Remembering Domestic Violence Awareness Month

It took my mother and me six minutes to drive from our house to the home of a close family member after we received her frantic call for help. I was 13.

Her husband had beaten her – again. The couple had married in our front yard years earlier – a loving ceremony that belied what was to come or what we saw that day as first responders, before 911 and ambulances and EMTs at the ready.

It felt like we were about to enter a haunted house. It was quiet now, but evil left a mark.
Blood on the walls. Broken glass and pictures on the floor. Her tiny figure sprawled over the couch. The white T-shirt she wore had turned coppery red. Blood had matted her hair and was still flowing over her face.

We took her to a local clinic, where her wounds were cleaned and stitched. She healed and went back to the marriage – and to more beatings – each seemingly more brutal than the last, but he was always "sorry."

The final beating came when he stripped her naked, dragged her through the street, and took a brick to her head. She nearly died. But she never went back into the relationship, thank God.

He should have been charged with attempted murder, but I’m not sure he served a day in jail. But that was a different time, when local lawmen were known to drive “Johnny” around so he could “cool off.”

Today’s victims have the law on their side, thanks to greater awareness and victim’s rights advocates, such as the YWCA. Still too many lie in blood-spattered rooms.
Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, October, is nearly over, but still too many victims lie in blood spattered rooms, believing they are helpless. We all have a responsibility to help them know they are not.