When I was eleven, like most children I was thrilled when I was approached at my school dance and asked to dance by someone I was infatuated with -- Michael. Unfortunately, when I was sixteen, I was carried off and raped by an off-duty janitor in the school, and I was raped while unconscious. I felt so violated. It happened within a few months after my father died.

Although I am not Jewish, I feel the anger and the fear of the Jews who had to escape the Nazis who overtook the Danish in October 1943. Just as with the Jews, when my father died I had to fight off many guys in the neighborhood who thought they could do whatever they wanted with me. None of therm cared that I was praying to God to be protected and left alone by them. I still worry about my daughter and granddaughter every day that this never happens to them or anyone else's daughter. Instead of fleeing, I should have studied karate, but most women were not trained to defend themselves then.

In some way I am like the young lady whose man was shot to death when he went out on the streets that I read about in the paper recently. She still loves and misses him even though he frequently slapped her in the face because he stuck by her. I still love the man who fathered my children, but then since he continued to abuse me, I was forced to leave, and he is as dead to me as that man.

Sometimes I am like a little girl who enjoys watching the bird watchers as I walk in Prospect Park. I walk with my friend, Joyce, and I describe the birds to her because she is blind. She loves to hear these descriptions as well as smell and feel the flowers. I love to do this with her. I also watch the people watching the birds as well as their children. That part of me that is still like a child has survived.

Sometimes I thought I owned and needed to protect my man and friends when someone wanted to take them away. Then I realized that if I let them go, they would come back to me -- if they really loved me, they would.

Butterflies go through metamorphoses. Like a butterfly, I, Jeannie, am still learning from experience and will continue to thrive and grow.