Of Course It Matters

It does effect me and others in my family if you have ongoing relationships with these people. I know you fellowship with them. My kids know you have relationships with them. How can you continue in friendship with these families and yet say you want to support our family? Very confusing! It's a passive way to avoid picking a clear side.

I had desperately wished in the past someone would stand up and call what is wrong-wrong. Instead, we once again get represented as angry and bitter. Why, just because your actions effect me, am I considered angry and bitter? Imagine you are having a birthday party. You invite me along with someone who, let's say for the sake of my analogy, wrote a letter on behalf of Patrick and maybe in the last six months has been on Eddie Rojas' or another Rojas' Facebook page, communicating with them. How am I suppose to feel towards this person? What exactly is the Godly response? How is it that these people have no shame? And out of insensitivity or not wanting to stand up for our family you just invite both of us and hope we play nice. So, I have to call ahead and ask who is attending and try and gracefully decline the invitation.

These were the passive ways our family was isolated. The person having the party was able to feel good about themselves because they invited us and it was sad we couldn't attend but the party must go on. Over and over this type of scenario occurred. When you have been hurt by a group of people in the way our family has been, you have to be a glutton for punishment or living in denial to want to purposefully interact in social settings with the main players.

Anyone who wrote a letter in support of Patrick is a main player. Anyone who still attended the church after the meeting where the elders admitted keeping secret the details of Patrick's sexual abuse of our child is a main player. Anyone who is currently in contact with any Rojas family member in any way other than asking the adult ones to turn their father in is a main player. Anyone who is in fellowship with the Cameron family or Barrueto family is a main player. Anyone who is supporting Patrick is a main player. Why would we want to interact with anyone of these people? Boundaries!

Some of the individuals who fall in one or more of the above categories have hurt us deeper than others because of the level of the relationship between our families and children prior to the crime. I could care less about the fact that some of the individuals are no longer in my life. A few sat on the fence and helped us in many ways along the way, but when push came to shove they didn't stand up on our behalf. These relationships have been the hardest to lose.

I am deeply grieved about these friendships, but even with time and therapy I can't get past the disappointment and the fact that they continue to be connected with others in the main player category. I get that these people didn't want to lose their network of friends, but that meant they were willing to lose me as their friend. We were the victims, completely innocent of wrongdoing, and yet we were the ones people wouldn't fight for. They would fight for the elder's and defend their inability to do what was right. Some would even defend Eddie and Kathy and Patrick. Under the circumstances that caused something in me to die. Maybe to protect myself from anymore pain? I do not think I could have survived any more pain. Soul-gripping pain. True heartbreak! This is why we are not friends anymore and why I am sad about it.