I am a phoenix.

Trigger Warning: This post speaks further on domestic violence and it's effects. Readers sensitive to the subject should be cautioned.

Yesterday marked an important anniversary date for me. On May 3, 28 years ago at 6:15 in the morning, as the sun was rising over the Texas sky and the heat was setting in for the day and the world was abuzz with news of a terrorist bombing on an Air Lanka flight and the wedding of Annette Funicello, in a small hospital room in San Antonio a young woman took her last breath. Her heart stopped pumping, her lungs finally collapsed on themselves, her body convulsed only slightly, and then it just... let go.

Like a condemned building tumbling into mere dust or a person walking away forever.

This woman was my mother, and my latest grassroots work is her legacy. That is what she left for me: a few tattered memories, more questions than answers, and a whole lot of work to heal from the losses and traumas throughout the years following her death. This year's efforts have been especially useful in that way, igniting the spirit of generosity among my neighbors, providing needed items to an organization that is working to help people like my mother and me, and allowing me to share my experiences in a way that gives a nearly justifiable purpose to the suffering my mother went through in her final three weeks on this Earth.

Some strange and unlikely occurrences have unfolded over the last three weeks of this drive. For example, my mom was apparently called the Yellow Rose of Texas by friends and when she died funeral attendees showered the scene with yellow roses. The day after I announced From the Heart to the Hands, a photo of a tattoo a friend of mine had just finished on a client showed up in my Facebook newsfeed. It was a yellow rose draped in a purple ribbon, the color used to signify domestic violence. Another is the random text a girlfriend received the other night from a stranger. She shared the details of it with me, and it was a horrifying statement of abuse and control wherein the sender recounted the many ways he had hurt other women, including shooting one out of jealousy. There was also an incident recently where a local man intentionally hit his girlfriend with his car, and another just yesterday where a man bound and stabbed a woman and then shot himself in the head following the police chase that ensued. Lastly, and perhaps this is the most poignant of all of them, we received a box of strawberries on our doorstep yesterday as part of our Fruit of the Month club membership (remember? The grapefruit bomb-diggity DIY cleaner?). This is not remarkable on its own; however, my mother was attacked for the last time by her lover on the eve of their date to the Poteet Strawberry Festival. As I unwrapped the insulated packaging and held one of the chilly, perfect berries in my hand I moved momentarily to the memory of the coldness of my mother's hands on the day of her burial. Suddenly my mind was overflowing with memories from that day, countless and small, like the seeds on a strawberry. It's been a long time since I said goodbye to her; like, a really, really long time. I've never held such cold hands since. The warmth of childhood bliss froze for me that day.

There have been days where my whole universe was on fire because of my mom's death. Days where everything familiar and comforting fell down around me, engulfed in flames and melting away to ashes, burning me with the embers and making it hard for me to breathe because of the nerves and desperate palpation of my heavy heart. I have felt the intensity of the heat, the lack of control in situations along the way, the damage caused in the immediate of those moments and in the aftermath, and at times I could see nothing but a scorched and partial framework left where there once resided the fullness and hope only found in small and wondrous children. Domestic violence will do that to those who live it. But today, I am a phoenix.

This donation drive helped to lift me out of those ashes, a break from life as a fiery creature engaged in a cycle of burning and being born anew from the remnants of the painful struggle. Today this bird flies on wings made of crayons, journals and tampons, on grocery gift cards and play-doh and cookie cutters and baby carriers. These simple items and so many others which have been given to me for this drive have made a tremendous impact on me, and on my community. I am uplifted by these gifts of hope and healing for the people who need them, and am elevated by the privilege of acting as a community hub for their dispersal. This time around my rebirth is one of reflective and meaningful purpose, and that feels pretty enlivening.

Thank you, Tiny Town, for doing what you do best: sharing the love. You are one bunch of generous citizens and I cannot wait to share all of your donations with DVSAS. Thank you, thank you, thank you. On Wednesday they will receive the following and so much more:

• hundreds of dollars in gift/phone cards and cash

• approximately 500 diapers

• a fresh paint job for the DVSAS offices

• 6 baby carriers

• 2 jumperoos

• quality fresh coffee for a year for the office

• a highchair

• lamps

• a mirror

• trunk full of costume items

• craft, home & office supplies 

• and, lastly, my favorite: gift certificates for families to get new portraits devoid of old memories

I asked. You came out in droves, arms full, again. You shared your stories of trauma and survival with me. Your participation in these grassroots efforts is helping me create a movement of individuals inspired to perform random acts of inspiration, giving, and kindness, and the impact is tangible in my community and beyond. I've said it before, but don't you ever stop. Ever!

