MY SISTER THERESA'S 11TH ANNIVERSARY
Today I want to talk about God and hope, and my beautiful sister Theresa.
Tomorrow is my sister Theresa's 11th anniversary. Theresa ended her life on 23 February 2005, just three weeks after my brother Michael was found dead.
Theresa left a 35 page suicide note outlining the abuse she suffered at the hands of my father and my brother Peter, she also spoke about witnessing Michael being abused and how my brother Martin who ended his life in January 1995 told her many times about the abuse he too suffered by my father and brother Peter.
After Michael was found dead, Theresa began to get more memories of being abused by my father, this often happens to an abuse victim in that when we suffer a trauma it brings other traumatic memories to the surface. Theresa rang the officer over my case at Dunlaoghaire to report these new memories but the officer who was a friend of my fathers, reminded Theresa that "Me and your dad go back a long way". Put simply he refused to interview Theresa and refused to take her allegations.
This added to Theresa's torment, and when I saw her a few days before she ended her life she told me I was crazy if I believed that anyone would ever pay for what they did to us and to Noleen. I knew that Theresa had lost all hope and I begged her to hold on.
I told her about my solicitor Gerry and that he was on our side and that I believed that I would get convictions, but Theresa would look at me as if I had lost my mind and kept repeating "Sindy your crazy if you really think they will pay, mammy and daddy are too well in with the cops, you know that, they have too much on those cops, they have already got away with it, your mad if you think the cops will listen to you, when they are friends with da".
We both dealt with our horrific childhoods in different ways, Theresa saw it for what it was, so did Martin, they both could see something I couldnt, or wouldnt allow myself to see. They knew that my parents had got away with the abuse, they accepted that no one would ever pay for what was done to us, I couldnt, or wouldnt allow myself to see that. Because if I accepted that then there was no hope for me either.
Sometimes I get angry with myself, for being so stupid, for not being realistic, for not having the clarity that Theresa and Martin had, for believing in something that was so unbelievable, for ever even daring to hope they might pay. Sometimes I readily accept that Theresa and Martin were right, that all my efforts are wasted, that the last 23 years of fighting and hoping were for nothing, sometimes I wish I had never started this battle. Sometimes I wish I could just give in too or more aptly give up.
Theresa and Martin gave up, they knew there was no point, they knew that my parents had way too much over the cops, for the cops to have ever put them on a stand in a courtroom. That rang home to me when my mother was interviewed and one of the cops who sexually abused me, and I suspect sexually abused my brother Martin, sat beside my mother for the whole interview. Both of them sat there, together, what chance did I stand?
Theresa witnessed first hand, a cop, a good friend of my father's, walking my father out of the police station with his arm around my father telling my father to "Go home Peter and have a good Christmas, don't worry about this I will make sure nothing comes of it". This said to the man who raped me three Christmas days in a row by a police officer.
I often ask myself what is the difference between me and Theresa and Martin, why dont I see things as clearly as they saw it, why won't I accept and give in or give up? I wonder am I stupid to continue this battle. I ask every day where does it get me, I am angry at what it has stolen from me, and I get frustrated daily at the long indifference and silence from the Garda at Dunleary.
The officer over my case retired nearly five weeks ago, we didn't even know he was retiring, we found out in this newspaper article:
No one has been in touch to let us know he is gone, or to let us know who is taking over, they obviously knew for quite some time he was retiring, but no one thought to tell us. We met with them in August last year, they were supposed to be following specific lines of inquiry, that may have led to further action. At this moment in time I have not heard from them since August, not one word, to let us know where those inquires led or if they even followed them up.
At this moment in time, I am angry, frustrated, and feel like giving up, at this moment in time I empathise with Theresa and can see why she ended her life. I often think like this, when all my efforts go nowhere, when no one is listening, when it falls on deaf ears. I often whisper to her "you were so right darling, why, oh why, can't I just open my eyes and see it how it really is, why can't I have the clarity that you and Martin had, and why am I so stupid?"
At times like this I can fully understand why they gave up, why they gave in, and saved themselves the years and years of torment I have put myself and my family through. And then I always ask again, why am I different to them, and I remember that, while they chose suicide to cope with their awful horrors. I choose hope and my faith in God. Let me explain.........
I began to believe in God again after Martin died in 1995, Martin's death led me on a journey looking for answers, searching for a meaning in all this, wondering why it had all happened and why it had all gone so terribly wrong. My journey took me on several roads, it was long and searching and at times very confusing and overwhelming. The only thing I knew for sure was that somehow I had survived my awful childhood and somehow I was still here and still looking for answers.
All I knew was that I had survived the night Noleen was murdered, and survived having given birth at the age of 11 with no medical treatment. I had also survived after my mother tried to kill me too that night. I then went on to survive another pregnancy, and many more years of abuse.
I went on to marry and to leave Ireland, and I somehow carved out a life for myself in the UK, but always at the back of my mind was the fact that one day. I would speak out and tell the world what they had done to me, and my daughter, and what they had got away with.
And in some ways that brings me back full circle, to when I did tell, in that I told with the hope that they would pay. I told for the purpose of them going to prison. But Theresa and Martin, knew, from the moment I told, that I was wasting my time, that I was up against too much, that the odds were stacked way against me and they coped by giving up. Where I coped by fighting.
