‘Amelia Bedelia’ and Parsley

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Today is the last day of October, so I want to write one last passage related to Domestic Violence.

There is someone very dear to me who has been reading these passages this month, a friend of mine from the time after my escape.  In the ‘getting by and trying to make ends meet’ phase of raising Angel on my own, I had the good fortune to meet a woman who was an enormous blessing to me.  We shared laughter through the toughest of times.

My friend had a daughter Angel’s age, so when we could get together, the girls got to play.  However, as was often the case, we had our chats on the phone after the girls were tucked in for the night.  I lived across town from her and didn’t have a car at the time, so getting together was a challenge.

Once in a while, I would read to my friend over the phone.  Angel liked Amelia Bedelia books – probably because mommy laughed when she read them.  I’m not sure she understood the humor in the author’s use of literal and figurative language, but I thought Peggy Parish’s books were funny and so did my friend.  I would only read one book at a time when I had one from the library, but it broke the ice for other adult conversation that I so desperately needed.  I have fond memories of sitting on the kitchen floor, legs stretched out in front of me, balancing a book in my lap and trying to turn the pages with one hand while I held the phone in the other.

When the laughter subsided, we were able to hear each other out and we’d talk for a while.  I have always been so very grateful.

Once, my friend told me that she needed some parsley for something.  I had some to share.  A postage stamp was cheaper than a jar of the dried herb or the bus fare to deliver it to her, so I sprinkled some of my parsley into a paper that I carefully folded to hold it.  I sent it across town to her.  When it arrived in her mail, she gave me a phone call and asked me if I had sent her some marijuana.

At the time, I couldn’t even imagine why she had asked me that question.  I didn’t do drugs.  As it turned out, en route to her mailbox, my green dried parsley had turned a very different color.  We both had a great laugh over that, but I still think of it when I plant my parsley and dry it at the end of the season.

This post isn’t about Amelia Bedelia or parsley as much as it is about healing and moving on.  Healing doesn’t happen overnight and moving on can be total crap with every footfall for a while, but with friends who ‘get it’, there is always hope and a shoulder to lean on.

To my friend: a world of thanks to you.  I was just in your old neighborhood last week.  Who knew that I would later come to know that the building across the street from where you lived would be an important part of my career.  I don’t get there often, but when I do, I send you good wishes wrapped in gratitude and memories. We made a new ‘normal’ didn’t we?

To anyone who stops here and needs to know: “Hands are not for hitting.  Words are not for hurting.”  Neither is acceptable behavior.  I have a T-shirt with those words on it.  I bought it years ago from the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women in a grassroots campaign to prevent battering before it starts.  I am not wearing that shirt today.  It’s black and I have it tucked away for safe keeping. 

Today, I am wearing purple . . . because it I like it and it looks good on me!

 

 

 

  

 

What We Tell

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

I believe the potential for healing exists when a survivor of any violence speaks out.  There is a range of what survivors share, from nothing to everything and anywhere in between. 

What I share or don’t share has always depended upon with whom I was speaking as well as the circumstances.  In the medical clinics and hospitals, I shared things that related to the cause of my injuries.  When speaking with audiences concerned about Domestic Violence, I shared a variety of things highlighting different aspects of abusive behavior.  When speaking with other survivors, I tended to share only my similarities with those involved in the conversation.  When speaking in court, I shared what was necessary to achieve the result I desired.  When speaking with my family, I have shared enough to keep us all protected and enough to understand the danger at the time. 

Perhaps as important as the telling, is the freedom not to tell.  When Power and Control act so hideously to dominate and harm, I’ve found it necessary to regain my footing by deciding when or if I wish to speak about what happened to me.  Angel knew more than Goodnight does, but Angel was older than Goodnight is now.  Angel knew enough for her circumstances and while Goodnight knows considerably less, she knows enough for now. 

I have never shared all of what happened to me and am not likely to do so.  As terrible as some of the things I’ve shared this month may seem, I have kept the worst to myself.  To live it was enough, to have gotten away from it was even better, to share it would run the risk of sensationalizing what I have put behind me.  To speak of atrocities, one must step closer to them.  In so doing, the atrocities loom larger and can block one’s vision of other things.  I choose not to give the atrocities the power to block my vision. 