The staff at DVSAS wrote my name on the sign, but only because all of yours wouldn't fit!

{Rest in peace Mom. I'm not sure what comes after this life, but I hope your spirit can feel my love for you in whatever form your energy has taken.}

From the Heart to the Hands: The Final Push

Trigger Warning: This post is part of a series related to domestic violence. The truth is that domestic violence is ugly, uncomfortable, and often brutal. This will read much along the same lines. If you are sensitive to the topic you might just skip to the bottom of this post.

If you have been following along throughout the From the Heart to the Hands donation drive (in honor of my biological mother who was killed by her partner when I was a girl), you know that Domestic Violence and Assault Services of Whatcom County serves thousands of people in my Tiny Town every year. Consider that the number of phone calls and direct services they handled amounts to roughly 10% of my hometown's population... and that's just those who find their assistance. My mother saw no relief from the unrestrained effects of her lover's tendency toward violence. If you've been following along, you know that healing from the tragedy losing my mother in this way is just one part of my motivation for this donation drive.

The other is my firm belief that all families deserve to feel safe and to be healthy. People working with DVSAS are heading to brighter futures framed by these premises, and I want desperately to provide this organization--which does so much for my community--respite from the constant need that nonprofit organizations typically face. Providing them several totes of items directly from their published list of wants and needs will help to seal financial gaps in provision, while also painting silver linings on the experiences of the clients they will distribute them to during some very challenging times.

When my mom died and my dad and stepmom (neither of whom I knew) got custody of me, I was given a coloring book to occupy me as they drove me "home" across state lines. I am 34 years old and still remember coloring pictures of Cinderella; tracing the sections with careful attention, gently etching back and forth with the crayons, focusing on something other than my dead mother and all of the uncertainty ahead.

I want every child who needs one to have a box of crayons and a coloring book to sink into when the grownups in their lives create heavy things for them to process. I want for every woman who will feel the sting of her face breaking under the pressure of her lovers' knuckles to have a journal to record both no-contact order violations, and the journaled words that will eventually come to heal her. I want for the staff at DVSAS to have the printers, thumb drives, and other tools they need to perform their invaluable work. And I want, perhaps more than anything, for the results of this drive to illustrate that my mother's life was not lost in vain. Here, her death helps others.

By the start of week two of her three-week hospital stay my mother had the entire left side of her body casted from the shattering force of her collision with the car her boyfriend crushed her with. Her lungs were collapsing; she developed pneumonia. Her liver was fighting to function; her kidneys were failing. She had a tracheotomy tube, several blood transfusions under her belt, and the blessing/curse of periodic consciousness through it all. Because her brother was born deaf, my mother and our family were fluent in ASL. We each had the opportunity to visit and speak with her this way before she died. We learned the events of that night and about the pain she was in, and then we said goodbye. The severity of her injuries took her at the age of 25. She left behind two daughters who came to understand life filtered through violence and colored by the repetition of our own experiences with it.

It makes sense that I would go on to do this work for other women.

This is the last image ever recorded of my mother. In it, you can see the tangible effects of violence in her life and therefore in mine. It is devoid of the color, the life, the emotion, and the personality that Lynn carried with her in her short life. It fails to convey the passions she enjoyed, the devotion she had toward her daughters, and the love she carried for her friends and family; nor does it illustrate her beauty, her will, or her strength. But I can assure you, she encompassed all of these things.

So now I am asking readers, community members, friends, and strangers to help me through one final push in my mission to collect the needed items for DVSAS. Please follow the facebook event here, LIKE the blog's corresponding facebook page here for updates, and support the work of similar organizations wherever you may find yourself if you are so inclined. I will be at the collection spot during these remaining time slots: 

Wednesday, 4/23, 5-7pm

Friday, 4/25. 5-6:30pm

Saturday, 5/3, 11-1pm

Consider taking a look at the list of needs in this post to get an idea of what would be useful. Thank you to all of you who have come out already, to those businesses who have offered incredible gifts, and to all of you who have shared with me your stories of tragedy, healing, and hope. Your gifts are varied and vast, and your resilience commendable. 

