After Mrs. Black’s car is sighted coming up the driveway Sam is told to put her work away and then as she is sent to the TV room for the kids she is reminded to be seen and not heard.

Mrs. Black is in the same age range as Helen. They get along very well. Helen is a totally different person during the visits. It is one of the few times Sam has seen a smile on Helen’s face. Mrs Black and her husband come over now and then and go snowmobiling with Peter. Mrs Black sees Sam as she passes by on her way out and says hi to Sam. Sam also liked her social worker and she wished she could spend more time with Mrs Black. Sam looked forward to the times Mrs Black takes her to the dentist and special doctor appointments.

There were many things that contributed to Sam’s poor grades in school. She had so many things to worry about that no kid should have to be concerned about such as the problem she had with her socks.

Sam would go to school well dressed with a pair of white socks on. Most days when Sam returned home, her socks would have a certain amount of dirt on her socks even when she wore her shoes for inside. She had a great fear of going

home due to her socks being dirty because Helen freaked out over Sam’s socks having dirt of very minimum.

When Sam returned home she would try to sneak upstairs to change before Helen asked to see Sam’s socks. Blowing the situation out of proportion, Helen orders Sam to scrub her socks clean and as Helen would say “you have ten minutes”. After doing it several times over and over she knew she wouldn’t be able to get the socks totally white because they weren’t perfectly white when she put them on.

After Sam’s ten minutes are up Helen comes to check the socks and after seeing they still have stains on them she slaps Sam across the face telling her she had plenty of time to have the socks clean. Then she tells Sam she is scrubbing them until they are white no matter how long it takes her. Sam scrubs until her knuckles are sore and Helen tells her to put them in the wash. Eventually Sam started taking off her socks when she arrived at school and she put them back on after school was out before returning home.

Sam had the same problem with all her clothes. Helen dressed Sam up as if she was going to a tea party instead of like a little girl going to school. At school many days Sam would stand on the school steps as to be sure she did not get any dirt

on her since she needed no more trouble. She had enough problems dealing with Helen and all her retarded rules. If Sam had felt she could go play with the other children maybe she would have had more than one friend. Instead Sam was like the runt of the litter who was always being picked on or pushed around.

One day at school in grade three, Sam had a cream color knit sweater on while at recess she got pushed down into a mud puddle by one of the school bullies. When Sam saw the mud on her sweater, she panicked and started crying right there on the school property. She ran inside to the washroom and tied to scrub out the mud but it stained and would not come out. That afternoon Sam watched the time go by on the clock as she dreaded the time she had to go home. After counting the hours, then the minutes go by she had bad cramps in her stomach from worrying.

When Sam reached home that afternoon she had her cuff of her sweater rolled up hoping Helen won’t notice it. Having no luck on her side Sam was questioned by Helen to why she had her cuff rolled up and then she was ordered to show it to Helen.

Once again Helen is into an automatic rage without listening to Sam’s explanation. Helen tells Sam to get the sweater washed out and to use the proper

soap. Helen says she doesn’t want to see a trace of the mud. Sam is crying due to being scared and she doesn’t know what the proper soap is. She knows that no matter what kind of soap she asks for, if it is right, Helen will say “use the proper soap” without telling her what the proper soap is. After Sam gets the laundry soap, Helen tells her to “put it back, Miss Smarty”. After awhile Helen grabs Sam by the hair and drags her to the bathroom, shoves her head down to the hand soap saying” What the hell is wrong with that soap?” Then she tells Sam to put the sweater in the laundry and pushes her over to set the table saying “see if you can get that right”.

Sam is setting the table to the best of her ability when Helen yells at her to set the table properly but Sam can’t see anything wrong with it. “If I have to come over there girl you’ll see what is wrong with it.” threatens Helen. Sam starts crying again due to being scared and not knowing where the wrong is. Sam fumbles around the table trying to find the fault before Helen comes over, but she is too late. Here comes Helen. Helen pulls Sam by the ear asking her why the knife is on the wrong side when she hits Sam across the knuckles two or three times accusing Sam of lying by saying she did not know it was on the wrong side. It appears that Helen thinks Sam is as if to conspire against her. You would think if she knew the child was crying from fear she believe the child but not this lady.

Sam tried to explain she isn’t lying but that she did not see the knife on the wrong side but it does her no good.

Being called a liar was nothing new to Sam. She was constantly called a liar at everything Helen found wrong and for punishment Helen would put either hot ground red pepper in Sam’s mouth and she wasn’t allowed a drink of water afterwards. When Sam starts crying because it is hot, Helen slaps her across the face. Sam must have been expecting not to have feelings of hurt.

It is not hard to see where Sam was frightened all the time and she did not do anything to bring on more harsh treatment. She felt as if she were walking on thin ice never knowing when she’d go through. In fact Helen would tell Sam how she was “walking on thin ice”.

