Giving to Angels

This post is a departure from my usual photo-heavy storytelling. It's about donating to causes near and dear. I've at long last, after many years, sorted my priorities, both for financial donations and for volunteer work.

I am not congratulating myself for giving money to charity, but only dipping into my guilt in public. You know, the guilt about being white and comfortable in a developed country with clean water flowing from hoses and taps in car washes and kitchen sinks. And toilets.  And retirement funds flowing into bank accounts. Do you know how rare that is in the wide wide world?

And supermarkets. Let's not even go there. We have so much food. So much water. So much, so much. Even our poor, even our homeless, don't worry about water, and if they want food, they can get it. I'm not saying homeless and poor people in the USA aren't miserable. I'm saying that they aren't skeletal, they aren't dying from starvation, and their children can get medical care.

We have myriad problems: hunger, homelessness, inadequate care for mentally ill, dread diseases, ignored veterans, abused animals, environmental causes, I could go on and on. I've chosen to focus my charitable attention on families—women, mostly, and their children—who are terrorized by a domestic partner and who have endured rape.

TERRORIZE is the correct word.

I interviewed a woman (I live in rural southern Oregon) referred to me by the local Women's Crisis Support Team, for an online newsletter I write for "friends" of this organization. We're talking grassroots here, no big budget, struggling to meet payroll, no PR firm, nothing but passionate people, men included, employees and volunteers, who work their asses off to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. Many of the advocates who work directly with victims suffer post traumatic stress syndrome by association. And in truth, many of them have been victims, leading to firsthand knowledge they'd rather not possess.

In this case, a woman who had been rescued from almost-certain death by this organization 14 years ago, happened to run into one of the advocates who delivered her from evil. She told me her story. I wrote it and asked her to review. She added volumes, then told me there are still things she can't bring herself to say. My guess is she's talking about endless rape and sexual degradation in addition to the terrors she describes. Read it and believe, then please support WCST or your local women's shelter. They save women and kids every single day.

The following is a lightly edited account of one woman's domestic abuse and how WCST came to her rescue. WCST's executive director assures me that as bad as the situation is, it is not unusual. "This happens more than we will ever know," says Krisanna. If you've not experienced domestic violence, or had personal contact with someone who has, you will not believe situations similar to this are happening in your neighborhood. One difference between now and the 1980s and 90s, when most of this occurred, is that law enforcement response is better now.

Sharon, in her own words...

The day she was rescued
I was in the ER on March 21, 2000. I had just been beaten by my husband, Jack. I was carried to a police car. I begged the officer to take me back to him because I thought he had my kids, and I knew that if he knew that the police had me, I was in trouble. The officer told me that a witness called the police. He said a car was en route to pick up my kids. I begged him not to take me. I told him he didn't understand if police showed up at my home, he would know that I told. The officer took me to the ER and stayed until my boys came and the doctor had finished his exam.
I ended up with multiple broken ribs, a concussion, a broken sternum, fractured larynx, and a pulled muscle in my neck from being body slammed. I was medicated for pain and placed on oxygen.
Earlier that day I had been working on a landscaping job that my husband had approved. Throughout the day Jack (my husband), stopped by hourly to see if I was doing what I said I'd be doing. He let me know I must be home on time because the kids had friends coming to spend the night and dinner needed to be on time. 
I knew I was in trouble because I got home an hour late, no fault of my own. Jack pulled in just after dark, and it was starting to drizzle. My son's autistic friend yelled, "Jack's home!" and he ran to open the door. His father was still in the driveway in his truck.
I started toward the door when Jack grabbed my arm and pushed me down the porch stairs. When we got to the driveway, Jack was ahead of me, as usual. That way he could catch me off guard and hit me. I was walking slowly because I knew I'd messed up. I knew a beating was going to happen, but I wanted so much to avoid being an embarrassment to my boys' friends' father, who was still there.
But before we passed the friend's pickup, Jack spun around and punched me in the side of the head. I was dizzy and stumbled backwards. He started choking me and cussing, threatening to kill me. I remember the horrible sounds I was making. I had made them more times that I can count. 
He started to walk away, but then turned and grabbed me by the throat again. He picked me up and slammed me so hard on the gravel I felt like I was in a wet dark cave. Whatever he was saying sounded far off and jumbled. 
I covered my face expecting the hitting to resume, but instead there was horrible pain and blackness. Jack had jumped on my chest with his knees. I weighed 110 pounds and was 4'10" tall. Jack weighed around 230 and was 6 feet tall. I gasped and tried turning onto my side, but couldn't move. Blackness. Voices sounded far off and foreign. Sitting, propped at the bottom of the stairs. Blackness. Talking again. Begging not to go to the hospital. 
WCST comes to her side
While in the hospital late at night two women said they were there to take me and my boys to safety. They said they were from Women's Crisis Support Team and were there to help me. I didn't believe them. Why do these women care what happens to me and my kids? Jack would be back in 24 hours, as he always was, so why would this time be different?  At the shelter, the women helped me to get dressed and into a bed, and they covered me up with my boys, and the boys cried a lot during the night. But I was daring to hope that something had changed, something was different.  
Now 13 years later, because of those two women and the organization that sent them, I have the opportunity to see my children grown up and married. WCST saved my life and gave my kids a second chance. 

