If you are also following the Elusive Enigma series on this site, then you are aware of the name Adrian, a wildly untamed force of chaos and calamity who happens to also be my father. But Adrian is not even the beginning of my disease ridden family tree. Before Adrian, there was Anakin, my maternal grandfather.

I will warn you, to say this story is triggering would not properly define the tragic events that took place. It is enraging.  This story will eventually also be told in the Elusive Enigma series, in a more in-depth telling of the events. This will serve as a more compact view of this story.

The full story of Anakin dates back to before the Vietnam War, but that is where I’ll begin. Anakin served in the war and he did it gleefully, even keeping multiple scrapbooks of the soldiers he fatally wounded in combat. He was proud of the new tactics he learned, his style of violence and rage was far beyond the typical domestic offender. While he was fighting in the war, he also had a family back in the Midwest United States. His time in combat would eventually come to an end and when he returned home, his family became his new outlet for violence and horror. Anakin returned home weaponized with a new resume, sanctioned murderer. Because regardless of how anyone else feels about war and the loss of lives, Anakin only saw an opportunity to express his disregard for human life, in any way possible.

His return home was merely a continuation of the war, on domestic soil. Upon his arrival, he made his presence and new resume a regular part of conversation with his wife and children. Anakin’s wife, Cora, was no stranger to violence and shame. Being married to Anakin was a comfortable hell for Cora. As a child, she lived through multiple race wars that would spill over onto a variety of people from Native communities, tribes, and reservations. During the height of an ongoing war between races, what was then considered the “lower class,” based solely on their race, started lashing out. But they lashed out at their peers. The families who had a slightly different pigment and were not considered a part of the ruling class. Cora’s family attempted to remove themselves from their heritage. Her father requested that their names be removed from the reservation and their family began to identify as anything except Native. Most often they claimed to be Mexican.

Fear drove their choice to disassociate from their heritage. During a night of robberies and deadly clashes in their Midwest town, Cora’s family was targeted. The same people who were being silenced by the ruling majority and fighting for their rights in the streets, they also targeted and robbed many families that shared their own struggle. Cora’s family was one of them, she was just a young child at the time but that would not grant her a pass from the destruction that would storm their doorstep in the middle of the night. Several men broke into their home and violently beat Cora’s father, almost to death. They stopped just short of ending his life in hopes that he would suffer more. With no real purpose for the attack. No real agenda. Just violence for the sake of dispersing their rage at how they were being treated by the rest of society.

I personally started hearing about Anakin in the early 1990’s. Like Adrian, Anakin was unpredictable. Unlike Adrian, Anakin did not have a humane cell in his body. He was a force for evil and he was not afraid to put it on full display. Anakin and Cora had four children, three girls and one boy. My mother, Luna, was the youngest child. Their oldest child and only son, Eli, was quite a bit older than my mother and by the time she was old enough to get to know him, he was already on the move. Eli frequented Alice Cooper concerts across the country, sometimes he even traveled as a roadie. When he was at home, he worked odd jobs in Chicago, mostly construction. Eli had the unfortunate experience of landing a job working with the late John Wayne Gacy. Thankfully, he lived through the experience and overall demise of Gacy without also losing his own life. Eli was only a teen himself at the time and a prime target for Gacy. Not long after that experience, Eli vanished, intentionally. He is likely the most elusive of us all. Skilled private investigators cannot keep up with his movements, but he is absolutely still walking this earth. And I certainly hope his pain has lessened over the years.

The two middle daughters also experienced their own personal hell at the hands of Anakin. No one in their home was safe from the brutal violence and horrific mind games that he would inflict on everyone around him. From outbursts of physical rage against Cora to violent sexual abuse of all the children, including Eli. No one was safe from the terror. The children were threatened and manipulated with his photo albums of the darkness he happily inflicted in Vietnam. He would show them the horrific photos, one by one, to burn them in their memories before sexually assaulting them at bedtime. He also used witch craft as a means of manipulation. Books were stacked from floor to ceiling of the dark arts he attempted to perform on his family.

