantly in the back of my mind,...and nights were the worst! Time passed, and I had my own children but I remained almost paralised with fear. I could never let them out of my sight.They never went anywhere alone with their dad, I had to be there to protect and watch themlike a hawk,because in the back of my mind, I always remembered that I had promised Rosie something that I couldn't follow though with,.....therefore, my way of handling every situation from there on out, was that I became obsessed with keeping my own kids in my sight at all times.Our neighbors began calling me an old mother hen. I knew in my own head that I was so obsessed that it wasn't healthy for any of us, but to try anything otherwise would almost send me into a state of panic. Sometimes I would pray and ask God why I was the way I was. I didn't want to be that way, but for the most part, I felt like I had no control over it.
As odd as it may sound, I felt the most "at home" with others during conversations that dealt with loss or grief, because in some strange way, it was those types of things that I related to most.
I wouldn't find out until years later, from a book by Beth Moore called;
"Get Out Of That Pit!" that the experiences in my life had cast me into a pit of dispair at a very young age, and I had litterally grown into a mindset that was accepting of dispair; a mindset that there was nothing anybody could ever do.
A year ago, I heard a sermon that changed my mind, and my life forever! I feel such a complete turn around in my thinking these days. I almost don't even want
to let myself remember how consuming those thoughts were for such a long period of my life, but I believe there are probably many others out there who can relate with me; so if you're one, I PRAY that God will use this message to lift the same burden from your heart and mind, that it did for me.
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