**Trigger warning.... Read with caution. Contains graphic language and images.**
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my mom's trauma.
Today is the one year anniversary for everyone else's trauma that was present for the aftermath.
Yesterday, I made it through the day feeling okay. I credit a lot of that with talking to my mom in the morning and realizing that the 15th wasn't about me... it was about her. What she went though, what she fought for, what she survived. While I grieved what he did to her that night, I celebrated the fact that she made it and she didn't give up even when it took everything in her not to (and a guardian angel by her side).
Last night, I thought about writing but actually felt relief when I realized I didn't need to. My heart didn't feel ready to explode... which is always a good thing. But then as the hours crept closer to bedtime, I became more uneasy. I went to bed with this feeling of anxiety that's only been matched a few other times this past year. Thankfully, I was too tired to remain awake for long.
No dreams haunted me.
But then I woke up.
And the flashbacks started. The memories are still SO vivid. I had them yesterday and I have them often but today, they're too much.
For whatever reason, my first flashback this morning was of me begging and pleading with the hospital staff to find a pair of cutters to cut her wedding ring off. I know, it seemed odd to me too. But seeing that ring on her hand when she looked bloodied and beaten mercilessly by the very man who gave it to her was all kinds of wrong. That ring was a sign of the vows they made to each other... the vows she tried to keep for more than 33 years... and the vows he so easily threw away. That ring was the only part of my dad sitting in that hospital room with us and it needed to go. It didn't belong any more just as much as he didn't belong anymore.
After hours of searching, they found the ring cutter somewhere in the depths of the ER. The plastic surgery team that was caring for her wounds all surrounded her bed right along with us and sliced the gold band in half. That was an emotional moment for each and every one of us, family or not. A moment of great significance... the moment in which we officially let go of their marriage. It had been tainted before but now, now it was destroyed. There was nothing left and with the ring gone, that seemed more official.
I flash back to making the phone calls to our aunt and uncle... at 3 am that morning... and telling them that they needed to come to Grand Rapids right away. I remember just NEEDING them there. I may have been a grown adult but in that moment I needed someone to take care of me as I took care of her. I remember my uncle walking into the ER and just swallowing me up in his arms where I promptly lost it. Tears don't come often to me but in that moment, they were plenty.
I flash back to listening to my mom's account of what happened that night as Detective Glover interviewed her. Because I knew the crime scene so well, her words played like a movie in my head. I remember thinking, "How could anyone, let alone my own father, have been capable of these actions?" Taking a crow bar and then a hammer to a persons head... for hours on end... well, there's no words for how horrible that is.
I remember how much pain she was in both when she was in the ER and later when she was on 4 North. I remember the moaning, the grimacing. I remember being able to smell her blood from down the hall in the ER and then the smell of dried blood just engulfing her after she had moved upstairs. I remember sitting beside her in that hospital room and looking into her ear and seeing no skin, just dried, flaky blood. Her head and hair were soaked in it and because it hurt too much, the nurses weren't able to wash it off that day. She hurt in all the obvious places and some of the not so obvious ones.... Where she wasn't covered in blood, she was covered in bruises from where he sat on her and pinned her down.
I remember falling silent to all but two of my friends despite the fact that everyone knew something was terribly wrong. How do you say, "My dad tried to kill my mom last night and then himself?" It was easier to just go quiet... and it may have been the one and only time in my life that I was left speechless. There just wasn't any way of explaining the gravity of the situation via a telephone call. Plus, what were they going to say? How could they possibly make this feel any better? Talking to my friends would have just put both of us in an uncomfortable spot as we both knew there was nothing they could say to make this any less painful.
I remember our (very small) family slowly trickling into the hospital that day and the next. I remember the look of horror on their faces as they laid their eyes upon her for the first time. I remember her reaching out to every one of them and reassuring them that she was alright. That's my mom for you.... even when she's in agony, she's still looking out for everyone else. I remember placing my uncle in charge of telling everyone else in the family because Brittany and I just could not do it. We were physically and emotionally incapable of speaking the words that needed to be spoken. I remember him leaving the hospital that day to go and tell my Papa in person because we all knew what this was going to do to him.... and I will never forget the look on his face as he walked into that hospital room and laid eyes on his daughter, the one he's always loved so much, as she's covered in her own blood. He wore his pain like a dark cloak, just sitting quietly next to her bed and staring at what my dad had done to her. He's not a man of many words but his emotions were easily read that day.
