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No Pity, No Shame, No Silence
I meant to comment on this when I first saw it, but I was too wiped to write anything up.
Since the author has closed down comments, I'm linking to it from here.
No Pity, No Shame, No Silence
You probably didn't know me, but you knew I probably existed.
I'm the one who used visit the police station every day to get the items for the police blotter round-up for your local paper. I'd view the scrubbed logs, scribble some notes, and be on my way back to my desk in a too-noisy newsroom.
If your sexual assault was there--assuming the police were involved, assuming you reported it--I probably didn't throw it in with the daily round-up. I probably wrote up a separate thumbnail piece to run somewhere else in the paper. The nature of the crime made it stand apart from the "suspicious activities" and the robberies and the stolen cars and other assorted petty crimes that usually get lumped together.
The piece I wrote was probably four inches long, maybe a little longer. There was probably no byline, so you wouldn't know that I wrote it, assuming you saw it, assuming you wondered who wrote it.
All that was there were bare facts. What happened? Where? Did you know your attacker? Was the attacker even known? If he or she was known, was there an arrest? Or are the police still looking for him or her?
Your name, of course, was never used. You were faceless and nameless; an utter abstraction to me, to the copy editors, to the city editor. Everything you were? Boiled down to those too-few column inches. I knew it didn't define all of you. Eventually, I hope (and now that I'm not faced with the prospect of more like you, I'm allowed to hope) you figured out that this news brief did not define all of you.
But how you reached that point was not my problem.
It's nothing personal, see? Just doing my job. It was safer to keep you nameless and faceless.
Let's be clear: I didn't do it because of any Shield Law. I didn't do it to protect you or your privacy.
I did it to protect me.
Because there was a little part of me that whispered while I wrote: I've been lucky.
Then there'd be a mental pause.
An even darker mental voice always added, So far.
I'm sorry I'm not being more specific. I'm sorry about being vague. But you see, I wrote too many of these for too many newspapers covering far too many towns and cities. I lost count somewhere along the way.
The pattern changed if you were unlucky enough to be murdered, because once you're dead all bets are off. Not that this is much comfort, but if you die then your story got my byline and probably a spot on the front page and above the fold.
I'm pretty sure you'd trade that front page story mouldering in the newspaper morgue and anything I might've written just to be alive.
If you're curious, I talked to your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mother, your father, your siblings, your friends. They were furious that this happened to you and to them. They wanted blood. They wanted answers. And there was no one who could give it to them. I know I certainly couldn't, so I never knew what to say when they'd turn around and ask me.
But they did talk to me simply because I was there. I was a voice on the phone. Or, I was the young reporter who knocked on their door to ask for your picture.
They'd always invite me in. I'd always ask if they wanted to say a few words about you, the person they loved.
And they'd talk. How they would talk! They'd talk about who you were and who you were going to be. They'd talk about the could've beens, the should've beens, and the what ifs.
I'd sit there and encourage them through a million subtle, probing questions. They saw the reporter's notebook. They saw the pen. It didn't matter. I was safe, you see. I didn't know you or them. I wasn't involved.
You might not be surprised to know that I was very, very good at my job.
You might be surprised to know that one of my enduring nightmares is that someday some young reporter will knock on my door and ask me about the could've beens, the should've beens, and what ifs.
You might be even more surprised to know that even though I don't remember their names or yours, I remember what their faces looked like because you were gone.
And when I got my quotes and scurried back to the relative safety of the newsroom, I'd carefully (very, very carefully) piece together the police reports, the quotes, and the pictures.
There were always pictures.
When I saw your face, the whisper would kick in:
I've been lucky.
So far.
When I first got out of journalism school and being a reporter was still fun...that was when it was the worst because there were so many of you that got killed by a stalker or by an ex-lover. It seems they wouldn't just kill you, but they'd murder anyone who was with you.
You did everything right: restraining orders, calling the police, but none of it mattered. That other still got to you anyway and too many people paid the price because the system failed somewhere along the way.
