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.
3 Comments:
It will continue as long as these wife-battering pigs are charged with domestic violence instead of felony assault and let out of jail on bail by insensitive judges.
Channel 9's 20/20 aired the most enlightening program about domestic violence. a video an abuser made of his renderings on his wife. most of it was the verbal onslaught on this woman whereas the physical abuse is usually the focus. those verbal tirades would make anyone weak in the knees. i urge everyone- judge, prosecutor, parent, ... everyone to watch that video. it will broaden anyone's understanding of the psycholigical issues of dv. find it, share it, watch it.
What, not one comment about women abusing men, or the lack of outrage when precious MOMMIES kill children? or throw them in dumpsters or stuff them in garbage after thier born. Domestic abuse has several faces a little balance please or this issue becomes another man-bashing waste of time.
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