Leaving the hospital that night seemed impossible. But after not getting any sleep in nearly 36 hours, I knew it wasn't an option for me to stay overnight and I knew my mom was in the good and capable hands of my aunt and uncle who both agreed to stay with her. I drove myself home in a daze. I remember walking into the house and laying eyes on my kids and realizing in that moment how one of the biggest parts of their world had just been shattered. I remember taking a shower and then sitting down on the couch with some leftover pizza. I remember in that moment realizing that my dad would never again get to eat pizza like this...he'd never get to go out to dinner... he'd never again have the same freedoms he had had just 24 hours ago. I realized in that moment that the life my dad had always known was now over. In that moment, I had no tears left to shed so I simply stared absently ahead and tried to ingest that reality at the very same time I ingested that pizza. A short while later (7:30 to be exact) I climbed into bed and passed out. I abruptly awoke at 5:30 the next morning, jumped in the shower, cried violently for nearly 30 minutes, and went back to the hospital. I walked into my mom's room and just fell apart at the side of her bed, listening as she selflessly apologized to me for everything he had done.
This weekend, I've thought often about how differently this could have ended. How I could have lost BOTH of my parents that night.
I'm so thankful he didn't succeed at taking her from us. I'm so thankful she didn't let him win.
February 16th, 2013, was the day my world shifted. I received the phone call from the ER social worker at 1:30 am and I laid down my head at 7:30 pm. Eighteen short hours carried so much weight, so much disbelief, so much grief. My life was split that day between the "before" and the "after". I've read and heard that I shouldn't let this event define my life but to me, that's absolutely ridiculous. Before this, I lived a fairly regular existence. My heart was still relatively innocent to the evils of the world... I was naive and thought stuff like this only happened to "other" people and in the movies. After this, I'm a different person. Not in a bad way but definitely in a sad way. My heart is jaded and while some days are just fine, other days seem impossible to get through.
I was changed that day. My heart was changed that day. Any innocence and naivety I had died that day.
This past year has not been one about healing. My mom, sister and I have had so many well-meaning people make comments to us about how we're one year into the grieving process and now we can start healing. I know their intentions are so good, but these comments are so upsetting and so inaccurate. We've only just begun our grieving process. That first year was about survival.... nothing more, nothing less. I didn't realize just how true this was until after my dad was sentenced in December and my true grief actually began. For the past year, we've done nothing more than survive everything that was put before us... primarily, her physical healing and the legal matters that came as a result of all of this. And even those aren't complete. My mom still has one more oral surgery to go before she'll be physically put back together. Plus, we learned last week that my dad is appealing his conviction.... surprise surprise. While I'm confident that the court of appeals will see the truth in the fact that his representation this past year was good, fair, and solid, it's still upsetting to think of the possibility that we may have to go through the legal battle all over again. It's even more upsetting that he can't just take responsibility for his actions and stop putting us through emotional hell.
Last but not least...
For the past few months, I've wrestled with whether to share the pictures of what he did to her. These pictures are the sole depiction of the anger and hatred he felt as well as the battle she fought to stay alive.... both of which have historically felt like intensely private matters. However, we've also realized that many people have underestimated what he did to her that night based on how quickly she healed and how well she looks now. I feel like in order to understand how far we've come and why we continue to grieve so deeply, people need to see the reality of what she/we went through and sometimes, words just can't do that justice. So with my mom's permission, I'm sharing them today in the hopes that everyone can truly see how far my mom has come physically over the past year and so that no one ever underestimates what she went through.
(And yes, someday I promise I will update on something a little more light-hearted. Just gotta follow my heart right now and right now, my heart is here.)
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
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