This was during the very late 80s in Massachusetts where it seemed like stalkers and ex-lovers everywhere were playing copycat murder spree. I don't know when the trend started, but I can tell you that it at least slowed down when the state passed its anti-stalking law that allowed the police to take action before someone got hurt.
Too late for you, I know.
If it's any comfort, it probably saved other lives.
But before that law got passed, all of us in the newsroom--men and women alike--felt a little overwhelmed. It was laugh or cry time and since it was our job, crying was not an option.
I won't tell you about the pool: "How many people will die this month because of a sex crime/crazed stalker/ex-lover?"
It was black humor at its darkest.
I know it was in bad taste. It definitely was contemptible to reduce human lives to a mere game.
But you see, all of us couldn't help but think that you could be our sister, our brother, our mother, our father, our child, or our friend. So we shoved it away by making you the other.
Not that this excuses anything, but we really all were thinking the same thing:
We've been lucky.
So far.
If you survived, if you pressed charges, if the person who did this to you didn't cop a plea, I covered your trial.
Don't go into shock if I tell you that not too many cases like yours got to trial.
I was one of the reporters at the back of the courtroom scribbling away through the testimony. I watched as the defense hammered at you:
Why were you there? Why were you wearing what you were wearing? What were you doing there alone? Why did you wait to report the crime? Did you know the defendant? What do you mean you don't remember the time it happened? Did you lie to the police? Are you lying now? Are you sure you didn't encourage the defendant? Are you sure you said no? Are you sure the defendant heard you say no? Are you sure you didn't lead the defendant on?
And on and on and on...
I probably don't have to walk you through the questions. You remember them. Hell, you probably asked them of yourself.
But you'd sit there and answer them anyway in that even voice. Me? I'd probably reach out and slap the defense attorney across the face, but then again I've never been in your shoes, so I really don't know what I'd do.
I also watched as the prosecution hammered at the other, but somehow those questions seemed less personal and focused on, you know, actual evidence as opposed to insane questions that made you the criminal and put you on trial.
Yes, it is a cliche. It doesn't make it any less true.
If you were lucky enough to survive the attack and the trial (again, assuming there was a trial); if you decided to stand in the sun and share your story; if you decided that you were going to make this awful thing have meaning by working like hell to make sure it didn't happen to someone else, I was probably there, too.
You'd talk about your ordeal, detail the fight to get your life back, and how things were going to be different because now you were on the case.
No, you didn't expect to save the world. Your goal was just to save one person. Just one. That's all it would take to give you some sort of peace, at least it seemed that way to me.
But you and I both know: because you were fighting, because you were speaking, more than one would probably be saved from this. Or, failing that, someone could find some courage as they rebuilt their lives.
I'd scribble away in my notebook while you talked. Occasionally I'd peer at you over the top of my notebook with cool, brown eyes and ask a question or make a comment.
I'm not delusional. I know the interview and the momentary conversation was nothing personal for you, just as it was nothing personal for me. You were probably talking to more than one reporter, opening yourself up to the public, putting your name and face out there, being brave when too many people are not.
I have to admit, I never asked the one question I really wanted to ask: If you could trade places with me, would you?
I never had the courage to ask because I was afraid of the answer.
See, I've been lucky.
So far.
But again, I don't remember your name, your face, and the details of your story. I interviewed a half-dozen like you for far too many newspapers.
If you're curious, I do remember one face. I do remember the details of one story.
I remember because at the time I was not on the job. I remember because this young woman just started talking to me. I remember because it took me so much surprise.
I remember because I actually had an answer.
For this one person and this one person alone, I had an answer.
It was back in 1993. I was half-heartedly looking for another job for another newspaper. Things were already changing for the media, even back then. Less hard news, more happy talk. Less what people needed to know, more what they wanted to know. Reporters were increasingly overworked, the pay was getting smaller, and the suits were getting more abusive.
Anyway, that's not the point.
