70-80 Victims

...trying to remain virtuous today as i plug along in what is, to date, the hardest part of the memoir i'm writing: the crimes my father was charged with...i've had some great help researching my father's past from the attorney who prosecuted him, a man who has prosecuted hundreds of criminals and says he remembers very few of them--my father being at the top of the list...he helped me piece together much of what actually took place in those bedrooms...while i can't interview any victims--could only find one and she, understandably, doesn't want to relive it all--talking to the attorney has helped me fill in much of what i need for the book, my father also being tight-lipped...ultimately, though, what i want to achieve is not sensationalism, but dignity for the women, and perhaps even, a little for myself...

...still, research is research--removed, distant, almost foreign...talking with the attorney has uncovered secrets my father, nor the rest of my family, would never share...now i'm staring down the barrel of being not simply the daughter of a man convicted of 8 counts of rape and burglary, but the daughter of a man who probably--according to LAPD--committed somewhere between 70 and 80 rapes...

...not easy to stomach, really...

...but the writing goes on...i'm up to 312 pages and whether or not it will ever go into print is beginning to weigh heavily on my mind...

...i was at odds with myself about what picture to post today...i decided on this one because it is one of hope...to anyone unaware of my circumstance, this photo is just a father and daughter enjoying her first christmas...

...it's hard to believe that's me...even harder to believe that's him...