In peace.   

Week One Debrief

Week one of the donation drive is well underway and things are coming in at a slow and steady trickle. While sitting on the tailgate of my van waiting for donors to show up (of which there have physically only been four so far, but four with generous donations) I have reflected a great deal on the ways in which my life has been negatively impacted by domestic violence. Here in summation:

1. It has created some divides that are too rocky to traverse.
2. I still have regularly occurring nightmares wherein I relive helping my mom clean her blood off of the waterbed after a fight between her and her partner. That was thirty years ago. I was four. 
3. Violence fostered a climate in my brain where my already genetically predisposed neurotransmitters could easily misfire, causing irreparable damage to my psyche. This means the pathways in my brain are lined with violence.  
4. I will probably be medicated and go to therapy for the effects of the many types of violence I experienced in my young life for a very long time. That fact alone is shrouded in concern for my body, for the safety of medication, for the fear of dependency to feel 'normal', and for the financial responsibility of a lifelong need.  
5. My children have felt the effects intergenerationally. It trickles down in the angry and short-tempered side of me, the embarrassing behavior, regretful words, and shameful acts of yelling mean things at the people I love most in all this world. Meanwhile they have had to look at me through frightened eyes, the grinding of my teeth audible and my knuckles tense and white as I stomp out an aggressive infantile rant. It hurts to admit these things and to know that they happen in part because I was heavily conditioned by similar behavior as a child. It is such hard work to rewire, but I have made it my life's work to do so for my children. 
6. I walked down a lot of statistically predictable paths as a result of my mother's experience, including: teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, lack of high school completion, divorce, receipt of welfare, having children from multiple fathers, chronic underemployment, estrangement from family, and cycles of violence and assault. 
7. At the tender of of six I said goodbye to my mom. Her casket lowered, and I never saw her again.
   

Since announcing the donation drive last week I have received three emails from strangers, empathizing and sharing their own experiences. I have had two good tailgate cries in reflective homage to all of my friends and family members whose names I could rattle off without blinking who have all suffered various forms of abuse at the hands of partners and loved ones. I have listened as my son Koa serenaded me with a song he wrote about my resilience and presence in his life, and bawled until I almost couldn't breathe from the beauty of his words and the depth of his love. If nothing else comes in the coming days, I have all of this and more already.

I have  been changed by the experience of this donation drive already, and it's just getting underway. It is one way for me to have some control over all of the things that happened to me and around me that I had no agency over as a child. In this scenario I get to determine what my response to domestic violence is. I get to speak openly and honestly about my loss. I get to speak up for women who can't. I get to do something that turns the experience into one of growth and strength instead of stifling me and making me fearful. I get to empower others on their quests for Life. 

That is the greatest gift my mom ever gave me; I just didn't get to open it until now, when I was ready to. 

Come by and say hello this week, and bring a donation if you can: 

Wednesday, 4/16, 4:30-6pm

Friday, 4/18, 12-1:30pm

Saturday, 4/19 12-2pm   

From the heart... to the hands.

Trigger Warning: This post contains subjects some readers may be sensitive to. It's about violence and it's about love, and it's about what happens when the two mix. Domestic violence isn't something that everyone is comfortable talking about without a warning, so this is mine to you. 

The fast approaching weekend and in particular Saturday, April 12th, marks a very special anniversary. The date conjures a void that is almost tangible, like a penny falling down into the darkness of a never-ending well. It marks one of those defining moments where something happens, and then nothing is truly the same ever again. For me, this weekend symbolizes the beginning of my journey toward a lifetime as a feminist, as an advocate, and as a survivor of domestic violence. It is the same weekend that, 28 years ago, my mother Lynn was plowed down on a rural highway. Her lover was behind the wheel, alcohol and aggression exploding in between the slurs and swerves, and the topography of my life and hers was changed forever in that moment.

The moment that the tiny yellow car caught up with her brought with it a full and weighty clarity. Her body exploded in a cacophony of noise--the sound of bones breaking, organs bursting, and her heart slapping against the busted up framework of her chest cavity--to which she sang a song that I would come to know as a verse in my anthem.