I was trudging back from a job interview with AP in Concord, well aware that I wasn't getting this job either. I was traveling through Hillsboro when I decided to pull over. There was this one spot in the north of town that overlooked this valley and the hills. There was nothing there, I mean nothing, except for this one park bench.
Yeah, I never got that either.
Even though Hillsboro was on my beat, one of 13 New Hampshire towns I had to cover, I maybe stepped inside the town boundaries three times in two years.
This was one of those times. It was the last time.
So, I pull over and plop myself down on the bench and just chill.
You came out of nowhere. You were blonde, high school aged, and you had one of those gentle smiles. You sat down next to me and just started talking.
This is nice, you said.
I like this spot, you said.
I'm pretty sure I must've made small talk. Nothing rude, mind you, but certainly in that tone that had to tell you that I just wanted to sit in silence and enjoy the view. I absolutely didn't have any curiosity about you. I certainly wasn't asking you why someone as young as you weren't in school, since we were sitting on the bench in the middle of the week.
What I said or thought right then isn't important, I guess.
I know you couldn't possibly have picked up on it, because you were still talking.
Maybe you were lonely. Maybe you just needed someone to talk to.
Maybe it's because I didn't know you and you didn't know me and I wasn't involved.
Anyway, from out of the blue, you said that you had a son.
I'm pretty sure I raised an eyebrow at that and revised my guess about your age upwards.
You said he'd been adopted in an open adoption by a doctor and his wife somewhere in upstate New York. That you were glad it was an open adoption so that if your son ever wanted to find you, he could.
Then you told me how your sister and her husband and her kids told you that you were going to hell because you had premarital sex.
I know I looked at you funny. I know that I said it wasn't true. Most people sure as hell don't believe that.
You smiled and said I sounded like your brother the atheist. He wanted to find your baby's father and pound him into the dirt.
Let me guess, he took off, right?
After he found out I got pregnant after we had sex just the once.
Instinct kicked in right at that point. Something wasn't adding up here. So, I was clever. I was subtle. I pulled you in with questions and comments. Teased your story right out of you while you sat in the sun, seemingly oblivious to what I was doing.
Remember: I was very, very good at my job.
Then again, I suspect that I could've been the worst person on the planet, and you still would've talked to me.
It came out in dribs and drabs:
You were babysitting your brothers' kids and a friend of his was there. Your brother and this friend were about the same age: mid-20s, I think. You all got into a water fight and you were covered with mud. You went into the house to take a shower.
While you were showering, he walked in, naked, locked the bathroom door behind him, and stepped into the shower with you.
He said you'd like it. He said if you didn't, he'd say you asked him into the shower and that you changed your mind. He was bigger than you and you were kind of afraid to say no because you were pretty sure no one would believe you.
In the end, you gave in, because he wouldn't let you say no.
Right after that, you find out that this one thing resulted in a child and he took off for parts unknown, leaving you to tell everyone what happened.
The only one who believed you was that atheist brother of yours, who was making it his business to track down this guy and not having a whole lot of luck.
Your parents (fundamentalist, evangelical Christians) pulled you out of school and started home schooling you. They taught you that you had to be ashamed. They told you that you sinned and that you were going to hell because you premarital sex.
Even after the baby was born, they kept you out of school and kept you in the home school, because they believed that you needed to learn more about morality.
I felt my face go white while listening to you cheerfully pronounce sentence on yourself.
I interrupted you with a, "Honey, you were raped."
You blinked at me in surprise. Judging by the look on your face, I think someone had told you that (the atheist brother, I would guess) but the message had been drowned out by all those people telling you that you were a bad, evil, dirty little girl for letting a man stick his dick in you.
But I could've said no and I didn't, you said.
The roll of questions came off my tongue:
Was he bigger than you?
Were you afraid of him?
Was he going to stop if you had said no?
I was a regular prosecutor for the state.
And you answered all those questions in that even voice that I'd heard from too many people that came before you.
At the end of it all, I insisted, "You were raped. This isn't your fault. Don't let anyone tell you different."
You stared at me a long time then, like you couldn't quite grasp what I was saying.