What was her life like before that day in 2000?
I was always walking on eggshells. If the dinner was cold, the kids too loud, if I talked back to him, if the house wasn't clean, if the laundry wasn't done, if I'd been too long shopping, if I got a phone call, if he'd had a bad day at work, if gas or food prices were too high, if the kids were misbehaving, if someone had cut him off in traffic, these were all reasons I deserved a beating.. 

I was 15 years old and pregnant when I married a guy who turned into a monster after three months, I had no power. It only got worse as the years went by. I was six months pregnant the first time he punched me in the mouth and pushed me down a flight of stairs. We lived with his mom at the time and she saw this and blamed me. She said, "You pissed him off. It's your fault, if you would stop being mouthy with him he wouldn't have to teach you a lesson. If you ever get mouthy with me , I'll slap you too."
After that day, the choking and hitting started. 
I should have seen the signs. Jack had a reputation for being a bully at the high school. About three months into the relationship, I was at Jack's house to meet his family. I walked into a room where Jack and his sister were, and saw him punching her. I reasoned it was maybe she did something to him first and I just didn't see it. 
I was there at Christmas when Jack punched his mom as they argued at the top of the stairs, and she fell down the stairs and broke her leg.  

A brief chronology of her early marriage
1987 July - Choking, slapping, twisted my arm, pushed me to the ground and threatened to hit me. Slapped me in front of his step dad, Jim. I looked up at Jim from the ground crying, "Do something! " Jim said,  "Not my problem." Then he left the house for work. 
1987 August -  A lot more hitting. He now knows that his mom and step dad aren't going to do anything. I called my sister and  told her what was happening. She said to pack and she would come for me. But it never happened. When my sister showed up, Jack's mother told her I wasn't there.
1987 September -  Jack lost his job at the mill and the hitting got worse. I was then eight months pregnant and he made me go job hunting with him and sit in the car. He said I whined too much about being too fat, going to the bathroom too much, and having sore feet. I sat quietly. Jack got a job with Burger King. He'd call and tell me he had to work longer so he'd be late. He expected me to be up waiting for him. He would get home sometimes around 5 am. I knew that the Burger King closed at 10:00 pm and the drive was only 30 minutes. But I didn't say anything.
1987 October -  I was past my due date by three weeks. Jackwasn't home. He asked a friend to pick me up and take me to where he was, which was at his girlfriend's. I guess he thought it was a good time for me to know that I wasn't the only one in his life. I walked out and hitchhiked home. The next day I got the first of a whole string of bad beatings. I called the Lebanon police, and they told me to call the state police. I was scared because I didn't have much time before the baby came. Jack was in the shower and his mom was making dinner. But I did it anyway. When the police arrived, I showed them the bruises. As they were preparing to arrest Jack, his mom stepped in and said I was a liar and denied  what had happened. The officer told me that I needed to go somewhere for the night. I slept under a tree on the property with only what I had on.
August 1988 - I ran. Everyone was at work, and Jack was at his girlfriend's. I called my sister and told her the house was clear. She'd been waiting for my call. She and her boyfriend helped me to get everything I could, they they took me to the welfare department, which helped me get an apartment.
Oct 18, 1988 -  My son Daniel's first birthday. Jack found us and broke in with his sister and her boyfriend. While Jack beat me, they took my son.  When Jack headed out, I got the strength to go after my son. I opened the car door and tried to get him out of his car seat, Jack grabbed me by my hair and drove off with my feet out of the car. I held on, screaming for him to stop. He dragged me for about two city blocks before letting go. My arm was broken and I didn't  see my baby for 17 days. 

The landlord called the city police, and the police said: "Jack is the baby's father and he has rights to his kid. There's nothing we can do about it." Later that month, I found out I was pregnant again.
1989, March -  We moved to Grants Pass, where I gave birth to another boy in May. I had gotten used to the beatings in Lebanon because the police wouldn't help me. I thought in a new place, new job, new baby, close to Jack's dad and family, maybe things would change.

WRONG! it got even worse. Jack threw dishes at me if he didn't like dinner. He threw hot water on me and then locked me outside for the night. He broke my feet by stomping on them. He moved us over to a rural house so there weren't neighbors close by who could call for help. 