When I began my blog, it was with the purpose of accomplishing several things: to freely share knitting patterns and/or advice to a craft community which has given me so much enjoyment and entertainment over the years, to provide a diary-type format in which to share some stories that Goodnight can hold close to her heart, and to otherwise generally make a positive difference on this planet.  Having escaped terrible violence and lived through unnecessary injuries has obligated me to pay it forward.  Over the course of this October, Domestic Awareness Month 2011, readership has risen dramatically, reminding me that our voices are still necessary as we speak to new generations coming into contact with Power and Control.  The nice thing about this format is that the stories will be here next year, the year after, and beyond. 

Because October draws to a close and I find myself ending my passages of abuse, does not mean I am done speaking about it.  Whispered words and muted conversations will find their way to me as they did three times in the last two weeks.  To all those in need of hope who find their way here, get the help you need to escape violence, speak as much of your abuse as you need to heal, may you have a Doctor Hope to help you like I had, may you know friendships that lead you to more peaceful lives, and know that I will wear a lot of purple in October as long as I have the power to do so.  There is so much more life beyond that first step you take to walk away.

The Cost

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Throughout this month, I’ve been writing passages about Domestic Violence – mostly my own.  I have also suggested, as many others have, that Domestic Violence is a public health problem of enormous proportion.  Domestic Violence is refered to as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and has taken an economic toll in this country so much so, that Congress funded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect data on the occurrence of IPV and the estimated health care costs.  The findings were published in 2003 and are currently used as the benchmark for the impact IPV has on society.  One caveat, the study focused on violence against women.

I already knew it was expensive.  I have a notebook at home in which I documented all the health care expenses that were directly related to the abuse and injuries I sustained.  I know it was a very unusual thing to do, but I kept track of the date, the invoice number, the type of service and the cost.  The health care expenses alone consumed 45 pages of my notebook.

So that I don’t minimize the impact of abuse, I want to mention that included in the health care estimate, are services for mental health care.  Power and Control can also impact a victim’s capacity to cope.  Degradation of the human spirit takes time to repair and adds to the financial burden of individuals as well as society at-large.

There are other costs, too.  The cost of lost days of paid work affects employers as well as victims.  Subsequently, loss of  paid work affects one’s lifetime earning power and retirement status.  Court and police time affect taxpayers.  Relocating residence is expensive.  The cost to replace material things damaged during acts of violence is more hidden than the medical expenses and primarily borne by the victims, but it causes a debit rather than a credit in one’s personal financial records.  The monthly fee for maintaining a non-published phone number pales in comparison to other debts rung up to violence, but the phone fee amounts to substantial sum after decades of such a minimal safety net.

I don’t pull my notebook out very often, but I did this morning, because I wanted to remind myself of a different progress I’ve made.  Additionally, I had recently viewed a FOXNEWS video about the cost of domestic violence and wanted to draw other people’s attention to it.  The high price of Domestic Violence is the reason I am wearing purple today.

Anger and Revenge

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Tough words, anger and revenge.  It’s one thing to feel them and it’s entirely different to be encouraged to feel them.  The latter happened to me as I rested in my hospital bed after my first neck surgery.  The nurses knew why I was there and as they checked my vital signs and helped me walk, they were all curious enough to ask, “Aren’t you just so angry?” or “Don’t you want to get even with him?”

I honestly hadn’t had the time to be angry or get even with my abuser.  I was frightened, hurt, nervous, worried, sad, and then grateful to have gotten away and then hopeful about ‘ever after’ without abuse.  Anger is exhausting and I was already tired enough.  I made my statement about abuse without shouting or hitting.  I got away.

Revenge is such a harsh action.  To retaliate or take vengeance out of spite is something I couldn’t do because of moral and spiritual reasons.  I’m not going to preach.  It’s simply my nature to seek peace.  The distance I’ve kept between me and my abuser has been enough.

I lived.  I saved myself and I saved Angel.  I set Priscilla free.  I healed to the extent that I could.  Sometimes I limp a little and from time to time my heart does too, but none of what I went through was worth carrying the guilty burden of having done the same to another.  I didn’t turn my other cheek . . . I just relocated both of them.

It is not revenge to take action for injuries or wrongs.  It is revenge to inflict punishment in return for harms done.  I took action.  I didn’t hide  in a closet and pray for Power and Control to simply end my suffering.   I escaped.  I can walk and talk freely without fear of physical abuse.  I look for goodness and beauty in the world and I find them.  To have hated would have only inflicted hate into every free moment of freedom.  That doesn’t seem like freedom to me.  To have hated would have injected hate into Angel’s life and she was worth more than that.  I was worth more than that.

Angel and I lived.  That’s enough.