This all may sound like the script to a “Rated R” movie, and in many ways it was. It still is, for the generations that have lived through the hell he passed down to all of us. And if you think this story ties into the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, you are also correct. Although, my opinions on the debate are not what matters here. This story is what matters. And I believe it will speak for itself. Abortion is a difficult topic, for everyone. We live in a very diverse society where abortion has both saved lives and been glorified by some individuals who go as far as throwing virtual abortion parties. Regardless of my own spiritual beliefs, I believe in separation of church and state. I believe that a truly free society is exactly that, free. And I also believe that even God grants the freedom of choice, equally, to everyone. This is not a political debate, this is about a horrific, but true story that makes it extremely difficult for me to dismiss the argument of abortion.

The history of my grandfather would enrage anyone who has even a fraction of a soul, but the scars it left for generations are absolutely crushing. One of Anakin and Cora’s middle daughters, Kimi, always stands out the most to me, as far as collateral damage. Eli vanished; their other middle daughter, Gala, married a career criminal; and Luna made her way from the Midwest to Texas after running away from state custody after Cora dropped her off in the parking lot of the family welfare office claiming, “I don’t want her, she is the reason for my divorce.” Because after years of generational abuse, Luna spoke up. She turned Anakin in to authorities, and that resulted in a downward spiral of both Anakin and Cora’s marriage, and Luna’s faith in the greater good. Anakin was allowed to continue seeing Luna throughout the legal process of prosecuting him for his horrific crimes against his family. He was allowed to continue to manipulate her and terrify her back into silence.

The tsunami of trauma that Anakin inflicted on his family was too much for Kimi. She received the worst of his physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. By the time she was 15-years-old, Anakin had increased the violence of his attacks on her very small body, rendering her unable to cope with the torture and daily abuse. He never spent time with his children outside of these terrifying nightly encounters, aside from taking Kimi to get ice cream. Periodically, completely out of left field, Anakin would take Kimi to get ice cream, after they stopped for an appointment at the abortion clinic. Multiple abortions over time completely drained Kimi of any and all life left in her small, petite body. By the time she turned 16-years-old, Kimi was showing signs of chronic anxiety, CPTSD, and schizophrenia. She was unable to be left in a room by herself without slipping into full psychosis. Kimi also attempted to run away many times and usually ended up in the company of more individuals who did not value her humanity. As she got older, the need for real intervention became vital and she was committed to a facility where she received temporary, inpatient care at a 24 hour facility. But Kimi was just as independent as the rest of us and always found a way back to her freedom, no matter how dangerous it was for her to live in society without a watchful, caring presence in her life to help guide her to a healthier existence and past the pain that brought her there.

The last time I saw Kimi she had escaped another facility and ended up married to a trafficker.  Her sister, Gala, has always tried to assist with apprehending Kimi on her wild adventures, but this time even Gala had to take a step back for her own sanity. Years of trauma and chaotic adventures has also left Gala tired, anxiety ridden, and protective of her own mental health. As she should be.

Kimi was finally tracked down a few years after her most recent escape. She was found to still be married to the same trafficker, imprisoned in a dark, crumbling house with no electricity, no running water, or food. She is currently back in an inpatient facility, for now. Unfortunately, the torment will likely never end for Kimi, she will always live inside of the traumatic aftermath of a childhood that was overflowing with darkness. Her pain will radiate through my soul for the rest of my life. It will also radiate through the souls of her children who will never experience what it means to have a coherent conversation with their mother. Kimi did end up having children of her own that were raised by extended family. And they too will carry the burden that Anakin placed on his entire family, for multiple generations.

When I think about my Aunt Kimi, I think about Anakin. It is almost unavoidable. I also think about the overwhelming nature of what she faces on a daily basis. Trauma of this magnitude changes every bodily function and turns it into a battle against your own mind and body. And as difficult as it is for me to say, due to the laws in our country at the time, one problem Kimi has not endured is having eleven children by her father.