So last night as I was thinking about my beautiful baby sister, who ended her life aged 33, accepting a fact I cannot accept, that no one would ever pay. I was filled with pain and disillusionment, as I wondered all over again, why, I wanted to fight, when Theresa wanted to give in. I was sat wondering how on earth I would get through tomorrow. How would I get through the day, because as it approaches Theresa's 11th anniversary. I am faced with the cold harsh truth, that it looks like this police inquiry is going nowhere, that they have let me down all over again, that they are not listening and that they do not hear me, and that they have no idea whatsoever about how their long hard silences affect my day to day living, and has done since they took this case up again in 2014.
I was beginning to despair, I was losing all hope, as I was haunted by memories of Theresa's death and funeral, and the fact that at the age of 43, I had to scatter her ashes, at the pier in Dunleary, of my beautiful sister aged only 33, because she had given up, because she had lost all hope.
How I was asking myself, how, will I get through Tuesday, when my phone beeped to let me know I had a new message, it was from my son, and it was about a man speaking at his wife's funeral, who had been killed in a car accident.
My son said, "Mum, watch this video its so inspirational, of a man whose wife was killed in a car accident last week, God is incredible, the strength he has given this man, if you believe in God, God believes in you".
And so I watched the video and I remembered that through my faith in God, I had hope, that Gods love and mercy gave me hope, and that it was hope that had kept me alive, kept me fighting, kept me going, when all else had failed and is still failing, and at times like this when I want to give up, or give in. God always finds a way to remind me that he will give me the strenght to carry on.
The God I believe in is a God of my own understanding, which simply means using your own experiences and your own understanding of your life and applying your personal experiences to your understanding of God, and not the God of "religions". Believe in your own understanding of God. Trust in God, turn to God, and God will bring you hope and strength.
When I look back over my life and remember all that I had gone through, in such a short space of time, and at such a young age with no one to support me.
Aged 23, I had fled to the UK to escape a violent marriage with a four year old son, and found myself homeless. I had lost two children already by that age, and had suffered all that abuse.
By the age of 26 I was pregnant and homeless again in the UK, I left my sons father at 5 months pregnant because he was violent and a gambling addict, and was going through a divorce with my first husband. Shortly after my son was born I suffered a miscarriage.
I might have been forgiven for believing that after I had met my second hubby Simon, who I am still very happily married to for 28 years, that life would get easier for me.
But no sooner had I started off a life with him that would give me stability and security, that would give me a life with no abuse, a life that was almost as normal as the next person's life, then my whole world came crashing down around me, and my childhood reared its ugly head to haunt my every waking moment and set me off on a 23 year legal battle looking for Justice for Noleen.
When I look back over my life, and think of this legal battle I endured, 8 DPP decisions and every one of them was to tell me that there would be no prosecutions. Most people only experience this once in a criminal case but I had to go through it 8 times.
I also had to wait 2 years for my case to come back from Europe to tell me that they refused my case too. Then I had to wait for 4 years while Alan Shatter was my lawyer, supposedly bringing a private case for me, and that also fell through.
I had a four year wait with the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, to find out that they too have turned my case down. Desperate for recognition and acknowledgement I then admitted a case with the Criminal Injuries in Ireland in 2006, they have had my case TEN years and are no nearer making a decision now, than they were ten years ago.
All that and much more, my three siblings deaths, and Theresa and Michaels Inquests and funerals, scattering Theresa's ashes, Noleens Inquest, and much more. All that heartache and let downs and betrayals. I could be forgiven for approaching tomorrow, full of despair and with no hope, and wondering where on earth I would find the strength to get through tomorrow with my heart broken, and such a heavy burden.
And I could be forgiven for being reminded again, that Theresa was gone 11 years, and STILL no one had paid, the police did not even give her suicide note to the DPP, and my parents, or my brother Peter was not even interviewed about the allegations Theresa made in her note.
Theresa addressed her note to me and the officer who would not take her allegations seriously, she felt if he would not let her speak about the abuse in life, he could read about them in her death note. And then she gave up and found a place to rest, where no one could ever hurt her again, she went in search of light and peace.
And so tomorrow I will watch that video again, and remind myself, that I have got the strenght to get through this, that I have hope, and that most of all I have faith, a faith in a God, that while giving me a heavy load to bear, a mountain to move and a heart of sorrow, he is there for me and with me, and while God is for me who can be against me? I do not do this through my own strength, I do this through God's strength.
I know and completely believe that the places I go to in my mind, the depths of despair I reach, the blackness that surrounds me, that when I go there, I am not humanly capable of coming back from those places.
I am not capable as a human being of finding the strength to return from those places. I believe that only God has that strength to reach down there, and to pick me up, and hold me gently in his arms, to bring me back from that awful place in my mind, and in my heart, and to put me on a rock and to place me back on an even path where I can begin my journey all over again.
And so tomorrow I will take time out to think about my beautiful sister Theresa, and to remember our good and our bad times, to love her and to miss her, and to mourn her, and then the day after. I will place my eyes on the Lord, and I will ask him, to reach down into the darkest deepest place in my mind and in my heart and in my soul, and I will ask him to meet me down there, in the depths of despair and to reach down and gently pick me up and place me back on that rock. Where I can look ahead of me, and see the path ahead of me, and find the strength to put one foot in front of the other and start all over again, on my path for justice and truth, for acknowledgement and glory.
Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".
In loving memory of Theresa Murphy 23rd August 1971 to 23rd February 2005.
Thank you for listening.
Cynthia Owen BA (Hons).
