My childhood abuser died yesterday before I could get any closure

I’ve never shared this anywhere before. I feel disgusted with myself, but I have no one in my life to confide in, so I’m gathering all my courage to put it here.

I’m 33 now. When I was 13, my mother died, and I was sent to live with my aunt (also my godmother). Marina was the one everyone trusted she had money, a big house, no kids, and she seemed “kind.”

Yesterday she passed away. Today I opened my old therapy journal, where my therapist encouraged me to write everything down to reclaim my narrative.

Marina started grooming me almost immediately. Under the guise of “care” and “affection,” she isolated me, locked doors, and created an environment of secrecy and control. She showered me with compliments, gifts, and attention, telling me I was “special” all while beginning inappropriate sexual behavior.

At 13, I didn’t have the language to name it as abuse. I just felt fear, confusion, and shame.

The abuse lasted for years. I told no one not a teacher, not a friend because she made it clear I shouldn’t. I felt complicit, internalized the blame, and carried the secret into adulthood.

In college, with the help of my first girlfriend and therapy, I began to understand what had really happened. It was grooming. It was abuse.

I saw Marina only once at a relative’s funeral and didn’t speak to her. But in my head, I spoke to her constantly in anger, shame, even occasional empathy. I always imagined confronting her or writing a letter, but fear and shame stopped me.

I was terrified she would deny it or twist it, and that the past would destroy my future. Yesterday, while leaving work, I got a text from my sister: Aunt Marina had died. Her family is calling her a “sweet soul” and asking me to say something at her memorial.

Many of them think I “abandoned” her because I ran out of her home before college. Some even believe our relationship was “consensual.” (I was 13.)

I don’t feel grief. I feel guilt, confusion, and if I’m honest, some relief. I’m grieving the fact that she died without ever being held accountable. I feel guilty that I never said anything, that I never confronted her. I feel like I missed my chance for closure or justice.