Officer Friendly (my late husband) lived a long time after he retired from the police department.  He earned much more from his pension than he paid in just by living.  I feel the same about each day that I wake up without the looming threat of violence in my life.  Today I am wearing purple to remind myself to continue . . . living.

Hope in a White Coat

Note:  For those who came to read this post because of the ‘knitting’ tag, hang in there.  It’s a sweet part in the middle of the passage.

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

When I escaped my violent husband, I needed to start a new life, which really meant starting two new lives because I was pregnant with Angel.  I needed to find a doctor.

I remember walking into the clinic for the first time.  I was exhausted and emotionally spent from so much violence in such a short time.  Little did I know that the doctor I was about to meet would play a significant role in changing my outlook.

Dr. Hope* was a quiet man and a relatively new obstetrician.  I knew that when I saw how far down his name was on the list of doctors serving the clinic.  He was kind without being patronizing and he focused on what needed immediate attention.  I had mononucleosis.  That explained my exhaustion!

Dr. Hope did all the other appropriate tests necessary for a first obstetrical visit and we set up a schedule of appointments.  He also went far beyond when he needed to do.  He took the time to have a long conversation with me.  He listened to my story of abuse – the parts I felt he needed to know – and in the telling, it seemed to lighten my load.  Our conversation lasted four hours that first visit!

My monthly visits became weekly and yet I had received no bill.  The clinic was large enough that there was a billing department to handle everything.  I had some money, but because I had relocated, I suspect Dr. Hope knew my resources would be limited until after the delivery, when I could rely on a more steady income.

Amazingly, when I was feeling stronger, Dr. Hope found a family who needed their house cleaned once a week and asked me if I was interested.  I took the work.

Months passed and Angel was born.  Dr. Hope’s obstetrical obligations were nearly met.

When I went into the clinic for my final check-up after delivery, I thanked Dr. Hope for everything he had done.  Aside from listening, He offered insights to human nature and good advice.  What he hadn’t offered was a bill.

I pulled a package out of Angel’s diaper bag and handed it to Dr. Hope.  He opened the wrapping to find the sweater I had knit him during my pregnancy.  It was a brown and gold crew-neck pullover with a hound’s tooth pattern on the front.  He took off his lab coat and tried it on.  It fit.  I thanked him for everything and made my way out of the clinic.  I never received a bill.

As time went by, I returned to the clinic for periodic gynecological exams and I noticed Dr. Hope’s name was no longer on the bottom of the list of clinic doctors.  Time hadn’t changed him much.  He was always ready to sit down and catch up on life.

When Angel was nearly a teenager, we were riding a metro bus into the city and I overheard a conversation between two women seated behind me.  The first woman mentioned that her daughter was old enough to see a gynecologist and asked the other woman if she knew any good ones.  The second woman’s easy reply was, “Make sure you send her to Dr. Hope.  He will take good care of your daughter.”

True, I thought to myself.  Very true.

Dr. Hope retired a few years ago.  I had the good fortune of seeing him as he approached his retirement.  As we reminisced, he remembered my journey of abuse and I remembered his journey to the top of the list of doctors on the clinic.  What I remember most poignantly was how much he respected his white coat and the gentle dignity with which he used the authority it gave him. 

Dignity begets dignity and can lift people out of their circumstances.  I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Hope long before some of the physical effects of Domestic Violence showed up.  I measured my future health care against his high standard.  Because I had a good example by which I could judge, I received just the right medical attention at the right time from the right people:  neurologist, orthopedic surgeon, neurosurgeon, physical therapists, etc.  Today I am wearing purple in gratitude for Dr. Hope.  I had to turn the corner of abuse on my own, but when I did, he was there to offer hope . . . as well as one way to measure it.

*Dr. Hope was not his real name.

The Peace Officer

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

I can’t write a post about Law Enforcement and how they handle Domestic Abuse calls.  Some have gotten a bad reputation for ignoring calls or taking abusers for a walk and a talk and then sending them back in to abuse some more.  I also know that some officers have lost their lives when handling Domestic Abuse calls .  I never called the police (we didn’t have a phone) and no one called for me, so I have no personal experience to share.

Officer Friendly loved his twenty-year career.  He took it seriously.  I didn’t meet him until well after he had retired but what he did for me underscored the term ‘Peace Officer.’

Early into our marriage, I attended a work-related conference in another state and asked OF if he wanted to tag along.  He didn’t think he would mind hanging out in the hotel hot tub or swimming pool and then putting his feet up to watch television, so he decided to accompany me on the trip.