Then you said that you wanted to go back to school and stop being home schooled.
I wished you luck with that. I really didn't know what else to say because you jumped the tracks on me.
You looked at your watch and jumped off the bench. You had to meet someone someplace in the center of town and you had a ways to walk. You smiled shyly and said, "I'm meeting my boyfriend."
And then you added that he really wasn't your boyfriend, more like a boy you used to go to school with and you'd meet and the two of you would just talk. You said you really weren't ready for him to kiss you yet.
I told you to remember what I said. I wished you luck. I said that you'd be all right.
I watched you turn and walk down the road. I know I watched until you disappeared around the bend.
I never did get your name.
I hope everything turned out all right.
I hope you're happy now.
I hope you're walking in the sunlight again.
I hope, but I don't know. And I don't delude myself into believing that you're guaranteed the happy ending I want for you.
A month after that, I, along with a dozen others, were laid off from the newspaper I was working for.
I never did work for another newspaper after that.
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
The thing is, some things remain with me. Some stories I never do forget. They're not mine, but they're yours.
I don't know if you can ever possibly take comfort from this, but I just want you to know for whatever it's worth: I was a witness after the fact.
Since the author has closed down comments, I'm linking to it from here.
No Pity, No Shame, No Silence
You probably didn't know me, but you knew I probably existed.
I'm the one who used visit the police station every day to get the items for the police blotter round-up for your local paper. I'd view the scrubbed logs, scribble some notes, and be on my way back to my desk in a too-noisy newsroom.
If your sexual assault was there--assuming the police were involved, assuming you reported it--I probably didn't throw it in with the daily round-up. I probably wrote up a separate thumbnail piece to run somewhere else in the paper. The nature of the crime made it stand apart from the "suspicious activities" and the robberies and the stolen cars and other assorted petty crimes that usually get lumped together.
The piece I wrote was probably four inches long, maybe a little longer. There was probably no byline, so you wouldn't know that I wrote it, assuming you saw it, assuming you wondered who wrote it.
All that was there were bare facts. What happened? Where? Did you know your attacker? Was the attacker even known? If he or she was known, was there an arrest? Or are the police still looking for him or her?
Your name, of course, was never used. You were faceless and nameless; an utter abstraction to me, to the copy editors, to the city editor. Everything you were? Boiled down to those too-few column inches. I knew it didn't define all of you. Eventually, I hope (and now that I'm not faced with the prospect of more like you, I'm allowed to hope) you figured out that this news brief did not define all of you.
But how you reached that point was not my problem.
It's nothing personal, see? Just doing my job. It was safer to keep you nameless and faceless.
Let's be clear: I didn't do it because of any Shield Law. I didn't do it to protect you or your privacy.
I did it to protect me.
Because there was a little part of me that whispered while I wrote: I've been lucky.
Then there'd be a mental pause.
An even darker mental voice always added, So far.
I'm sorry I'm not being more specific. I'm sorry about being vague. But you see, I wrote too many of these for too many newspapers covering far too many towns and cities. I lost count somewhere along the way.
The pattern changed if you were unlucky enough to be murdered, because once you're dead all bets are off. Not that this is much comfort, but if you die then your story got my byline and probably a spot on the front page and above the fold.
I'm pretty sure you'd trade that front page story mouldering in the newspaper morgue and anything I might've written just to be alive.
If you're curious, I talked to your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mother, your father, your siblings, your friends. They were furious that this happened to you and to them. They wanted blood. They wanted answers. And there was no one who could give it to them. I know I certainly couldn't, so I never knew what to say when they'd turn around and ask me.
But they did talk to me simply because I was there. I was a voice on the phone. Or, I was the young reporter who knocked on their door to ask for your picture.
They'd always invite me in. I'd always ask if they wanted to say a few words about you, the person they loved.
And they'd talk. How they would talk! They'd talk about who you were and who you were going to be. They'd talk about the could've beens, the should've beens, and the what ifs.
