We rarely get to choose our defining moments. More often, we stumble into them—messy, unprepared, and only later realize we’ve been marked forever. That was certainly the case for me on a cold day in December, 1992.
I was eighteen, living at home with my mom and stepdad, and engaged to be married in three months. That afternoon I sat at the kitchen table cleaning out my purse before heading to work at Mervyn’s department store. With only a few minutes to spare, I decided it was as good a time as any to handle something I’d been carrying for far too long. It wasn’t nerves—it was unfinished business. And I knew it had no place in my future.
First, you need to understand the world I was living in.
My mom and stepfather were both totally blind, and I had grown up not only being their eyes but also their helper in countless ways—running errands, grocery shopping, driving them places, mowing the lawn, reading the mail, paying the bills. There was also my little brother, just two years old then. Caring for him was never solely my responsibility, but it became part of the rhythm of our home.
By eighteen, life was pulling me in opposite directions—toward the future I was building with Steve, and the weight of the past and present I carried at home. As Steve and I talked about marriage and eventually starting a family, my thoughts began to shift—from daughter to wife, and someday, to mother.
I hadn’t planned on ever telling my mom. It wasn’t that I was trying to keep a secret; after so many years, silence had simply become the habit. I told myself I was protecting her from more pain—she’d already endured so much with my dad, her blindness, and her family who rejected her because of it. And yes, I’d been threatened—told what would happen if I ever spoke up.
But the strongest reason of all was this: in our culture, and even in our religious circles, there were certain things you simply did not talk about. That unspoken rule had kept me silent for years.
Still, I believed that if I told my mom the truth, she’d know what to do. I had seen her make hard decisions before—like when she left my biological father, who was also totally blind, abusive, and a raging alcoholic. I trusted her strength. I had no reason to believe this time would be any different.
I invited her to the table where I was sitting and asked if we could talk. The dark wood paneling on the walls of our home always gave the room a certain heaviness, but light streamed through the large window beside me. I loved that window because through it I could see my favorite tree in the backyard—the one I’d spent hours climbing and playing around as a kid.
Behind my chair hung a massive painting of the Last Supper. As ornate as it was, I genuinely loved it. On that same wall was a phone with a cord long enough to stretch into the kitchen, where my mom often talked while cooking or washing dishes. And then there were the dining table chairs on wheels, which always struck me as both funny and a little odd. But it was home, and as painful as it often was, I loved it.
This was the familiar backdrop of my childhood. Maybe that’s why I chose to do it there. So many good things had happened around that table, but that day it became the framework for one of the most devastating conversations of my life.
Places have a way of holding memories like photographs. Of all the years I spent in that house, all the hours at that table, it’s that December afternoon that remains fixed in my mind.
My stepfather was somewhere on the other side of the house. It was just me and my mom at the table when I told her what he had been doing to me in secret all those years.
It had begun almost as soon as they married, when I was only four or five years old. And it had continued until recently—slowing only once I started working and dating Steve, mainly because I was out of the house so much more.
I didn’t have the words for an eloquent speech. There was no script to follow. I tried not to be graphic, but I needed to be clear that I knew what happened was wrong, that it had crossed boundaries no child should ever have to endure.
The word abuse never even entered my mind—it felt too extreme, reserved for the violence I had seen from my real dad. I still didn’t know what to call it because I didn’t have any bruises. Instead, safer words slipped out, words like inappropriate.
And then everything seemed to shift into slow motion.
I wasn’t met with the response I had naively expected. Instead, my mother turned to me—slow, stoic—and asked why on earth I was saying such things.
Wait. What?
For a moment I thought maybe I hadn’t been clear enough. In my effort to shield her from the details, had I softened it so much that she couldn’t see how severe the inappropriateness had been?
I was blindsided, but I stayed committed to clarity. So I gave her more. A few details—just enough to make it unmistakable that this wasn’t some vague, careless accusation born out of emotion or some hidden resentment. I had specifics. I could name what had been done.
Still, I could feel the disconnect. It took me aback, but I pressed on. At some point I even suggested she confront him directly and ask him about it.
It felt risky, like things were starting to unravel. For years I had been sworn to secrecy, warned that if I ever spoke a word, I would be the one responsible for tearing our family apart. By urging her to confront him, I had crossed into dangerous territory I’d never imagined.
This was not how I had envisioned it going. But now something had been set in motion that I couldn’t take back. My world was spinning, pieces flying everywhere, and there was no way to gather them up again. All I could do was embrace the swirl.
Looking back now, I can see how that swirl marked the beginning of everything unraveling—and eventually, of everything being rebuilt.
Then I glanced at my watch. I needed to get to work. So we put a pause on the conversation. The plan was simple: I’d head to my shift, avoid my stepfather until she had spoken to him, and then we’d reconvene.
I can’t remember exactly how much time passed before we spoke about it again. But it wasn’t long.
Back at the same table, my mother told me she had spoken to my stepfather. He said I was wrong. That what I’d said was simply not true.
Then the focus turned on me. What was in my heart that I could accuse him of such things? Why would I do this?
