October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
When a District Judge calls to ask a favor, it’s hard to say ‘no’.
Quite some time ago, I received a call from a judge asking me to give an October talk to a large group of people. The venue was a church and she was trying something rather cutting edge and that was to have me speak right in the middle of a service. I say cutting edge because that particular denomination just doesn’t DO talks from ‘folks’ in the middle of their services.
I agreed. The weekend date was set well in advance, but I didn’t need to do much preparation. The judge had already heard what I had to say and wanted me to say it – again.
The very week before my scheduled talk, there was a local murder suicide and the funeral service for the man who shot his wife, then himself, was held in the very church in which I was to speak. The judge called me and asked me if I wanted to cancel or reschedule. I decided to go ahead – with some sensitivity to the events of the week.
When I speak, I do not accuse. Telling the plain, unembellished truth is plenty. Many folks have no idea what domestic violence can look like, sound like, feel like from the perspective of the victims. I’ve found that a sensory look helps them understand.
I was familiar with the layout of the church. It was a big old brick building with a long nave. Great for echoes! From where I was to stand, I could look out at everyone in their seats, and yet was far enough away to feel less intimidated.
I told my story, but I began as I always begin. I sang to them. Over the course of my ‘freedom’, I have found the perfect words (perfect for me, perhaps). While they were written for an entirely different purpose, they express my feelings about being held prisoner by my husband and his abuse. The words are from “Prologue – Work Song”, in Les Miserables, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer. I’m not a professional singer, but for that one moment, the church was stilled and my voice echoed into the vastness. Appropriate . . . since the ‘vastness’ never heard me call out while I was black and blue.
Look down, look down
Don’t look ‘em in the eye
Look down, look down,
You’re here until you die.
I took the time to begin at the beginning – like the prologue to the musical. How quickly life can turn on innocent people! I set the scene for my listeners so they understood what the abuse looked like and felt like . . . and then I sang to them again. Since we were in a house of worship, I wanted them to know that victims so plundered by violence, can feel completely abandoned.
I’ve done no wrong!
Sweet Jesus hear my prayer!
Look down, look down,
Sweet Jesus doesn’t care
I explained how stuck I felt. We had no phone, no car, and I had little latitude to move freely around the small town where we lived. We had no laundry appliances and the laundromat was across town, too far to walk with the laundry and supplies, so I washed clothes in the bathtub. Hard work and routine got me by and each night, clean clothes hung in front of a one-room stove. Yet, most days I thought that death would be a welcome end.
Look down, look down
Don’t look ‘em in the eye
How long O Lord
Before you let me die?
I didn’t die, of course. I got away, but it wasn’t until too many other nightmares collected to invade my sleep. But somehow, singing seems to soften the reality – just enough . . . . for my listeners . . . . . and for me.
We’re out here, those of us who have survived. We are keeping watch, trying to affect positive changes, and hoping that with public awareness, that no one calls out into the vastness without hearing an answer.
Today, I am wearing purple for the wife who was shot to death the week before ‘I sang to them’ in church and in gratitude for the judge who used her status to shed a bright beacon on blight of domestic abuse.
