I f you met Melody Platt, you wouldn’t see the scars.
You’d see a bright, professional-looking woman. Her smile comes easily. There is much to smile about – a loving partner of 25 years and fulfilling work at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
Face to face with an incest and rape survivor, you wouldn’t know the terrors she has endured, the pain and shame she has felt. If Platt told you about her life, only then would you begin to see.
Platt, 44, lives in Mill Creek, far from her childhood home in the small towns of Alabama south of Montgomery. Emotionally, she has moved a great distance away from the depression and rage of her earlier years.
From the time of her earliest recollections before age 2 until her mid-teens, Platt was sexually abused and later raped by her father. Her memories are seared with things he did, using blindfolds, lies and force.
As an adult, Platt was catapulted back to the first time he raped her, when she was 11, by the scent of a gardenia someone brought to her office.
Platt reveals her life’s darkest episodes in “Breaking the Silence: A Personal Story of Incest and Recovery,” a book published in 1992. With graphic detail and unflinching prose, Platt traces a fractured family’s hardscrabble life. The book begins starkly: “On October 26, 1975, I divorced my father.”
That was the day before Colon Charles Hill was arrested and charged with child molestation, rape and carnal knowledge.
The author will be among the speakers at a candlelight vigil recognizing sexual assault victims from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at Matthew Parsons Memorial Park across from the Snohomish County Courthouse complex in downtown Everett.
Sheriff Rick Bart, Molly Shen of KOMO News and the mother of a teenage victim will also participate in the event, which is being sponsored by Providence Everett Sexual Assault Center.
Associated Press articles trace the sordid life of Platt’s father. Hill was convicted in 1975 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He served less than 10 years in the Draper Correctional Facility near Montgomery, Ala., and later at a minimum security ranch.
Platt’s mother divorced him. In prison, Hill corresponded with a woman he later married. In 1995, he was charged with sexually assaulting that woman’s 7-year-old granddaughter.
On Aug. 10, 1995, the Birmingham News in Alabama ran a front-page story with the headline “Man Accused of Sex Abuse Found Dead.” Hill had killed himself. The article’s last paragraph reads: “Sheriff’s investigators said the pattern of abuse documented by Ms. Platt in her book was similar to details of incidents of abuse told to authorities by the 7-year-old victim.”
Platt’s suffering didn’t end with her father being imprisoned or dead. She thinks of her life in 15-year chunks. Her first 15 years were hell at the hands of her father. Then came struggles with alcohol abuse, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In recent years, partly from speaking out and helping others, the darkness has lifted. But it will never be completely gone.
Witness an entry from Platt’s journal, in messy scrawls on lined paper: “I’ve spent thousands of dollars on trying to heal from the pain, and yet it creeps up every day. … I’ve felt smothered a lot today. It’s because of him.”
The journal was part of the healing, along with intensive therapy that helped her work through her rage, body memory and a need to hide.
After her father’s death, Platt worked with law enforcement officials in Alabama to toughen penalties for sex offenders, and for laws requiring community notification upon their release. She helped raise money for child advocacy centers there and has addressed groups urging victims to speak out.
Platt was married briefly, at 20, to someone she had known in high school. But for 25 years her partner has been Beratta Gomillion, a woman who shares in her recovery journey. In 1996, they moved here after visiting the Seattle area.
At Children’s Hospital, Platt works in medical administration for the neonatal intensive care unit. “It’s been a wonderful path, I’m very focused on the patients,” she said.
In those patients – tiny, defenseless, at the mercy of the world into which they are born – she sees what she once was, a child in need of protection and love.
Speaking out “is getting easier,” she said. “It’s about not being a victim, but thriving.”
From her worst times until today, Platt said she has put her life in God’s hands.
She feels her suffering has been put to good use to empower others. And she’s ready to write another book. Already, it has a title: “Only Love Matters.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
Sexual assault victims vigil
The Providence Everett Sexual Assault Center plans a candlelight vigil 5-7 p.m. Friday to recognize sexual assault victims. The event will be at Matthew Parsons Memorial Park across from the Snohomish County Courthouse complex in downtown Everett.
Speakers will include “Breaking the Silence” author Melody Platt; Molly Shen of KOMO News, who recently spoke publicly about being raped as a child; the mother of a teenage victim; and Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart. The vigil marks Sexual Assault Awareness Week April 11-15.
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