During the month of October, we raise awareness of two major
issues that affect women. Growing up I never understood how someone as
beautiful as my mother would allow herself to be treated, verbal and physically
abused by her partners. I remember her coming for visits with me with longs
sleeves and heavy foundation to cover the bruises. However I know more than
those physically marks it was the belittling and verbal assaults that left her
feeling worthless and sadly desiring of the physical abuse.
I didn't completed understand how someone who brought so
much love and joy into my life wouldn’t feel the same and I also couldn’t
understand how anyone could ever want to hurt my mother. It took me years to
understand what lead my mother to a place where she felt that if someone didn’t
hit her, they didn’t love her. And while I will never completely be able to
understand, I at least could see how my mother ended up there.
To me, my mother was vibrate, loving and in many ways childlike.
She had a deep need to feel loved and accepted, and unfortunately those needs
were preyed upon and created a horrible situation for my mother and for me at
time also. I lived off and on with my mother till the age of seven. To go into
detail about life back then seems unnecessary for this blog. To get a slight
picture let’s just say life was filled with poverty, despair, abuse and addiction.
At the age of seven, a mother’s greatest
fear happen to our household. My sixteen year old bother, Sammy, was killed
during an argument with his friend. Sammy was shot and killed by a fifteen year
old classmate and he died before help could get to him.
Our home went from broken to shatter beyond repair, and so
was my mother’s soul. Shortly after I went to live with my father full time and
my mother story took a darker, sadder and heart breaking spiral downhill. Ultimately,
two weeks following my tenth birthday, we received a call that no family ever
want to receive. We were notified that my mother’s body was found on the side
of a country road in Genesee County. How, why and who might have been with her
leading up to her death is still unknown, 17 years later.
My heart felt ripped from inside of me. Thinking back on
that day even now, I can remember the feeling so vividly, yet it still so indescribable.
We know some facts leading up to her death and one that I do know that my mother
boyfriend had on multiple occasions described to my mother how he would kill
her. I know that my mother suffer greatly at the hands of the person she was
dating prior to her death. And I believe whole heartily that while he might
have not killed her, the abuse she suffered was a huge part of the path that
lead to her death.
So why do I wear purple in October? I do so in memory of my
mother who never left, I do so in celebration of my legal guardian who did
leave her abuse husband, and I do so for the next generation in my family who I
hope never suffer this type of abuse.
I believe everyone is created in God’s imagine and we are
meant to be cherish and loved. Also that we are meant to live happy and holy
lives. No child desires to wonder like I did, why mommy was so sad or why she
was hurt. No family should ever get phone calls like mine had to receive.
My mother isn’t here to tell her story, and I wish her story
had a happy ended, but because she didn’t. I promised her that my story would,
that I would honor her with my relationships and how I lived my life. But more
importantly that I would tell her story, our family’s story in hopes that it
would effect and change other’s lives.
And that is why I wear purple.
