"Silent Echoes, Unheard Cries" by Melissa Johnson

The day I was born in April 1977, floodwater covered the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee. I was the fourth of eight children born to my young mother, Kaye. Within two weeks, she handed me to her sister and brother-in-law, Ruth and Otis. It was one of the best decisions she ever made. My aunt and uncle adopted me, and from then on, I was loved beyond measure.

They spoiled me, taught me lessons I would only understand years later, and filled my childhood with abundance. My parents had a thirty-five year age gap, Momma was still young enough to want to sow her wild oats, while Daddy was steady, centered on work and family. Each summer we planted a two and a half acre garden. By late summer the basement and freezers overflowed with beans, corn, tomatoes, and jars of jam. When we had more than we needed, Daddy gave it away to family and neighbors. I don’t recall a single tomato ever rotting in his garden. We kept cows, chickens, pigs, and sometimes horses. My favorite was Bessie, our milk cow. Twice a day, before school and before bed, I coaxed milk into a tin bucket and churned butter by hand. The taste of that butter remains one of the sweetest memories of my childhood.

When I was eight, Momma decided she needed more than farm life. We boarded a Greyhound bus to Kokomo, Indiana, to stay with my aunt. After a month of concrete and traffic, both of us were homesick, and we returned to our Appalachian hollow. Home was always full of cousins, aunts, uncles, and neighbors. Momma was a wonderful cook—three meals a day, and biscuits no one could rival. Daddy worked his fingers to the bone, but Momma grew restless. She would leave for days or weeks at a time, then return to Daddy’s open arms.

The night that changed my life forever came during one of her absences. I was supposed to spend the night with Daddy but chose to be with Momma instead. That night, Daddy suffered a massive heart attack. He managed to crawl to my aunt’s house next door, where help was called. Within a month, on May 4, 1988, he was gone at the age of seventy-four. I was eleven.

While Daddy lay in the hospital, Momma made more bad choices and landed in county jail for writing bad checks. Custody of me fell to Clay, Daddy’s youngest son, and his wife, Lorna—both the same age as my mother. The day we buried Daddy, I moved into their home. That day marked the beginning of a different kind of life: one that felt like hell.

Within a month, the beatings began. While living with Momma and Daddy I had rarely even been spanked, but now I was whipped almost daily with a belt, the buckle end aimed at me. I was punished for breathing too loudly, for grades less than a B, for dishes not washed “right,” for existing. I was told I was worthless, that I would grow up no better than my birth mother, that the world would be better without me. I tried with all my being to be the good girl I had been before, but nothing was ever good enough.

By the time I was thirteen, Clay and Lorna had become foster parents. The first children placed with us were sisters about my age, both victims of sexual abuse. Clay and Lorna hurled verbal and mental abuse at them, but I was the one beaten. Whenever they were angry at those girls, they took it out on me. One foster child was mentally disabled. They had no idea how to treat her, and instead they tortured her. They forced her to push-mow our yard—the size of two football fields—in the sweltering July heat. Once, she worked so long, her skin blistered from sunburn. When I protested, I was beaten until I could not sit.

I did what I could to protect the foster kids, but that meant taking more beatings myself. Once, when I told them they should be the parents, not me, Clay chased me down the stairs and slammed my head into the wall. He grabbed a metal pipe, screaming that he wanted to kill me, until Lorna stopped him—not out of love, but because she said he’d go to jail. Then they left me bruised and battered on the floor while they drove off to a Parenting Class.

When I was twelve, I fell down the basement stairs and was knocked unconscious. By morning, one eye was swollen completely shut and lumps rose on my head the size of softballs. My uncle told Lorna I needed a hospital, but she refused. Instead, I was beaten with a belt for missing the bus. I still suffer from vision problems and daily headaches from that injury.

That same year, sexual abuse began. Clay’s friend Gene seemed harmless at first. But one afternoon, when his wife was at work, he pressed himself against me and slid his hand under my underwear. I got away, but when I told Clay and Lorna, they sided with him. They forced me to keep going back until I threatened to tell the police. Only then did it stop.

I lived like this until I turned seventeen. The day I could, I left—into an apartment with my cousin—and never looked back.

The abuse I suffered, physical, emotional, and sexual, has left scars that never fade. I still live with a broken tailbone, daily pain and headaches, and blurred vision from that untreated fall. But I also live with love: a good husband, children who steady me, and the determination to tell my story.

If you see something, say something. When I tried to tell people as a child—showed them bruises—I was told it couldn’t be true. They said Clay and Lorna were “good people” for taking in foster kids. But they weren’t. And no one believed me. You never know whose life you might save by listening.

bruises—I was told it couldn’t be true. They said Clay and Lorna were “good people” for taking

in foster kids. But they weren’t. And no one believed me. You never know whose life you might

save by listening.