Moira Greyland (Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen’s daughter) has agreed to let me share her email.

This is really hard stuff to read, and I’ve just thrown up my lunch. I knew about none of this part of things until a few minutes ago.

Hello Deirdre. It is a lot worse than that. The first time she molested me, I was three. The last time, I was twelve, and able to walk away. I put Walter in jail for molesting one boy. I had tried to intervene when I was 13 by telling Mother and Lisa, and they just moved him into his own apartment. I had been living partially on couches since I was ten years old because of the out of control drugs, orgies, and constant flow of people in and out of our family “home.” None of this should be news. Walter was a serial rapist with many, many, many victims (I named 22 to the cops) but Marion was far, far worse. She was cruel and violent, as well as completely out of her mind sexually. I am not her only victim, nor were her only victims girls. I wish I had better news. Moira Greyland.

Followed up with:

It should also be noted that Walter was convicted on 13 counts of PC 288 A, B, C, and D. Oral sex was the least of anyone’s worries.

Link to the California Penal Code for context.

No. Words.

Mother’s Hands

I’ve updated this post to add two pieces by Moira Greyland with her permission. This is the first.

Reprinted with permission.

Mother’s Hands

© 2000 Moira Stern (Moira Greyland) in “honor” of my mother, Marion Zimmer Bradley

I lost my mother late last year

Her epitaph I’m writing here

Of all the things I should hold dear

Remember Mother’s hands

Hands to strangle, hands to crush

Hands to make her children blush

Hands to batter, hands to choke

Make me scared of other folk

But ashes for me, and dust to dust

If I can’t even trust

Mother’s hands.

They sent me sprawling across a room

The bathtub nearly spelled my doom

Explaining my persistent gloom

Remember Mother’s hands.

And hands that touched me way down there

I still pretend that I don’t care

Hands that ripped my soul apart

My healing goes in stop and start

Never a mark did she leave on me

No concrete proof of cruelty

But a cross-shaped scar I can barely see

The knife in Mother’s hands.

So Mother’s day it comes and goes

No Hallmark pretense, deep red rose

Except blood-red with her actions goes

It drips off Mother’s hands.

The worst of all my mother did

Was evil to a little kid

The mother cat she stoned to death

She told to me with even breath

And no remorse was ever seen

Reality was in between

Her books, her world, that was her life

The rest of us a source of strife.

She told me that I was not real

So how could she think I would feel

But how could she look in my eyes

And not feel anguish at my cries?

And so I give you Mother’s hands

Two evil, base, corrupted hands

And lest her memory forget

I’m still afraid of getting wet.

The bathtub scene makes me see red

With water closing over my head

No little girl should fear to die

Her mother’s fury in her eye!

But both her hands were choking me

And underwater again I’d be

I think she liked her little game

But I will never be the same

I’m still the girl who quakes within

And tries to rip off all her skin

I’m scared of water, scared of the dark

My mother’s vicious, brutal mark.

In self-admiring tones she told

Of self restraint in a story old.

For twice near death she’d beaten me,

And now she wants my sympathy.

I’ve gone along for quite awhile,

Never meant to make you smile

But here and now I make my stand

I really hate my mother’s hands.

They Did Their Best

By Moira Greyland

The cry of our day is to smile as we say

Something pat that sounds like understanding

And those of us left who still cry when bereft

Risk guilt trips upon our heads landing

Something pat that sounds like understanding

So the ones of us left Who still cry when bereft

Risk guilt trips upon our heads landing

For the party line now Is to claim that somehow

Everybody somehow did their best

So the ones who did wrong Goes the new New Age song

Aren’t to blame, we should lay this to rest.

But it’s lies, there are villains who are still out there killing

Or else for our courts there’s no need

Our jails are not filled With innocents willed

By a system corrupted with greed.

My mother did her best, yes she really did her best

To drown me for not being her willing lover

My daddy did his best, oh he really did his best

And forced his preteen boyfriends to bend over.

Some people are sick, like to make people suffer

Some people just turn a blind eye

But pretending a monster is ribbons and lace

May condemn a small child to die.

My husband was a cop and much child abuse had stopped

Like the mom who put her baby on the stove

She threw him out of sight but the smell she couldn’t hide

And she didn’t come out smelling like a rose.

Did that mommy do her best? Would you tell that little one

“Forgive her dear, she must have been insane”

Would you tell that to those burns, To that lie will you return

And hurt those shining eyes so full of pain?

A victim does his best, a victim does her best

To love and live and give up grief and malice

But when we had no love, but what came down from Above

It’s surprising we have not become more callous.

And how to learn to cope And not give up all my hope

Is painful far enough without your lies

But if you had seen me then With blood pouring off my skin

Would you have turned a deaf ear to my cries??

And told me “Mommy did her best, yes, she really did her best

So stop crying and stop bleeding and forgive her

To cut you she’s the right, and to throw you out of sight

And not love you till you sexually deliver!!

The Guardian Covers this Story

The Guardian has covered this story here.

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