May you only experience love like you deserve to be loved.   

The arrest report from that night.

But that's not always what happens when you are 6 years old and you see your mother lying in a hospital bed so badly injured that she is almost unrecognizable, statistically speaking anyway. Children like me--little girls who know what it sounds like when a full-grown woman's body smashes into the side of a single-wide trailer, who help their mothers clean up post-battle blood--we tend to find ourselves in similar patterns when we get old enough for our own relationships. I don't know what it is about seeing the matron pilar in one's life peppered with hemorrhages, weakened by blood loss and holding to life by the wire threads in her monitors, that leads little girls to believe they deserve to be treated as anything less than the queens they are; however, there is an expansive body of evidence suggesting that children who witness domestic violence are prone to play out the role in their own lives. I did too, to a lesser but no less valid extent than my mother. Thankfully I escaped that life and built up my confidence before injury ever left me hospitalized. Feeling hopeless, worthless, scared and scarred for my life, yes, but hospitalization, no. Ever since, my life has been on a steady trajectory toward empowering other women to do the same.

Kindergarten missed me.

In honor of my mother's strength through the trying weeks that she faced lying in that hospital bed, and in honor of my own experiences with domestic violence and of the experiences of as many as 4,000,000 other women in our country every year (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current of Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March, 1998), I am going to do something to help the women and children in my community who live with the effects of domestic violence. In honor of the 65% of children who will also be abused by their mother's abuser--all those tiny eyes and ears who live through the terror of a violent upbringing--in honor of my boys for whom I am breaking so many cycles; and in honor of the 3,247 people served by Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Services of Whatcom County (DVSAS) last year and the countless others who need but do not seek their services...

A witness statement.

You may remember the success of the Warmth Wagon coat drive (if you don't know what that is click here and here). Well, I need you to help me fill my van once more. Beginning April 12 and lasting until May 3 (the duration of my mother's hospital stay following the incident), I will be in the parking lot of the Lakeway Market at designated times collecting items of need for DVSAS. I have coordinated with the organization to determine their greatest needs at this time and would be grateful if you would join me in helping to meet them. Many of the items are low-cost to purchase, or may even be things you have spares of around your house, and will greatly help ease the impacts of domestic violence on our community. Please, for little girls like me and their moms both in Tiny Town and everywhere else, and for everyone else galvanized by the crippling damage of domestic violence, consider skipping a latte this week and bringing a donation by instead. You will soften someone's experience guaranteed; trust me, I know. Here are the most pressing needs:

Children's Programs

Activity jumper/jumperoo (stationery, not door frame kind)
Art supplies (buttons, clay, dry-erase markers, crayons, markers, construction paper, glue, etc.)
Boppy pillows
Coloring books
Cookie cutters
Disposable diapers, all sizes
Dress-up clothes, and a storage trunk for them
Ergo baby carriers in new or good used condition
Full-length mirror
Gerber sippy cups
Non-perishable single serving sized snacks and juice
Play-Doh, rolling pins and other tools for it
Wooden high-chair

Adult Programs

Blank journals and notebooks
Gift cards to help meet basic needs (gas/food/groceries)
Greyhound vouchers
Non-perishable single serving sized snacks and juice
Pre-paid cell phones
Pre-paid calling cards

Agency Needs

Coffee, tea, and creamer
Desktop photocopier for copying protection/restraining orders in client rooms
Desktop printer, any kind so long as it's in good working order
Hot plates
Large plastic storage totes
Magazine subscriptions for the waiting rooms
Bathroom supplies: toilet paper, pads, tampons, bleach wipes
Thumb drives 

So, Tiny Town, show me what you've got! I will be in the Lakeway Market parking lot at the following times in the coming week, and will post the next week's schedule in a forthcoming blog post. Be sure to join the event on Facebook too, to keep abreast of the developments as the project gets underway.

Saturday, 4/12 9-10am
Monday, 4/14 12-1:30pm
Wednesday, 4/16 4:30-6pm
Friday, 4/18 12-1:30pm
Saturday, 4/19 12-2pm

Please swing by, say hello and help me make someone's life better through your kind deeds by taking your concern from your heart, to their hands.