Abuse

I can't really talk about my feelings right now. I am not sure what will come out if I let myself open up, so I have to keep myself closed off, I can't think about emotions, why or what they mean. I just can't. But this place has become important to me, so, until I can talk again about me, my heart and emotions, I will simply write about my opinions. I hope you can stick with me through this.

Sea Rabbit posted recently about domestic abuse. This is a subject I am very passionate about. My sister, my only sister, was an abused wife.

She was older then me, 14 years older then me. Matter of fact, there is only one year between my younger brother and her first child.

She was beautiful too. She had shoulder length brown hair and big brown eyes. She was the tiniest thing you ever saw. I don't clearly recall how tall she was, but, when I was eleven, she was twenty-five and I could fit into her jeans. It was her smile and laughter that I remember most though. She had the kind of smile and laughter that was contagious.

Everyone who met my sister fell in love with her. She loved them back passionatly. She never gave just part of herself, even to her friends. For her, it was all or nothing, there was no in between. If you met her, you couldn't help yourself, you had to like her.

She was fierce though. Like a mother bear with her cubs. Don't mess with her kids, or her family and friends and you'd be all right. If you did, watch out.

Her life is something that you see on a television mini-serious. As stated before, we didn't have the best parents. They tried I think, they were just not meant to be parents, moreso my mother then my father. This caused her to leave home very young. If my memory serves me correctly, she was fifteen when she ran away.

Again, she didn't do anything half assed. When she ran away, she didn't just leave home, she left the state. Several over actually. She went to Las Angeles, which, was a far cry from the small town in Colorado that we grew up in. She met up and lived with the Hells Angel's for the next couple of years.

Now, I've heard stories, true or not, I can't say, about how they "induct" women into their club. My sister, would not have, and did not go through that. She didn't have a boyfriend who was a part of it, she was just. . .. accepted by them because that is who she was.

When she returned home, she met and began dating a guy who eventually got her pregnant. So of course, they got married. She was barely eighteen. Out of this marriage came two beautiful children.

Then somewhere things went wrong. I was very young, so all I know is what I have been told. The story goes however, that her husband came home drunk and they had a fight, so he grabbed her by the neck and shoved her against the wall, screaming at her, cursing her, and causing her to nearly pass out from lack of breath.

The good news of this is that she left him. That very night, as soon as he passed out. She didn't look back, she didn't regret her decision. He was not only a drunk, but he had cheated on her over and over again.

Of course, I don't remember any of this. I was still too young and they never fought in front of us. To me, they were the perfect couple with the perfect life. He was fun to be around, they had the two kids and a dog, their own house, she stayed home and he worked. Ideal to me.

It amazes me what happens beneath the surface though.

So she left him, found a job of her own, a place of her own, started life over.

Then she met him. His name was Jim. The man was huge. At least, height wise. Not so very big in width, but he stood about 6'4". Which, next to her, was huge.

He wined her, dined her, told her everything she needed to hear. She held out too. They dated for about three years before she finally agreed to marry him. My family liked him, he was good with and to her kids. When he proposed, she happily said yes.

I remember the wedding very clearly. She was beutiful. She wore a purple dress that flowed, yet fit, in all the right places, my mother made it. They had the ceremony and reception in the place they met. Jim's band played the music and I remember at one point, he got up and sang. The one sone that sticks out in my mind, was "Old Time Rock and Roll". We danced. I was around eight years old I think. Perhaps seven.

It was the begin of the end for a lot of things.

On her wedding night, he beat her up. We found out later that this was the first time he had ever yelled at her, let alone hit her. He put her in the hospital that night. Yet she told no one. She went so far as to tell the police that she had run to the car to retrieve a bag that she had forgotten to take into the hotel, when she was jumped. She had to be there for two days.

Things kind of blur for me around this time. I have memories, and I have the stories. The point is that he beat her regularly and soon he didn't care who knew and who didn't. I do know, that at one point she was carrying his son and it still didn't stop him.

One of the scariest moments of my life came while I was at their home. They were fighting and he seemed to loom over the top of her, I wondered at that point in time, if he was the devil. I took her three children, and my younger brother and I hid us all in a closet. The baby was very young, maybe five months old or so, but it was as if he knew he had to be quiet. None of us made a sound, simply huddled together with tears streaming down our faces in the dark, listen to the screams and thuds as he beat the shit out of her.

It took a long time after they stopped before I was brave enough to leave my hiding place. What I found is a sight that will haunt me for the rest of my life. My sister's uncounsious form laying in the middle of a broken coffee table. I thought she was dead. I ran to the phone and was so distraught that I could not remember any numbers but my grandparents.

In the end, he had broken her back. It took her so long to recover from that and she stayed with my grandparents while she did. He came there once. My uncle ordered him off the property with a shotgun. Not pulling the trigger that day, is something that still eats away at him even now, almost fifteen years later.

It wasn't long before she was up and moving around again. She was determined to move on with her life. She left her homestate once more, taking only her youngest son. The other two were left with my parents while she moved from women's shelter to women's shelter. Searching for a place where she felt safe.

Eventually she did. She came to get her children. Then she took them to her new home. She had a new job and was going to school so that she could become an EMT.

Then she filed for divorce. Her fatal mistake.

Through her filing, he was able to obtain her address. He followed her. Stalked her. Back then, they didn't have laws against it. She got a restraining order. He ran her and her friends off the road and threatened her in front of all of them. The police told her that unless >they< witnessed it, there was nothing they could do.

This went on for a couple of months. Then he got tired of the game. He started picking her children up from school and from daycare. She would call and demand they not allow him to do it, each day they still did. After the third day, according to a letter she wrote to my parents, he told her that if she didn't come back to him, he would not be bringing them home the next time he picked them up.

What choice did she have? No one would protect her. No one would protect her children.

So she went back to him.

She bought a gun when she went to visit my parents the next time. The last time we saw her alive. My father begged her not to. She said it was to protect herself with it.

Four months later, he held that gun to her head and pulled the trigger five times because she told him "You're not man enough to it"l

I hope he feels like a real big man now.

I see a vast difference between dominating men, and men who abuse their women. I get tired of people judging battered women. Saying that they could leave at anytime. Some of them, perhaps even alot of them, could, but not all of them. Without knowing them, or their situation, don't judge them. You can't imagine what it must be like to have someone you once loved, beat you, hurt you, possibly even your children.

So please, if you see someone reaching out to you, even if you are not sure if it is abuse or not, put your hand out there and hold theirs. Help them out if that is what they choose. Sometimes they will not want that, and it is their choice, but they will need a friend, someone to talk to, someone they can be honest with. Be that someone.

Donate old clothes and household items to your nearest battered women's shelter.

Isn't it time we started careing about the nameless person next to us?