When Happiness is a Miracle... By Jim Bartley Xtra Magazine Writer and actor Donald D'Haene lives with his partner, Maurice, in London, Ontario.  "I'm almost 40, there's no mid-life crisis. I'm loved by a caring partner and my life is rich with family and friends. Life has never been better." Flashback to 1966. A Sunday morning. A house on a rural hillside. Donald's Papa calls down from an upstairs room: "Wife, send Donald up with my breakfast." When the boy arrives, he discovers something he's never experienced: a completely naked, adult human body. He stares at his father's hard stick. He's ordered to wrap his hand around it, then to,"push up and down, up and down until I tell you to stop." His Mama's voice calls up from the kitchen warning they will be late for church. Papa quickly finishes the job himself. White cream spurts on to white tissue. Donald is four years old. Inevitably, he is sworn to secrecy. His father, Daniel, will continue to abuse Donald until he is well into his teens, drawing his sister and two brothers into The Game as well, with a combination of bribes, threats and beatings. Donald D'Haene has had multiple crosses to bear. Aside from the tyranny of a predatory father, he's also a recovering Jehovah's Witness, subject for decades to the judgements and manipulations of Witness Elders, always men, who knew of his abuse early on but consistently put the church's image ahead of real attempts to correct the problem.  In the D'Haene household, church was a thrice-weekly duty. Mama cooked and cleaned and sang gospel songs. She adored her kids and they returned the affection in kind. Papa was cold and distant, focused on religious studies and visiting Witnesses who came to discuss matters of faith. In and around the small farming town of Aylmer, Ontario, the family shifted from rented house to rented house: 14 of them before Donald reached the age of 16.  "Papa moved us so much because he was running, running from people who might have suspected him." The more D'Haene reveals, the more clear it becomes that his mother was in a state of enslavement. From the day of their wedding, Papa Daniel flirts with other women and made it clear to Jeannette that his rule over her would be absolute. Her early challenges to him were met with beatings. She became a housebound recluse who barely spoke English and was afraid to use the telephone. Transgressions by the children meant a beating from Papa with the Biblical rod. The saving grace was his shift work at a factory which sometimes kept him away from the house for four or five days at a time. For Mama and her brood it was holiday time. They could almost forget Dad existed. By the time Donald was twelve, The Game included his brother, Ronny and sister, Marina. One day Daniel tried to initiate five-year-old Erik. The boy instantly ran and tattled to his mother. "Papa wants me to play with his pee pee." The first ever disclosure to oblivious Mama. She's bewildered, then devestated, raging at Daniel through her tears with a barrage of accusations. The force of her horror and anger, the first she's ever had the courage to show, makes Daniel agree to get treatment. It's an empty promise. Things return to normal because Mama's fear that the secret will get out is even stronger than her revulsion. Finally brother Ronny spills the whole story to the church fathers. Donald and his siblings are interviewed by a panel of Elders. Daniel is disfellowshipped, Jeannette is reprimanded for failing to report the abuse, and the whole family is ordered to continue attending services while the other parishioners are required to shun them as if they are invisible. D'Haene's story raises the gamut of emotions. I bounced between contempt for his pathetic and shrewdly manipulative father, amazement at the deep denial of his mother, bewilderment at the psychological straitjacket Witness Elders could impose on their flock and finally a growing respect for D'Haene's courage in grappling with a waking nightmare lasting twenty years. If any readers doubt the lingering damage such childhood can cause, this book will end those doubts with its sheer weight of candid evidence. D'Haene bears not just family secrets but his own failings and peccadillos, the many things he might have done differently. Eventually Daniel was arrested for his crimes. In a plea bargain he was convicted on less than half the charges and sentenced to two years in reformatory. D'Haene voluminous quoting of court transcripts somewhat dilutes the book's closing drama but leaves no doubt about the extent of his maltreatment. As tormented as his family was, the courts proved to be only another series of blows.  That Donald D'Haene has found his happiness seems almost a miracle and Jehovah's patriarchs had nothing to do with it.