I'd sit there and encourage them through a million subtle, probing questions. They saw the reporter's notebook. They saw the pen. It didn't matter. I was safe, you see. I didn't know you or them. I wasn't involved.
You might not be surprised to know that I was very, very good at my job.
You might be surprised to know that one of my enduring nightmares is that someday some young reporter will knock on my door and ask me about the could've beens, the should've beens, and what ifs.
You might be even more surprised to know that even though I don't remember their names or yours, I remember what their faces looked like because you were gone.
And when I got my quotes and scurried back to the relative safety of the newsroom, I'd carefully (very, very carefully) piece together the police reports, the quotes, and the pictures.
There were always pictures.
When I saw your face, the whisper would kick in:
I've been lucky.
So far.
When I first got out of journalism school and being a reporter was still fun...that was when it was the worst because there were so many of you that got killed by a stalker or by an ex-lover. It seems they wouldn't just kill you, but they'd murder anyone who was with you.
You did everything right: restraining orders, calling the police, but none of it mattered. That other still got to you anyway and too many people paid the price because the system failed somewhere along the way.
This was during the very late 80s in Massachusetts where it seemed like stalkers and ex-lovers everywhere were playing copycat murder spree. I don't know when the trend started, but I can tell you that it at least slowed down when the state passed its anti-stalking law that allowed the police to take action before someone got hurt.
Too late for you, I know.
If it's any comfort, it probably saved other lives.
But before that law got passed, all of us in the newsroom--men and women alike--felt a little overwhelmed. It was laugh or cry time and since it was our job, crying was not an option.
I won't tell you about the pool: "How many people will die this month because of a sex crime/crazed stalker/ex-lover?"
It was black humor at its darkest.
I know it was in bad taste. It definitely was contemptible to reduce human lives to a mere game.
But you see, all of us couldn't help but think that you could be our sister, our brother, our mother, our father, our child, or our friend. So we shoved it away by making you the other.
Not that this excuses anything, but we really all were thinking the same thing:
We've been lucky.
So far.
If you survived, if you pressed charges, if the person who did this to you didn't cop a plea, I covered your trial.
Don't go into shock if I tell you that not too many cases like yours got to trial.
I was one of the reporters at the back of the courtroom scribbling away through the testimony. I watched as the defense hammered at you:
Why were you there? Why were you wearing what you were wearing? What were you doing there alone? Why did you wait to report the crime? Did you know the defendant? What do you mean you don't remember the time it happened? Did you lie to the police? Are you lying now? Are you sure you didn't encourage the defendant? Are you sure you said no? Are you sure the defendant heard you say no? Are you sure you didn't lead the defendant on?
And on and on and on...
I probably don't have to walk you through the questions. You remember them. Hell, you probably asked them of yourself.
But you'd sit there and answer them anyway in that even voice. Me? I'd probably reach out and slap the defense attorney across the face, but then again I've never been in your shoes, so I really don't know what I'd do.
I also watched as the prosecution hammered at the other, but somehow those questions seemed less personal and focused on, you know, actual evidence as opposed to insane questions that made you the criminal and put you on trial.
Yes, it is a cliche. It doesn't make it any less true.
If you were lucky enough to survive the attack and the trial (again, assuming there was a trial); if you decided to stand in the sun and share your story; if you decided that you were going to make this awful thing have meaning by working like hell to make sure it didn't happen to someone else, I was probably there, too.
You'd talk about your ordeal, detail the fight to get your life back, and how things were going to be different because now you were on the case.
No, you didn't expect to save the world. Your goal was just to save one person. Just one. That's all it would take to give you some sort of peace, at least it seemed that way to me.
But you and I both know: because you were fighting, because you were speaking, more than one would probably be saved from this. Or, failing that, someone could find some courage as they rebuilt their lives.
I'd scribble away in my notebook while you talked. Occasionally I'd peer at you over the top of my notebook with cool, brown eyes and ask a question or make a comment.
