I Heard A Woman Die

I heard a woman die one day in my own house – just feet from me.

I listened but didn’t understand that the strange noises I was hearing were of a woman dying. I feel guilt to this day because it was a matter of minutes between here and there and I did nothing because I didn’t realize she was dying – within feet of me.

I’ve been raped. I’ve been beaten. I’ve been terrorized psychologically. I was sexually assaulted when I served my country and sexually harassed.

I untied a belt from a man’s neck who had tried to hang himself and talked to him for about thirty minutes only to later discover he was a psychopath who was trying to kill me.

Sound crazy? It’s all true.

But I’m still here.

My father was killed in an car accident three months before I was born and my third son’s father was killed in an almost identical fashion.

I was late for his funeral. He looked strangely like Mel Gibson with the makeup they put on him and his lips were cold when I kissed him goodbye. His head had stitches from the autopsy. His chest was flat because, like my own father, he was ejected from the vehicle as it rolled over on top of him.

There’s so much more to this story but I suppose we all have things we have to live with – trauma.

No wonder I’m so full of rage.