TACOMA, Wash. - More than a thousand people mourned the deaths of Charlie and Braden Powell at a public funeral Saturday, nearly a week after the young boys' father killed them and himself in a gas-fueled blaze.
By RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press, & KOMO Staff
Charlie, the older boy, was only seven years old when his insane father burned him and his younger brother to death. I was seven years old when I begged my heavenly father to forgive me of my sins instead of burning me in hell forever when I died. I had been a foster child for 6 years by then. My real father was insane. Which is why my older brother and I were taken away from him. At seven years old I didn't know what a normal loving father was, so, the idea of a 'loving' father who burned his disobedient children didn't seem like the INSANE EVIL that it is.
I remember the first time I was beaten in foster care. My older brother, who was diagnosed with autism (this was back in the late 70s) was being beaten and I was crying and screaming for them to stop. They told me to stop or they would start beating me too. I didn't stop. They told me to just go back to playing with my toys. I didn't go.
A few years later, after moving around foster homes, we went back to live with that foster family. They promised no more beatings. They adopted us a couple years later. They didn't keep that promise.
I've thought about what happened with my brother in that moment from time to time during my life. I had a choice in that moment. I could have ignored my brother's suffering and simply enjoyed myself playing with toys or I could try to stop my brother's suffering and suffer myself for it.
I thought about that moment every time I was having a good time after leaving home at 18 for seminary to learn to be a minister. My brother was still suffering at home and I was enjoying hanging out with my friends or watching movies. It still makes me sick to my stomach to remember those moments. Tens years ago this last fall I got my brother away from that abusive home and he's been living with my wife and I and working with me since.
I thought about that moment when I chose not to be a minister anymore. When I chose not to go to church at all anymore. I was already having a hard time reconciling the sexism, but it was finding out that one of my best friends growing up was gay that made it impossible. How could I choose to enjoy myself in heaven with a heavenly father who was torturing my friend with fire in hell? I couldn't do it. I walked away from being a minister. I decided that I would rather burn in hell with those I loved than enjoy myself with the person who was hurting them. I really believed in hell, so, it scared the hell out of me to make that choice.
But I eventually stopped believing in hell after my brother moved in with my wife and I and I watched how he healed over the years. I had always believed that a person can heal if they get away from the source of harm and are surrounded by people who love them. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but it certainly has been true for me and for my brother. If you had known him when he lived with my parents you wouldn't even recognize him today. He was so withdrawn and afraid when living with them. He's bursting with laughter and a zeal for everything now that he lives with my wife and I.
What I learned watching my brother heal is that love doesn't harm people. Love heals people. When I lived with abusive parents I believed in a heavenly father who would burn his own children for disobedience. But after living half a lifetime away from abuse, and watching how my brother healed for the last 10 years, after 30 years of abuse, I am certain that, if there is a heavenly father, and if he is loving, that he doesn't torture his children with fire. Not for a moment and certainly not forever. Burning his children with fire is the kind of thing that only an insane evil person would do.
I think that believing in a heavenly father who burns his children with fire is something only people who are very hurt and/or very selfish do. I feel sorry for them both, because they clearly don't know what love is.