I'm not delusional. I know the interview and the momentary conversation was nothing personal for you, just as it was nothing personal for me. You were probably talking to more than one reporter, opening yourself up to the public, putting your name and face out there, being brave when too many people are not.
I have to admit, I never asked the one question I really wanted to ask: If you could trade places with me, would you?
I never had the courage to ask because I was afraid of the answer.
See, I've been lucky.
So far.
But again, I don't remember your name, your face, and the details of your story. I interviewed a half-dozen like you for far too many newspapers.
If you're curious, I do remember one face. I do remember the details of one story.
I remember because at the time I was not on the job. I remember because this young woman just started talking to me. I remember because it took me so much surprise.
I remember because I actually had an answer.
For this one person and this one person alone, I had an answer.
It was back in 1993. I was half-heartedly looking for another job for another newspaper. Things were already changing for the media, even back then. Less hard news, more happy talk. Less what people needed to know, more what they wanted to know. Reporters were increasingly overworked, the pay was getting smaller, and the suits were getting more abusive.
Anyway, that's not the point.
I was trudging back from a job interview with AP in Concord, well aware that I wasn't getting this job either. I was traveling through Hillsboro when I decided to pull over. There was this one spot in the north of town that overlooked this valley and the hills. There was nothing there, I mean nothing, except for this one park bench.
Yeah, I never got that either.
Even though Hillsboro was on my beat, one of 13 New Hampshire towns I had to cover, I maybe stepped inside the town boundaries three times in two years.
This was one of those times. It was the last time.
So, I pull over and plop myself down on the bench and just chill.
You came out of nowhere. You were blonde, high school aged, and you had one of those gentle smiles. You sat down next to me and just started talking.
This is nice, you said.
I like this spot, you said.
I'm pretty sure I must've made small talk. Nothing rude, mind you, but certainly in that tone that had to tell you that I just wanted to sit in silence and enjoy the view. I absolutely didn't have any curiosity about you. I certainly wasn't asking you why someone as young as you weren't in school, since we were sitting on the bench in the middle of the week.
What I said or thought right then isn't important, I guess.
I know you couldn't possibly have picked up on it, because you were still talking.
Maybe you were lonely. Maybe you just needed someone to talk to.
Maybe it's because I didn't know you and you didn't know me and I wasn't involved.
Anyway, from out of the blue, you said that you had a son.
I'm pretty sure I raised an eyebrow at that and revised my guess about your age upwards.
You said he'd been adopted in an open adoption by a doctor and his wife somewhere in upstate New York. That you were glad it was an open adoption so that if your son ever wanted to find you, he could.
Then you told me how your sister and her husband and her kids told you that you were going to hell because you had premarital sex.
I know I looked at you funny. I know that I said it wasn't true. Most people sure as hell don't believe that.
You smiled and said I sounded like your brother the atheist. He wanted to find your baby's father and pound him into the dirt.
Let me guess, he took off, right?
After he found out I got pregnant after we had sex just the once.
Instinct kicked in right at that point. Something wasn't adding up here. So, I was clever. I was subtle. I pulled you in with questions and comments. Teased your story right out of you while you sat in the sun, seemingly oblivious to what I was doing.
Remember: I was very, very good at my job.
Then again, I suspect that I could've been the worst person on the planet, and you still would've talked to me.
It came out in dribs and drabs:
You were babysitting your brothers' kids and a friend of his was there. Your brother and this friend were about the same age: mid-20s, I think. You all got into a water fight and you were covered with mud. You went into the house to take a shower.
While you were showering, he walked in, naked, locked the bathroom door behind him, and stepped into the shower with you.
He said you'd like it. He said if you didn't, he'd say you asked him into the shower and that you changed your mind. He was bigger than you and you were kind of afraid to say no because you were pretty sure no one would believe you.
In the end, you gave in, because he wouldn't let you say no.
Right after that, you find out that this one thing resulted in a child and he took off for parts unknown, leaving you to tell everyone what happened.
The only one who believed you was that atheist brother of yours, who was making it his business to track down this guy and not having a whole lot of luck.
