Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Hard but Necessary Post to Write

My head has been filled with not much else since Sunday night, though I've gone through motions, a sense of disbelief and inevitability at the same time. The phone rang and I could see from caller ID it was my friend and former colleague. I was scheduled to meet her and another friend for lunch the next day so assumed she was confirming time or location. There was a quiver to her voice, and then I could hear the tears, if that is possible, as she started. "Have you had the news on?" she started, "That mother shot was... She is gone." I learned Sunday night that a former coworker of ours, a woman I had hired and worked with for over a decade, had been killed by her husband, with three of her four children at home. My friend had just seen her a month before, bruised cheek, black eye, and had implored her to get help. She promised she would.

She had a hard life.  A single mom of two kids, looking to start life again if someone would just give her the chance. I hired her, seeing and hearing the determination in her answers, her voice, and her mannerisms during the interview. She was going to be doing entry level work, but work that supported other young mothers, struggling mothers, mother's like her trying to do right by their kids. She worked hard each day; sometimes she came in with bruises, sometimes with a fat lip.  Pregnant again, she left the latest abuser, and did her best for the two kids, and prepared for the new baby.  She continued to work hard, struggling to keep her little family afloat, but she did it. Child number four, with absent father number four, came a few years later. She was estranged from an alcoholic mother, didn't know her father, but built an extended circle of support with friends and coworkers, and of course her children, yet that circle was not enough.

Still she did her job, ethically and with compassion for the clients we worked on behalf of.  She had her rough days, but continued to take advantage of training opportunities, and volunteered in cross department committees, where more formally educated colleagues raved about her drive and knowledge. She received a promotion, and then a slightly higher position in a different department.  By then I was now the director, of all the programs, so still could see how hard she worked. She also worked fundraisers, and extra shifts at second jobs to help find the funds to keep her kids in a private school, better equipped for their needs than the overcrowded public school. I thought she was really going places when three years ago, she accepted a position for more money, more influence, and better hours. These would be hours she would have back with her kids, who we knew  she loved more than life, so much so that she had portraits of each child tattooed on her arms. 

Yet, this need to be loved by a man, must have been ever present.  It is beyond my comprehension that each man, a word used loosely, could treat her even worse than the one before. None of us that knew her and saw her daily could understand how she could be so strong for her kids, her clients, her friends, and keep repeating the cycle of finding men that treated her badly, escape to start anew, only to find another that would treat her worse than a pet in need  of rescue was treated. This latest, was the first one she was actually married to, introduced to him while he was serving a prison sentence. I don't know what he was in prison for, but the news reports were that he had a violent past. 

The caring heart she had; the compassion for others, was this a trait that led her to these men?  Did she think she would save them, rehabilitate them, make them truly into men of substance? I am worried for her daughters, I pray the love she gave those girls will give them strength to accept nothing less than a partner who treats them with respect and awe.  I am worried for her sons, who consistently saw abuse of their mother by a revolving door of men. I pray they pick up a banner in their mom's memory and do what is right and just in every interaction they have with women and girls. I pray for all of us that didn't do more, didn't figure out how to ensure this cycle stop before it was too late.  May we not blame ourselves, but put this anger towards  doing more to prevent the next act of violence against  a woman.

9 comments:

  1. Sam, those children have my sympathy and so do you. Such events leave us with a feeling of What if . . ? Could I have done something? Could I have helped her change? She derives to be grieved, not just as a victim but as someone who wanted to make the world a better place. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

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  2. So terrible. I'm sorry for her children and I'm so sorry for you. Hugs and prayers.

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  3. How horrible for her kids and so sad. Sometimes you just can't save some one from themself. It can be hard to see your own situation(the old can't see the trees for the forest saying)and do what's necessary to save yourself and escape this kind of situation.
    But it's maddening when you personally know someone it's happening to. My youngest son's beastie's mother has this issue about having to have a man, no matter the lack of quality. It has alienated him from his mom to a degree even though her choice of man wasn't as bad as your friend/co worker's.
    Just bad bad outcomes all the way around.
    I worry for her kids and being unwitting players in perpetuating this circle of violence.

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  4. Sorry that should have said "she deserves to be grieved" but I'm sure you understood.

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  5. I want to say something but I have nothing to say. This sort of thing is just not supposed to happen, ever...

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  6. As women, we try and support each other, that is what I love about the blog community, and sometimes words are all we have,even if sometimes it is hard to come up with the right words. Thank you all for your thoughts, and prayers, and anything you do or have done, past, present and future, to help others.

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  7. What a wonderful tribute to her troubled life........... Hopefully she will be remembered by lots of people in this way. Jx

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  8. What a sad story, and so passionately written. I imagine how hard it is for you, when you actually knew her personally. People who dare treating others violently do make me angry. And yet I know that they also learn it from people in their life - only someone who is hurt badly can hurt someone else... And another thing is... compassion when it is only compassion to others and not to ourselves, is not complete. That we sure all need to learn and teach our children. Kindness is true kindness only when we are kind to everyone involved, including ourselves.

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  9. Oh Sam, how sad. What a beautifully written tribute to her. xxx

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