The conference was held within driving distance of where I lived out the nightmares of my first marriage.  OF knew some of the some of the stories and he offered to ‘take a drive’ to see things in a different light.

He drove me to the little town where I had lived – and nearly died.  It had changed after so much time.  It took us a while to find the house where I had lived: the house with the big yard where  ’Priscilla’ romped; the house with the one-room heater that took us through a terrible winter, the house where my hand-made Christmas ornaments were stomped into the floor.  I barely recognized it.  The outside had a fresh coat of paint and the lot had been divided so another house stood closer than the nearest neighbor we had.  It just looked normal.

We drove around the town and I looked for the store where ‘Priscilla’ would block the door as she waited for me to shop.  I went into the store.  It had changed, too.  It was no longer a grocery store, but a bait and tackle place with some souvenirs.  The town had recently celebrated its centennial, so they were selling some T-shirts.  I bought one.  I didn’t buy the shirt because I had fond memories of the place.  I didn’t.  I bought the shirt because OF took me there and going back was a good thing.

We drove around the town, up and down the main street, and then around the town again.  He just kept turning the steering wheel in the direction I pointed.  Finally, I had seen enough.  The town had changed, but so had I.

I can’t say that going back was healing.  I did all that work in between my surgeries.  There were no enlightened moments or sudden bursts of tears.  It was just quiet and peaceful – everything I had longed for in my first marriage, but everything that I got in my second.

OF was a Peace Officer – even long after he retired.

Slow Movements

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

This morning, I was listening to the radio in the wee hours before dawn.  The classical music radio station was playing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Opus 18.  It is a concerto for piano and orchestra.  I am always captivated from the moment I hear the first chords.

I used to play the piano.  I say ‘used to’ when I should really admit that I am still able to play a bit.  The limited playing I do now is directly related to the physical violence I suffered in my first marriage.

Before I continue, I must say that I never had any illusion of being a concert pianist, but I could play for long time and get lost in the music.

I’ve already mentioned the torn tendon sheaths in both my wrists.  Power and Control did that – many times.  He had a way of causing immediate, immobilizing  pain with seemingly little effort on his part.  I’ve had corrective surgery on both wrists: three times each and, as I type this post, am showing signs that another is in my future.

Listening to the Rachmaninoff this morning, the first movement, Moderato, reminded me of what I’ve given up.  Moderato, itself wouldn’t mean too much of a challenge, but the arpeggios and agitated development would cause me pain and numbness.  The third movement, Allegro scherzando, would be completely out of the question.  Too jarring, too painful.

When I heard the second movement begin, I was reminded of what is still possible.  It is the slow movement: Adagio sostenuto.  It’s beautiful, lyrical, and for me, possible, albeit with less ‘animato’ than suggested by the composer.

I have long noticed that I have come by a collection of slow movements: both for the piano and for my life.  Some I can simply chalk up to aging and not feel any regret.  Others, however, are directly related to physical violence and torture.  Lest anyone thinks I candy-coat domestic violence, I do not. 

What happened to me was torture.  I drop things.  It hurts to grip things.  It hurts to hold a book when I try to read.  I get headaches when I look down.  It hurts to get dressed in the morning.  It hurts to turn my head when I want to look at something.  It hurts when I grip a pen to write.  It hurts to play the piano.

The purpose of my October Posts is not to complain on my own behalf.  It’s to illuminate Domestic Violence.  I can only speak for myself and what I went through, but keeping silent helps abusers and does not protect others from victimnization if they don’t even know what abuse looks like or feels like.  From subtle manipulation to death-encroaching blows, Domestic Violence should be the oxymoron for which we legislate funds to advertise its hideous paradox.  With an incidence of one out of three females and seven of one hundred males* who will experience abuse in their lifetime, it is a public health epidemic. 

I make accommodations for limitations as they come up.  I grip things differently, or don’t grip them at all.  I hold books in my lap with my knees propped up so I don’t have to look down or hold the book.  I manage getting dressed . . . because the college where I work would frown on me showing up in my pj’s.  Rather than turning my head to look at something, I swivel my chair.  Thank goodness for texting and email because I don’t have to write much anymore.  I type most things.  If my step is slowed or I grab the railing when I do the stairs, I choose to call it graceful.

And I play the slow movements of whatever piano piece I can find.

*Studies vary a bit on numbers, but are close.  They can only be accurate to the extent that victims are willing to report or to the extent victims are aware that what they are experiencing is abuse.

What We Lose . . .

