Co-Survivors

That is the new term used to describe us. Not a term we wanted and definitely not one we asked for. A week ago this past Saturday, as Charles and I were asleep in bed thinking all our children were safe, not more than 10 miles away our sweet and precious daughter was going through something that no girl/woman should ever have to go through. It happened at the house of one of her co-workers. A "friend" of a friend. A place she was not supposed to be. Far from the place where she told us she would be. It's been a painful, heart-wrenching and most difficult past week and we are still trying to sort everything out. We took her immediately to the hospital as soon as we learned what happened. I kept thinking it was all a bad nightmare and I would soon wake up. You associate hospitals with your child being sick or injured, not for something like this. As we were waiting for the doctor to come in, I kept staring at a poster hanging on the wall. How to prevent your child from falling. It seemed so absurd to me. So out of place. So trivial. Where was the poster telling you how to prevent your child from going through what our child was going through?? What do we as parents say to her, how do we help her. It's not something you can put a band-aid on and make it all better. You can't wipe away the tears with the promise of ice cream or a new toy. Her pain is on the inside. She is dealing with the tragedy of what happened and also with the guilt of lying to us about where she would be. We reassure her time and time again that this wasn't in any way her fault. It didn't happen because she lied. It didn't happen because she caused it or deserved it. It happened because some morally deprived individual took something that he had no right to.

We have done everything we need to do in order to catch the person responsible and are now left with the task of trying to put our broken daughter back together. Our once free spirited, confident girl has been replaced with a quiet, more reserved one. Her and I have been spending lots of time together. Sometimes we talk and sometimes we just watch tv, both of us finding comfort in knowing the other is near. She feels safe at home with her family. I feel safe knowing she's here. Every now and then the old Caitlyn comes out. Just for a brief moment it feels like before. Her laughter fills my heart with hope, hope that not everything was stolen from her.

I have done so much research on the topic. Trying to get answers. Trying to make sense of it all. One thing that I keep reading is that you can't spend your time thinking about what you could have, should have, would have done differently. The first day that is all I thought about. What if we had not let her go out that night? Why didn't I call her before I went to bed? So many things we could have done that would have changed everything. The Butterfly Effect. No matter how much we wish we could go back, the only thing we can do is move forward. It's a daily battle for me to not go to the dark place in my mind and see her crying out for help and knowing that we weren't there or thinking about what else could have happened to her. We are a much stronger family now. More protective of each other. We will not let this defeat us.