A few days ago I was listening to the Oprah channel on XM radio and they were rebroadcasting a show that Oprah had done in 2005 about domestic abuse. It was a horrific story about a woman who was emotionally and physically abused by her husband for 14 years. The husband would abuse her in front of their two sons and encourage them to also hit their mother. The final event that pushed the woman to seek help for herself was an hour's long session of abuse that the husband had their 13 year old son video tape.
Yesterday, as I had breakfast with some friends, one of them told us a story of a neighbors son (who is a high school senior) who came to the door and asked if he could stay with them for a couple of weeks because his Dad(I use that term loosely) had thrown him out of the house. She shared stories of seeing the boys picking rocks from their gravel road out of their front yard grass. She also shared how one of the boys was forced to walk to school in a snowstorm to retrieve a forgotten school book needed for homework. She also shared other stories of abuse that the two sons of this neighbor were forced to endure. The mother had left the husband and the boys when the oldest was only 5 years old, so for 13 years these boys have been left in the hands of this abuser. This oldest boy (who is staying with my friend)has a part time job and he is also in a couple of high level classes at the school. He is not a druggy or a drinker; he is just a kid trying to do all the right things in a bad environment. My friend said that this boy is not going back to his house (I will not call it a home); he will now stay with her.
Both of these stories left me haunted. My heart hurt for these victims of abuse. There is no way to ever understand how anyone can hurt or abuse someone that they claim to love. When you are in the middle of abuse, you do not even see it as abuse. You think you deserve what is happening to you. You did something to bring the abuse upon yourself. You also think that no one can ever understand or save you. Listening to these stories brought my own abuse out of the shadows.
I have been given the gift of grace. I have left those memories and moved into a new life, but hearing of these others that have lived the abuse and are even now living the abuse reminds me of how far I have come. Lurking in the shadows of my mind are the moments that will never be completely forgotten. This too is grace, with the knowledge that I have now, I have been able to break the cycle. I think of it in terms of someone that loses a limb. They are given a prosthetic and they are able to move about. They sometimes even feel pain, where the limb once was. They are able to live a somewhat normal life, yet they are changed forever.
Nothing happens without reason. By turning on the radio the other day and joining my friends for breakfast yesterday I was reminded of the amazing grace I was given, the opportunity to remember how painful abuse can be yet still move past it and thrive. It is truly one of life's miracles and I am blessed.
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned. ~ *James Baldwin
*(died in 1987, he was an American novelist and playwright and civil rights activist.)
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