 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

We are lucky to get away from our abusers.  We are even luckier if we are able to escape with any dignity, personal belongings or our children.   I lost everything, except Angel . . . twice.

The first time I lost everything, I didn’t even know I was losing anything as it happened – it wasn’t until it was too late to get anything back.  My abusive husband slowly pawned things.  I didn’t notice because I’m not terribly materialistic and I certainly didn’t ‘keep track’.  But one day I wanted to use something my dad had given me and it was nowhere to be found.  In the short time we had been married, we hadn’t accumulated enough ‘stuff’ for it to have been so difficult to find.

I asked my husband if he’d seen it and he just began to laugh.  “I was wondering when you would notice it was gone.”  I didn’t even have enough time to furrow my brow before he admitted he’d pawned it.  My heart sank.  It was huge slap in the face, just one without any physical contact.  By the time I was looking for the item my dad had given me, my husband had already pawned the wedding gift I had given him, too.  The road to hell got a little hotter that day.

We took a short trip to visit family.  I was told we were only going to be gone a few days, so I packed light.  We never went back.  He sold most everything in the house behind my back and what he couldn’t sell was taken by the landlord for the back rent my husband owed.  I had no idea he wasn’t paying the rent.  No one ever came to the house asking for money and no utility bills came in the mail because everything was included in the rent.

It’s just stuff, but some of it was ‘stuff’ that made getting on my feet more difficult later on: high school diploma, college diploma, other records, etc.

Even the sentimental ‘stuff’ I lost was still only ‘stuff’ but it was ‘stuff’ that was linked to memories or stories – good memories and much better stories than the one in which they disappeared. 

I’ve already mentioned the second time I lost everything.  When I went to the hospital to save my life and Angel’s, Power and Control broke, tore, or damaged everything he couldn’t take with him when he finally realized I was not coming back to him.

Ironically, it was left to me to clean up after him . . . for the last time.  It was nearly a month before I went back to our apartment.  I had been in the hospital several days and then in a battered women’s shelter for three weeks.  While I was there, I was in contact with the apartment landlord.  She eventually told me when she hadn’t seen any activity there for quite a while.

I went back to see if there was anything I could salvage.  In an earlier post, I mentioned that he had even taken meat out of the freezer and left it on the counter.  He had no intention of cooking the meat for himself.  He had every intention of making sure that I couldn’t cook it either. 

With the meat having set out on the counter for nearly a month, in July, the place stunk to the point of making me wretch as I tried to clean.  I wanted to clean the place well enough to get our damage deposit back.  Yes, he had forgotten about that!  He stole everything from my bank account, but the bugger forgot the damage deposit for the apartment and I was determined to get every nickel of it!  It was the only money I would have for a while.

In escaping Domestic Violence, we can’t afford to look at what we lose.  If we do look,  we can only look long enough to weigh it against what we can gain by leaving. 

Oh sure, I missed the rugs my grandmother braided me, but I lived to see her again.  I missed “Priscilla”, my protective dog, but we both got away to live without being hit.  I missed having my personal records and found it a major irritation to have to pay for them all over again when I was trying to get on my feet, but it was the ‘getting on my feet’ part that made the loss more tolerable.  I missed the item my dad had given me, but I escaped the violence to have more chats with my dad and then the pawned item didn’t matter.  I missed the big house we apparently weren’t renting, but it had never really become a ‘home.’  I missed feeling safe enough to fall asleep, but that returned in time.

Leaving was MUCH  better than staying for me . . . but for some, even leaving isn’t always enough.

In a local school where Goodnight has many friends, they are dealing with the news of a second family murder-suicide in a month.  Is there enough purple in the world for that kind of statistic?

 

The Choice . . .

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

The passages of abuse I’ve been sharing this month did not necessarily occur in the order in which I’ve written them.  Perhaps that’s an unconscious tribute to the chaos of violence itself, but by the same token, when I clean out my ‘junk’ drawer at home, I don’t necessarily sort in the order I collected everything.

Within the first month of my marriage to my abuser, I had saved a man’s life and nearly lost my own in the process.

My husband’s brother was visiting and one night, had a seizure, during which time, he was choking.  (In truth, it was MUCH more dramatic that the sterile description I’ve given but . . . TMI).  I was not present in the room when it began, however the sudden change of activity in the next room got my attention.  My husband came to me and asked me if I could help.  I had a choice to make: try to save the live of an in-law who had been a cohort in my abuse or get beaten to death for not helping.  I made a quick decision, but even before that, the choices I had and their respective consequences flashed through my mind, first.  I had already learned to weigh my alternatives and take the road to the least amount of violence.  My determination, in that moment, was that I was SOL either way.