After all, he had done nothing but good for us. He had taken us away from my real father. He had moved us into a safer neighborhood. Bought us a house so we could move out of the government housing we were living in. He had sent me to a private Christian school my whole life!
So what was going on in me that I would say such things?
The immense disorientation of the moment kept me from seeing it for what it was—one of the deepest betrayals I would ever experience. I don’t know that I could have even accepted it as betrayal. Yes, like any mother and daughter, we’d had our disagreements. But beneath it all, I still believed the absolute best of her. And I thought she did of me as well. I thought she knew me. We were on the same team.
She was the one I most expected to stand with me. Yet in an instant it felt like a rip current had pulled us miles apart, leaving us on opposing sides. And just like that, she slipped beyond my reach.
I had been forced into the place of a defendant—suddenly on trial to defend not only my words but also my motives and my heart. The sting hit like a cold slap across the face. I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me.
But then something inside me stood up. I didn’t shrink back—this time I stepped forward, fueled by a righteous anger that, if it had a voice, would have said: Oh, hell no!
This was not going to go down like this. I may not have thought it all through. I may have caught my mom completely off guard and hit her with a shocking, unexpected blow. But one thing was certain: I was not about to have the finger pointed back at me while he slipped into the posture of victim.
Up to this point, it had been just me and my mom at the table. That’s how she wanted it. No contact. She would run the interference.
But that would no longer do. I insisted that he come out and join the conversation. Let him hear it from me directly. Let him sit in the same room while I said what I had to say.
I had tried to keep things discreet. I had tried to be polite. But this had pushed me past that. If I needed to, I was ready to give details—as many as it would take. I was not going to let him keep hiding from the truth.
She did just that—he came out and joined us at the table, and I confronted him.
At first he denied everything. Then he shifted to excuses: maybe he had done something, he said, but he couldn’t remember. He blamed the train accident that had left him blind decades earlier, claiming it may have also damaged his memory.
I wouldn’t let him hide there.
I pushed harder.
I told him that at eighteen I knew my rights—that I could make sure he never saw his family again, that I could press charges. I could have ruined him. But I didn’t want ruin. What I wanted was truth. I wanted my mother to know what kind of man she had married. I wanted it to stop, once and for all. And I wanted freedom.
He began to cry and then broke down. He confessed to the whole thing, asking for my forgiveness.
I came up for air—both relieved, and a bit exhausted. But in that breath, I experienced something else I never had before. It was like a presence – something from outside of me, yet welling up within me at the same time. I was enwrapped and encircled by it, like a strength beyond mine that held me up and immersed me.
I know now it was grace. The grace to forgive.
But it didn’t press on me like a force. As immersive as it was, I still felt like I had a choice—to embrace it, to drink of it, to yield to it, or to reject it. It was less of a demand than it was an invitation, carrying within it everything I would need if I chose to say yes.
I can’t explain how I knew this, but I had only seconds to decide. If I rejected it, I knew I wouldn’t find freedom. I wanted my future more than I wanted restitution for my past. It felt like my ticket out, and so I reached for it. In that moment, I forgave him—entirely, completely.
The release ran so deep I have never doubted it since. We were sitting across the table, yet I felt as if I had just severed the cord that had bound us—the cord of pain, abuse, lies, and secrecy.
I realize now how many firsts were bound up in that season. The first time I spoke the words out loud. The first time I stood my ground without shrinking. The first time I was betrayed so deeply and misunderstood so completely. The first time my motives were accused. The first time grace carried me further than my own strength ever could. The first time I breathed the oxygen of forgiveness and freedom.
But here’s the thing about firsts—they don’t finish the story. They begin it. A first is never the whole journey; it’s only the threshold. And as much as I wanted that moment to close the chapter neatly, life rarely works that way. Forgiveness didn’t erase the ache. Freedom didn’t untangle the fallout. Words spoken didn’t guarantee they were heard. But still, something irreversible had begun.
I looked over at my mom, certain this was the moment I had long hoped for. He had confessed—the truth had validated me. Surely now she would make it right and do what needed to be done.
Her face was fixed forward. Blank. Expressionless. Almost cold. No comfort. No encouragement.
I don’t even remember if she said anything at all. What I do remember is what she did next. She rose from the table, walked into the front room, and returned carrying the massive King James Family Bible—three inches thick, its white hardback cover stamped in gold with the words Holy Bible above a picture of Jesus.
She set it down on the table. Not to open it. Not to read from it. Instead, she placed it there to serve as a witness to an oath, asking me to lay my hand on it and swear I would never tell anyone what had taken place.
It was a promise I should never have been asked to make, one that would take me years to break free from. But this was my mom. And if this was what it took to get us back on the same team again, I would do it.
And I did.
Almost as soon as I had found my voice, albeit in a messy, unexpected way, I was forced into silence again. As quickly as I had discovered a strength I didn’t know I had, it was shoved back under lock and key. I thought strength would be applauded, even celebrated. Instead, it was treated as a threat that had to be contained.
We went on as if nothing had happened. And three months later, my stepfather walked me down the aisle.
(This is the beginning of a series. Stay tuned for more.)
Linda G Riddle 