At this point in my life , age 18, I had had a broken arm, broken jaw, broken wrist, several fractured ribs, countless black eyes, countless choke-outs, and a broken tailbone. I tried so many times to run away with my kids. I'd stash clothes, diapers, anything the kids needed, in the crawl space under the rented house. But he always stopped me or found me, and the beatings got worse. After a time, I gave up trying to get away.
It was so sad to take my little boys to the grocery store and they'd look for frozen peas saying, "Mommy needs peas for her boo boos." As young as ages 2 and 3 they knew how to lie about mommy's split lips and black eyes. They were the main reason I couldn't leave him. He never hurt them physically, but as he was slapping me around he'd tell them,  "This is what happens when you're a liar."
 If he could do this to me,  what was going to stop him from doing it to my two little helpless boys? No one! I had to be the punching bag so he wouldn't feel the need to punish the boys.  If ever he decided to spank them, I didn't know if he could stop hitting them. 
The police situation in Grants Pass wasn't any better than in where we lived before. It got to the point where I didn't call because it just made the beatings worse.
Sometimes he'd run with the kids and they would be gone as long as two months. I never knew where they were or if he would bring them back. 
He worked off and on and sometimes he allowed me to work part-time because he needed the money, but he took me to and from work and  checked on me throughout the day. He got me fired from several jobs. I wasn't allowed to use the phone, and if I did, he'd beat me with it. (The old rotary-dial style phone)
Why didn't she leave?
People always ask. Was it because I loved him? Because I thought I could change him? And why do other women stay with men who hurt them? 
Women don't stay with their abusers because they love them; they stay because they believe that they themselves are unlovable. Also, like me, most have no money, no car, no friends or family that want to get involved. I had no idea there was something like WCST where people provide safety and know what to do to help.
Jack, while hitting me and breaking body parts, would scream: You're a stupid, ugly, fat cow. Your own children don't even love you, and you are an embarrassment to your whole family. No one will ever love you! If you took better care of yourself I wouldn't need to have a girlfriend to f---. People hate you because you're stupid. If you died today no one even notice. 

Please remember I was very young and believed him. My parents had deserted me for having a baby at age 15. I no longer had friends, as that wasn't allowed. I quit calling the police because they only made Jack  go away for 24 hours. 
What happened at the WCST shelter?
After being in the ER, I woke up the next morning at the shelter. One of the women came in at 7 a.m. and made sure my kids and I were fed. She never ever talked to me like I was stupid, or how could I let this happen. She didn't tell me what to do. What she said was "You tell us what's going on and how you feel you can change it. They made me feel safe, and they even took my kids to counseling. That day, my life began to change completely. 
While at the shelter, I was under police protection. I was hurting really bad still, but I remember going outside to walk the fence around the shelter and taking my kids by the hand to show them that we were safe.
When I needed to talk or cry, somebody was always there. They were quick with a hug, a kind word. I stayed up with other women and their kids one night, because I was afraid to go to bed. We'd had a close call with my husband earlier that day while coming back from a welfare appointment. We were talking in the kitchen and one of the counselors was there. She knew I was afraid and she said, "I have it! Wait right here. "
She returned with three bottles of hair dye and said, "He knows what you look like, right? Well, we're going to fix that."
When the dye was washed from our hair, the sight of my two smiling boys, previously white haired and now dark brunettes, started me laughing. I laughed so hard I cried, and the boys laughed too. We all hugged. I couldn't remember how long it had been since the boys and I laughed. This was another huge gift we received along with safety and hope-the gift of laughter.
From the day they took us into shelter up to the day we left, they gave us the loving family, hope, courage, self worth, strength, and a second chance at a fairytale life that I thought only happens in books. Those women gave me the chance to see my kids grow up, graduate, join the military, get married, and for me to meet my best friend in the world, the man I'm married to now. 
After Jack was charged, an advocate (Krisanna) sat in on court proceedings because I was too scared to face him. She was the  one who told me that he would get 60 months in jail. The next day Jack was to be taken into custody, but he didn't appear.
April 6 his body was found. He'd committed suicide. I didn't believe it and I refused to leave the shelter. A friend went to the mortuary to ID the body, but I was required, as his wife, to verify. I was literally wheeled into the morgue, and it took an hour before I could look. I recognized him, and at that moment it was as if a door opened on the black room I'd been in for so long and the light came flooding in.
How are you now, 13 years later?
My husband is kind, generous, protective, and my best friend. I thought I was broken, that nobody could love me. But he did and he's treated me like a princess for 12 years. I'm happier than I could have ever thought possible.I can never thank WCST enough for helping me believe in myself and for giving my boys and me our lives back. 
Why tell your story?
If it can help somebody, I would love for them to read it.  I would say to the women who are living the terror that I did, talk to the WCST counselors and listen. They don't tell you what to do. They give you encouragement, and tell you this doesn't have to happen. You can make things change. WCST's door is always open.

This is Mary talking now. If you're in the U.S.A., almost anywhere, a local or regional organization exists to help women like Sharon, and there are way too many. Please support them.