I leapt from my seat, ran into the next room to find my husband’s brother flat-out on the floor, turning ashen from lack of oxygen.  I pried his mouth open and saw that he was choking on his own tongue.  I knew what to do.  Years before, I had saved the life of a young camper in the same predicament.

My husband handed me the spoon and I asked him to help me hold his brother’s mouth open.  With the proper placement of the spoon at the back of the throat, I was able to move the tongue enough to provide a passage for air.  Before long, his brother was breathing on his own.

I sighed with relief – but not for the reason you might think.  I was grateful for not having had to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, because I knew that my abusive husband would turn it into something other than its honest purpose and beat the living daylights out of me.

It didn’t matter – he beat me anyway.  I jumped from life-saver to ‘whore’ without one ounce of behavior to support his claim.  In high school and college I was a lifeguard and had training in life-saving measures . . . and had used them.  When Power and Control take over, they contort truth and innocence into something evil.

My reward for saving someone’s life was a black eye and torn tendon sheaths at both wrists, choking, kicking and not nearly enough bruises to match the pain. 

Today, I am wearing purple bracelets around my badly torn and at a later date, surgically repaired wrists in honor of every innocent bruise acquired under the dire circumstances of domestic violence. 

 Sadly, torn tendon sheaths are minor in the scheme of things . . .  

Yesterday, one of the stories in the national news here in the United States was of a massacre in a Southern California hair salon.  The presumed cause of the shooting was a custody dispute between the ex-husband who did the shooting, and his wife, who was an employee in the salon.  Eight victims died when he opened fire.  Witnesses say the first victim was his former wife.  The focus of the custody battle was their young son . . . another victim of a violent domestic situation and its tragic conclusion.

 

Burgers and Beans

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Some memories can be fleeting mental images and others can be more sensory as they pass.  For me, one in particular replays itself in slow-motion.  Now don’t get me wrong; it doesn’t play very often.  It happened a long time ago and I am well away from all of that.  Yet, it has shaped my opinion of burgers and beans: refried beans to be exact.

There are many faces of abuse.  Power and Control dictated that dinner had to be ready the moment my abuser walked in the door . . . . but the walking in the door part happened unpredictably.  It was an unreasonable demand, of course, but that’s what I was faced with.

I had worked all day: scrubbing our large kitchen floor on my hands and knees, rinsing pinto beans I had soaked overnight and tending the pot as they simmered, etc.  When the beans were cooked, some of them would become refried beans for dinner.  That was the easy part.  My husband like refried beans and he liked the way I made them.  We were also going to have hamburgers.

It’s tough to have hamburgers ready and hot for someone when they walk in the door at a time you haven’t been told.  No microwaves back then, either.  My husband’s arrival time was never consistent:  sometimes early, sometime late.  I learned to work around that later, but the burgers and beans dinner was early in our marriage.

He surprised me when he walked in the door.  It had already become a frightening event, frankly, but that whole dinner on the table thing made it worse.  I had some latitude as he cleaned up and changed clothes, but not much.

I put the cast-iron skillet on the stove, adjusted the flame to heat it up, then and put the burgers on to cook.  Meanwhile I fixed the refried beans.  It was easy enough to set the table any time during the day, so that didn’t need tending and it gave the impression of confident preparedness.

Too slow!  The burgers were taking too long.  I could tell he was nearly ready to come to the kitchen.  I cranked the flame to high and would have cooked the burgers with a welding torch at that point, had there been one available.

He arrived at the table, took his seat and demanded his dinner.  The beans were in a bowl and I serve his burgers hot off the pan.  He took a bite of his burger, and then . . . . .

. . . . he pushed himself away from the table, stood, removed the burger from its bun and thrust it upwards toward my nose.  He reached for the bowl of beans, used his hand to scoop out as much as he could and shoved it where the burger had just gone.

I was blinded and choking.  It was of no concern to him.  He was clearing the table by throwing everything on the clean floor.  The remaining beans went flying everywhere and the rest of the hamburgers followed.  The drinking water in the pitcher got thrown at me.

One incident, so fleeting, and yet so very, very wrong.  Not love, not respect, not peaceful, and certainly not fair.

Today, I am wearing purple for anyone who may not know that such behavior is A-B-U-S-E!  Tonight, burgers and beans at my house!