So often when Sam had done no wrong, Helen looked until she found something or made something up. All it took with Helen was a piece of lint on the carpet.

One of Helen’s weird ways of punishing Sam was making her stand in the middle of the floor with her arms outstretched in front of her holding a heavy bottle of peanut butter for a long period of time or until Helen said to put it down. Not sometimes but always Sam’s arms would give out and get tired before Helen would tell Sam to put it down, so then the strange punishment would be given

again for a longer period of time. Eventually Sam couldn’t do it anymore so she would be slapped around and after she would receive a beating, Sam was sent off to tangle with her next task which usually had something to do with housework.

As a small child, Sam can remember the visits of her foster grandfather, Henry. Her first memories of Henry are of her innocent at the age of five or six being fondled by Henry who must have been seventy five. The fondling would take place almost anywhere such as the barn, inside or behind it, the woods, the house or while at someone else’s home. He’d tell Sam not to tell anyone because they’d think badly of her and well, she didn’t want them to feel any worse about her than what they already did.

Sam well remembers the night that Henry died and immediate feelings afterwards. As Sam lay in bed just after hearing the news about Henry she said to herself “Thank God” her problem with him was now solved. She felt scared because of what she had said. She thought she was the worst person.

#May #diamonds # green # leaves # princesses # fairies

The month of May has always been a special time of year for me.

After a long cold winter , May lead me into a time of searching for sanctuary while walking the fields hunting for some beauty in my tortured world.

The leaves stand out to my eye like a diamond in a wealthy lady’s heart. The leaves were a sign of hope to a scent that would lift me into peaceful clouds . The green stood out amongst the old dead brown grass killed by winters wrath .

As I see some leaves, my heart grows light and my walking pace turns into a genealogical gallop. Bending down gently lift up the leaves to see if the flowers are opened yet . My small child hands almost tremble with excitement. I discover some small pink delicate flowers . It’s as if they were expecting me and wave with the spring wind.

The first one I pick goes straight to my nose and as I breath in through my nose , I’m washed away in bliss by the smell. Time stands still but for a second. The fragrance makes me thinks of princesses and fairies and they sit with me alone as my rescuers in a field at the edge of the woods.

Each year this was and still is something that I couldn’t go with doing. It is like a magnet that draws me during May.

Now at 55 bending over to pick isn’t as easy but enjoying them is just as wonderful as it was when I was 7. . I can only hope that each spring in the future , I can enjoy the smell of fairies and princesses.

#fragnanceofprincesesandfairies.

Just wondering how all the bloggers are doing. Hope you are finding lots of words hidden in the recess of you mind and heart. Let your writing give you wings that will carry you to places of comfort and adventures. 🌸🌸

# part2 wetting the bed at night isn’t enough now you do it during the day . Helen

Hell hath no furry

My heart has swelled with forcible rage
Like that of a monster burning in hell
My blood has thickened into boiling lava
that’s burning my lungs and stealing my breathThe rage has swelled up to my eyes
the tears that are flowing I’m drowning in
as my child within screams please let me hide
all I can see is black insideMy stomach is twisting and knotted so tight
and the pain that I feel I’m sure to die
the vomit I spill comes up like a knife
as it cuts open wounds that never will  heal My legs are weak as they try to run
My anger says kill the bastardly ones
The abuse of a child kills mind and soul
an adhesive that is carried right through to death 

Written by E.M.Rushton all copyrights ©️reserved by E.M Rushton 2015

This is how I feel when someone speaks of child abuse

Part 2

When Helen discovers the wet bed, she flies into a rage. “Wetting the bed at night isn’t enough anymore, now you have to do it during the day?” Helen scolds Sam as she addresses Sam as “Piss Ass”. While Sam is being scolded she tries to physic herself up to what is happening and what is coming. She has no words to defend herself except to say that she did not do it on purpose and she is sorry. As Helen stood over Sam while Sam stripped the bed, Sam is beaten and told how lazy she is. Sam is then led down the stairs with Helen pulling her by the ear. Sam fights to keep her balance to keep from falling down the stairs. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, Sam wishes she would fall down the stairs so she could hurt herself bad enough to land in the hospital away from Helen and Peter.

Every morning starts the same. As Sam wakes up wet, she says to herself before getting out of bed “Oh God I’m wet again” as she fills with fear and becomes panic stricken. She could not figure out why she wet the bed, but she knew she just could not wake up. Now that Sam is an adult she figures she did it due to the hell she lived in from day to day. Most days like weekends and holidays spent home, she cried ninety five percent of the time.

“Get out there and get those pissy sheets washed and you have 15 minutes to do it” Helen told Sam as she pushes her out the door. If it was a school morning, Sam would sometimes get off without having to do her morning chore but not very often, and if she did she would surely pay for it after school.

