My writer’s brain tells me that “rend” cannot be used as a noun. But when I sit across from a woman who tells me the story of her violent relationship with her son’s father, I see a rend in the surface of the universe that frightens me.
I tell her, I understand, and she doubts my assertion. So I give her the sanitized two-minute version of The Story of My Childhood. Her mouth relaxes. I hope that perhaps she accepts that, yes, this ridiculous curly-haired lawyer across from her in the cheap Target cotton dress and white leggings might actually comprehend.
I’m not complaining. I loved my parents though their imperfection eternally marred me. Some people rise above violence. Some people scab over and stumble forward. Some people gather the shock around them, cotton batting insulating them from reality. I took that route and damned I was for all my crazy ways. But I do not blame anyone for whatever coping mechanism gets them through their days. In point of fact, I wish I had had the fortitude or the DNA to do what some of my siblings did, which was to have a life regardless of the horrors that played out before our eyes.
I gave the woman in my office yesterday the best advice that my thirty-four years of law practice could articulate. The plan which I outlined should help her implement her desire to change, to break the cycle. If I were rich, I’d represent her for free. I’m thinking of sending her to one of the shelters which might be able to do so.
I read a book once in which a college student from the south traveled to Vermont for a summer internship. The girl found a letter from her hosts’ son to a magazine which he signed, “Jitterly yours”. She traced the outlines of the words with one finger, thinking about all the jitterly children in the world whom she hoped to save as a teacher.
I feel that way about survivors of family violence. I told this woman to get out while her five-year-old still had a chance of seeing what a decent relationship looked like. I did not say, Don’t let him be like me, damaged so much that he’ll never trust anyone. But I could have told her so much more, if ethics and common decency did not forbid it. Instead, later in the evening, I posted a passage on Facebook about my emotional reaction to her. My choirs rose to soothe me with their compassion and offers of insight. Unsurprisingly, my dear sister Jilli Nel, herself a survivor and champion of survivors, declared that she would be available to help this woman.
Look: I’m not complaining. At sixty-one (and a half), I have finally risen above the quagmire of chaos that drowned my childhood. I envy those who take far fewer decades to recover. Something about my genetic code combined with my choices inhibited my healing. But I made it through, at last. Now I ache to pull others from the muck. I yearn for a magic wand to change the perpetrators. I don’t believe in pure evil but the perpetrator of family violence comes close. I’d condemn them with a sweep of my arm if I didn’t understand that living with violence in childhood begets violence as an adult just as surely as it begets the victim’s tolerance of it.
So here, now, I’m taking this stand. A life of joy demands that the joyful spread their happiness. I find at last that it is not sufficient for me to be serene. My peace will never be complete unless it multiplies. I cannot rest as long as others suffer.
Someone asked me once what my life goals included. My prompt response surprised the person inquiring. I want to be the best possible version of myself, I proclaimed. I meant it. Moreover, fulfillment of my goal demands that I keep moving forward until every person whom I can help feels my tender touch. If I were rich, I’d help others for free. But I’m not, so I keep trying to expand whatever professional endeavors come my way to allow me to stitch closed a few of the more glaring rends that pain and suffering have left in the fabric of life.
It’s the eleventh day of the forty-first month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