Your parents (fundamentalist, evangelical Christians) pulled you out of school and started home schooling you. They taught you that you had to be ashamed. They told you that you sinned and that you were going to hell because you premarital sex.
Even after the baby was born, they kept you out of school and kept you in the home school, because they believed that you needed to learn more about morality.
I felt my face go white while listening to you cheerfully pronounce sentence on yourself.
I interrupted you with a, "Honey, you were raped."
You blinked at me in surprise. Judging by the look on your face, I think someone had told you that (the atheist brother, I would guess) but the message had been drowned out by all those people telling you that you were a bad, evil, dirty little girl for letting a man stick his dick in you.
But I could've said no and I didn't, you said.
The roll of questions came off my tongue:
Was he bigger than you?
Were you afraid of him?
Was he going to stop if you had said no?
I was a regular prosecutor for the state.
And you answered all those questions in that even voice that I'd heard from too many people that came before you.
At the end of it all, I insisted, "You were raped. This isn't your fault. Don't let anyone tell you different."
You stared at me a long time then, like you couldn't quite grasp what I was saying.
Then you said that you wanted to go back to school and stop being home schooled.
I wished you luck with that. I really didn't know what else to say because you jumped the tracks on me.
You looked at your watch and jumped off the bench. You had to meet someone someplace in the center of town and you had a ways to walk. You smiled shyly and said, "I'm meeting my boyfriend."
And then you added that he really wasn't your boyfriend, more like a boy you used to go to school with and you'd meet and the two of you would just talk. You said you really weren't ready for him to kiss you yet.
I told you to remember what I said. I wished you luck. I said that you'd be all right.
I watched you turn and walk down the road. I know I watched until you disappeared around the bend.
I never did get your name.
I hope everything turned out all right.
I hope you're happy now.
I hope you're walking in the sunlight again.
I hope, but I don't know. And I don't delude myself into believing that you're guaranteed the happy ending I want for you.
A month after that, I, along with a dozen others, were laid off from the newspaper I was working for.
I never did work for another newspaper after that.
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
The thing is, some things remain with me. Some stories I never do forget. They're not mine, but they're yours.
I don't know if you can ever possibly take comfort from this, but I just want you to know for whatever it's worth: I was a witness after the fact.
no subject
I've been lucky too and so have my sisters, although I've known women who haven't been.
Witnesses are always needed. I hope that by being a witness and a listener for that sad, abused young girl, she was able to make a change in her life.
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I'm just glad that it's not the case.
I hope she found some peace, too. I suppose I had some forelorn hope that she might be on LJ and stumble across this post and drop me a line. *shrug* Completely illogical, I know.
Excellent
I've been following that post around for a bit, reading stories about what people have been through. I won't be linking to it in my LJ or adding my own post to any of the others any time soon. I don't need to do that anymore. See, I'm lucky, I'm a success story. And I can't speak for anyone other than myself but the answer to your question is no.
For what it's worth.
Re: Excellent
And I'm glad that you put it all back together. *hugs* It seems most people seem to manage to varying degrees, but I know it takes work and a certain amount of guts.
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Ow. Hurts to read that. Both for you, and everyone who you interviewed. Especially for that girl. I hope she's okay too. I think we've all got stories like that, and wishes that we could've done more.
Belated hugs, and thanks for telling about that. I hope, I think, it had to make a difference.
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Sexual assault and abuse is a very touchy subject and (thankfully) I honestly don't know what the people who've spoken up have gone through.
Truthfully, I *still* don't know what to say. Really, all I can point to is what I wrote above.
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*sigh* again.
I agree...
One of my evangelical friends put it best: "On a lot of issues, I've thought about what would Jesus do in this situation. It always comes down to two things: he wouldn't be a bigot and he wouldn't be an asshole."
Heeee! Sorry. That statement still cracks me up. One of those things that's funny because it's true.