As Sam is pushed out the door crying, Helen locks the door so Sam won’t enter before being done her wash. She tries to explain she cannot do it because it is too cold. As she buttons her coat, she heads towards the barn, where she must fill a five gallon bucket full of cold water from the steel pump. She must then carry it back to the house where outside she fills the old tin wash tub.

As she gets her bucket from behind the cattle stable, she thinks about being in the barn, well at least she’s away from Helen even if it is just for a few minutes. The smell of the hay gives her a sense of comfort somehow.

Sam feels like a total outcast with this family because everybody else is inside preparing for the day. Mitchell and Leonard are getting dressed and having breakfast. They never tried to defend Sam while being tormented by Helen, Who would really blame them as long as Helen was on Sam’s back, she was leaving them alone. Mitchell was spoiled rotten. There were times Leonard was treated harshly but it never came close to Sam’s treatment, Sometimes Leonard and Sam would talk about running away together but in the end Leonard always chickened out.

Now comes the hard part of carrying the bucket of water from the barn to the house. Every now and then she must stop to put her hands in her pockets to warm them up since she isn’t allowed to wear mittens. After passing the big maple tree on her right and the garage on the other side, she knows she has reached the halfway mark. She looks at the house, almost feeling the warmth inside. Out here it is below the freezing mark. Finally she reaches the house but not without getting herself wet which she knows she will pay for later. Pouring the water in the wash tub, she spills more water on herself and she has used up most of her time by the times she gets her second bucket to the house. The water is cold as she scrubs the sheets on the old wash board. The more she tries to

hurry the longer it takes her. Helen never gives her soap to use, but she must rinse them adding two more buckets of water that she carried.

Helen appears in the window pointing to her watch. Her time is used up. As Sam wrings the sheets out, her hands turn white form cold. Now she tries to hang the clothes on the line but it is difficult due to them freezing. After she is done and in the house, her hands pain something terrible as they warm up. Sam wishes this task was the end of her punishment for the day over the bedwetting but it isn’t. She is tortured throughout the day. It does not end until Helen and Peter are in bed asleep for the night.

Some of the direct punishment Sam receives for wetting the bed is most unusual, cruel and harsh i.e. the days she has to wear plastic baby pants to school under her regular clothing even in grades four and five. There was this one day Sam must wear her yellow blouse with “Piss Ass” written on the back of it to her one and only friend’s home. This is the only time she is allowed to go to her friend’s place. As Sam walks down the old dirt road, any dignity she had was stripped away from her. She has a hard time explaining it to her friend. Sam’s friend really didn’t never seemed to cease. Helen always came up with new ideas to torture Sam. There were many times Sam wasn’t allowed to wear any clothes while at home. Helen would claim that if Sam didn’t wear any clothes then there would be none to wash. This was very embarrassing for Sam especially because of the boys and the grandfather. Sam would refuse to go outside where the boys were but Helen would go behind with a belt or switch, hitting her, and forcing her .

Then there were the times Helen would make Sam sit in tubs of scalding hot water or ice cold water insisting this would take the pissy stink away.

Sam always had a hard time in school and Helen let it be known and she’d rub Sam’s nose into the fact her foster brother, Leonard, was doing better than her. Leonard was always receiving A’s and even a B+ wouldn’t be enough to stand up to an A.

Sitting at the kitchen table doing homework was a nightmare for Sam. With Leonard at one end and Sam at the other doing homework, Helen does up some supper dishes. As Sam pretends she is figuring out a question, she gets nervous and fidgety in her chair. She doesn’t have a clue to what her work is about but she knows if she were to ask Helen for help that would only receive a statement of “I

ain’t the one doing the homework so figure it out for yourself and you have ten minutes to have it done”. Eventually either Leonard would be the one to show Sam how to do the work ordered by Helen or Sam would be called stupid and made to put the homework away and passed in undone. In grade three Sam failed and that meant more name calling by Helen and Leonard would be in Sam’s class the following year. It also meant Leonard would report to Helen everything Sam did.

After Sam failed third grade, there was a lady sent to the school to spend an hour with Sam once or twice a week. It is not known if she was a tutor or a physiologist. Sam liked this lady a lot, actually she worshipped her.

With a pretty good idea that Mrs. Black the Social worker, will be in today Helen makes sure that the kids know they are to be seen and not heard. Chances are the kids will be sent outside or to the TV room. The only time Sam saw the TV was when company came. Usually the kids are in school on the day Mrs Black visits but today is a school holiday. The children rarely have a chance to talk to the social worker especially about something that may be bothering them.

Sam sits at the kitchen table writing “I will not lie again” one hundred times while Helen hivers over her telling her how much of a liar she is. Sam was constantly

called a liar when she did not lie. Leonard and Mitchell are outside playing while Peter is off to work.

After Mrs. Black’s car is sighted coming up the driveway Sam is told to put her work away and then as she is sent to the TV room for the kids she is reminded to be seen and not heard.

unwantedchildpart2