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We never talked about domestic violence or sexual assault. Maybe the first hint came when one of my cousins talked of joining the army. Her father, a veteran of WWII, laid down a heavy veto. Her brother was already an Army reservist, so we wondered why not her? Our uncle only said, “It’s very hard on women in the Army.”
At 21, my world of Ozzie and Harriet parents and aunts and uncles, of small town tranquility and neatly mowed lawns, all that exploded. Newly married, my wife and moved next door to a woman who was beaten by her husband. We could hear her screaming and begging him to stop in the night. We had no idea how to help her or what to say or what to do. In 1975, domestic violence was almost as dark a secret as sexual assault by priests or most child abuse.
But there are tears in their grandfather’s eyes as I remember that woman beaten nearly to death in a hospital room 36 years ago.
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Five years later another explosion. Our family had joined with two other families to launch a small weekly newspaper in a North Carolina mountain town. One of our employees was beaten nearly to death by her husband. 36 years later, part of the work I do is around supporting victims of domestic violence as they seek safety, careers, child care, housing, transportation, you name it. They often walk out of their private hells into a world where they need everything material, physical, mental, spiritual. They are like survivors of shipwrecks tossed on a beach.
I have three granddaughters. My sons, their fathers, would be mighty hard on any man who sought to harm those young women. Two of them are four, born two weeks apart. The third is about to turn 18 months.
They will hear much more about safety and being careful in a world that is so different from 1975. Maybe they will even tour a women’s shelter or a victim’s advocate center as young teens and hear about a world their grandfather wishes did not exist. As they hear these horror stories, they will remember conversations they had with their own parents about being careful, about how to handle boys on dates, about the men they will someday marry.
But there are tears in their grandfather’s eyes as I remember that woman beaten nearly to death in a hospital room 36 years ago. There is fury in my heart as I imagine the little I could do if something awful happened to my daughters or daughters-in-law or granddaughters. There have already been close calls for some of my relatives. Friends have been beaten. Women I know have been raped. As a minister, I have sat with victims and listened to them weep their grief.
Good men need more talk, more gatherings around food and music to mull how we may embrace each other to bring more light to that dark heart.
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Good men stand with us. Shelters have men on their boards and among their volunteers. Victims’ advocates are often married to good men or friends with good men who step up and say, “Enough. No man should be allowed to create this much pain, these horrible injuries, this deep grief.”
But not allowing it does not keep it from happening. There are different voices. Some dare say, “She had it coming,” or “She should have kept her mouth shut.” The predatory vein that runs through manhood is alive and pumping blood from the darkest places in the human heart. Oh, sure, these men are often victims themselves. It is often the darkness in their memories that unleashes the violence that was inflicted on them. Good men need more talk, more gatherings around food and music to mull how we may embrace each other to bring more light to that dark heart. It will take the kind of work that changed a country’s thinking on marriage equality. It will take years and hours, marches and workshops, alliances across all divisions.
But it has to happen. I have these three granddaughters. They don’t even know how important this work is. They don’t understand the tears in their granddaddy’s eyes.
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Photo: GettyImages