Category: Letters to Barbara

Editor’s note: Moving Forward received copies of several letters that were sent to PBS in response to its broadcast of Frontline’s “Divided Memories.” The film aired on April 4 and 11 [1995]; was produced, written, and directed by Ofra Bikel; Associate producer, Karen O’Conner; Editor, Susan Fanshel. The following letters by Ross E. Cheit (a…

she says—I mean well—and beats her child her eyes speak a different language—of hate and bitterness misery and pain—despair and revenge the mother says—I mean well but pain penetrates the body of the girl—then the soul she cries out I mean well—her mother repeats the girl screams—then why are you hurting me? I love you…

my anger is my lover—my anger knows the truth my anger remembered the incest that plunged the sixteen-year-old into a morass of confusion, anxiety, despair I had to hide the truth from myself because the small child had felt safe with a father who never beat her she could not bear the truth her father…

several years of silence have passed between me and my family when my youngest brother visits me in Chicago to reconnect my mother never tries—finally I write her to reestablish contact taking upon myself any blame for years of silence—she answers and for some time a few letters go back and forth during this time…

by Barbara Rogers I wrote this therapy after I had reconnected with my mother after years of no contact between us. We had exchanged some letters when in my therapy work the memory of incest came up—a year after my father had died and as I began to trust my second husband deeper. My mother’s…