I ponder how wrong it is I am driving a car full of children to a funeral home to see their friend one final time. As they sing in unison to a song on my daughter’s iPod, jovial and light, tears stream from the corner of my eyes thinking we are missing one.

Their mood vanishes as we enter the funeral home to see her family and are shrouded in the grief that greets us there. I reach out and hold tightly a mother who whispers her longing to have her child back, for one more day, for the chance to do things differently. I look on as she stands at the open casket. Suddenly she bends over to gently touch a shock of her beautiful daughter’s hair. It is the same connection of touch to a sleeping child we deeply love. The appointed protectors, the soothers, the comforters; such loss is the loss of ourselves, our hearts. To not fully understand the extent of our children’s sadness is beyond our comprehension. Could any knife cut through the density of this mother’s grief?

Willing the nerve to look, we sit for a few minutes as the kids gather themselves. I follow as they move forward in solidarity to see their best of friends, the piece to complete them, lying lifelessly. Our minds make her breathe again so she can rest peacefully but our tears know the truth. The truth that was her life, the grief that lived inside her, the false sense of aloneness and hopelessness she clearly felt. Whatever failures she perceived, could she not have failed at this final thing?

After a final goodbye to their friend we walk outside into the warm afternoon sun. Any prior cheerfulness has been stolen like a life lived too short. In a quiet agreement, an unspoken pact, our tears do not break the silence. Listening to the void I am filled with regret. She was like one of my own. When she called out I didn’t want to hear and it is too late now. We live with our actions and inactions, forever changed.

By the spin of a roulette wheel, all bets off, I have watched the ball bounce along these past twelve months hoping it would not be my own child. It has landed on another number next to mine but there is no winner in these high stakes. I find little solace in my relief. The dealer takes all and we feel cheated. None of us is willing or ready to hand her over.

I am clinging to my daughter throughout these days. Holding on to her and not willing to let her go. I hope that she is holding on to me too. I face my own fears in the anxiety yet another painful loss in her life will take her further from me; in the sorrow of the loss of someone I, too, cared deeply for. In the face of this tragedy I promise my daughter the joy of days to come and pray once again that she not lose the courage to fight.

In memory..  http://youtu.be/FvPXDs8ucrw

First, he began to tell her what to wear when they went out, and I did nothing because, obviously, he cares what she looks like.
Then, he came home from a bad day at work and told her the house looked like crap and said she was a pig, and I did nothing because it is his house, isn’t it?
Then, he started calling her bitch and stupid fat whore when he was angry, and I did nothing because I give money to breast cancer research and wear a pink ribbon;
Then, he warned her not to go anywhere with her bitchy best friend, and I did nothing because he was just trying to protect her;
Then, when she did meet her best friend for lunch, he put his fist through the wall a foot from her head, seething with anger and spittle, and I did nothing because he did tell her not to, didn’t he?
Then, he told her not to go anywhere without him, and I did nothing because it’s not really my business;
Then, when she did, he showed her the gun he bought, and I did nothing because I am active in the peace movement;
Then, when she threatened to call the police, he told her they wouldn’t believe her, and I did nothing because they can handle this type of thing;
Then, when she told him she didn’t want to have sex anymore and he forced her, I did nothing because she’s his wife, isn’t she?
And then, when she said she was leaving him, he said he would commit suicide if she did, and I did nothing because it was just an idle threat;
And then when she did leave, he found her and shot her, and I did nothing because it was too late.
And besides, isn’t there some kind of woman’s group that could have dealt with this? Stephen McArthur

Stephen is an Advocate & Community Outreach Coordinator for CIRCLE, a Domestic Violence Agency in Washington County, Vermont. I first saw Stephen’s poem in a shared Domestic Violence Group on LinkedIn and was encouraged by his simple message – men, as a peer group, allow other men to abuse.

Stephen writes: Engaging men is a challenge in our work to end men’s violence against women. Simply put, many men pull back, their eyes glazing over, saying to themselves “this is not about me. I am a good man, and I am glad someone is doing something about these poor women.”

Most men are not abusive and violent with their intimate partners. But almost all men maintain a silence about this violence. I think a lot of men are embarrassed about the male culture of violence, the sexism, the gender stereotyping, the hyper-masculinity of advertising, television shows, movies, videogames, and some music videos. Some men are threatened. Some men are not interested. And some men just don’t care.

But for those men who are well-intentioned, who might end up caring to the extent they actually want to do something, it must be about informing them, educating them, and giving them something simple to do: hand out flyers, help make signs, approach businesses for donations, bring their own personal expertise to educating more people in the community.

The poem’s intention is to help men listen to the real voices in their heads that most possess, and that’s the voice that says “I can do something to help end men’s violence against women”.

What Stephen writes makes me say let’s go further. Let’s have men mentoring men on what healthy, loving intimate relationships look like. Let’s open the door to conversations between men when the evidence points in the direction of abuse, be it verbal, financial or physical. Let’s give men more than posters and signs; let’s give them tools to teach men, the willingness and the courage to call men out reminding them who is being abused…their daughter, their sister, their mother, their niece, their friend, their co-worker…

Let’s give men the power to say “I refuse to stand by and let you abuse!”.

*inspired by Martin Neimoller’s ” When They Came For Me.”

….avalanches are caused by external stress….. events are not random or spontaneous events. Small avalanches sometimes trigger much larger avalanches…a small avalanche may apply significant overburden pressure disturbing deeper weaknesses, and a larger avalanche may form as a result.” Wikipedia

Some believe he went mad, he snapped. Of course he did not. He thought about it, he intended it, he executed his plan. It gathered under the surface, amidst an eerie calm;  a mass of instability, waiting for a whisper to send it crashing down, leaving in its wake unmistakable destruction.

Today I have only quietness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ko6e5F2oGc

But know this, I will not remain quiet. I will not be silenced despite his best efforts. I will tell my truth to anyone and everyone in an effort to spare someone else, to protect children from the scars of  trauma when one parent chooses (lethal) violence against another.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27