Then again (not surprisingly) they somewhat reject the whole "macho Jesus" philosophy they've seen creeping into their churches and "Old Testiment God" that's been popping up (in their opinion) far too often lately. They consider this situation more of a threat to their beliefs and faith than any perceived culture war.
*shrug* I honestly don't know the finer points of the arguments they're dealing with and I apologize if I misstated the issues some of my friends are grappling with in their own churches. Some of them are ready to throw in the towel and join affiliated congregations like one of the Baptist or Lutheran churches. It's a hard step for them to take since they philosophically believe in unaffiliated Christian churches and feel that there shouldn't be artificial divides.
I know it's unfair to throw all Christians of good conscience in the same boat (and I've seen it happen waaaaay too often), but in the situation above it was so part of this girl's problem that there was no way to leave it out.
Re: I agree...
I'm a non-Denominational Christian myself, and haven't been to church in years. I'd like to start, but would have no idea how to go about finding one that really suits my taste. The idea of "shopping around" for a church kind of freaks me out, especially in this area of the country. *sigh*
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It's awful that we live in a world where this kind of violence touches at least one in four of the people we come in contact with. It's terrible that we qualify our statements by saying 'so far'.
Maybe, just maybe, if more people show the courage displayed by the original poster and the vast majority of her commenters, then things might begin to change and we no longer have to say 'so far'.
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And, yeah, I hate that I have to say "so far." The fact I say it like I'm warding off the boogey man in case fate hears me say it makes me angry on a basic level.
I've had a good family life; I haven't really been touched by violence. At one point, I was literally the only one in my circle of friends where that was the case. Someone pointed out that I probably was in that situation because I was so bloody stable and I was "safe" in a way.
You and me...I think if we find a few more people we could start a small club.
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And yes, no doubt you are very good at writing, no matter what job you are in.
Thank you.
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I for one say kick the fucknut that sent you hate email. I enjoy your LJ even though I don't FB on it that often. Hell, I think it's why I friended you in the first place. *grin*
Anyway, I'm not planning to polish it up or send it anywhere. I just wanted to get it off my chest because the whole thing has been bothering me since I read the initial message after getting back from Vegas.
LJ as therapy! What a concept!
Thank you for reading. I was a little worried that I might get some people angry because I honestly don't think I can do the subject any justice.
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((blush)) I always enjoy reading your stuff, especially the news bits (my dad was a television news writer for about forty years). So thank you, heh....
I for one say kick the fucknut that sent you hate email.
HEE! It was more amusing than anything else. Lord.
LJ as therapy! What a concept!
You know, I have to wonder if therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists etc. have been experiencing steadily declining business since the advent of LJ....and it's free (or, at what, $25 a year, cheaper than any therapy). Or they think it's some new bothersome phenomenon. "Client spent most of hour talking about people does not seem to actually know. Query, online addiction or possible delusion..."
Thank you for reading. I was a little worried that I might get some people angry because I honestly don't think I can do the subject any justice.
d00d, not to sound like a suckup or anything, but it was like reading an essay in a book -- you know, something carefully thought out, high sentence-level quality as they say, sharply observed -- I could see that police station, the newsroom, the living room of the victims' parents, especially the girl at the park bench....
I also thought it was neat because while you make the point that it didn't happen to you (and I loved that refrain "I've been lucky. So far.") it's also clear the violence you witnessed did have an effect on you -- so in a sense you're sort of standing in for the members of society -- and you're also talking about the workings of society, and how they react to it: the police, the families, the reporter's pool, the trial, the business of news. We're all witnesses just by virtue of being around and having eyes; whether or not we choose to admit it, that we've seen what we've seen, is up to us. The people who need to tell something have to have someone to tell it to -- which is why it's so great that it comes down to that girl, person to person, stories passed on.
(It's also a great piece about the effects of reporting on a reporter. But I digress.)
Anyhow, enough stupid gushing. Just wanted to let you know how high-quality I thought the piece was and why, but that's true of your writing in general.
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My cousin Katie was my witness.
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As I mentioned above, I'm not planning on sending it anywhere. I just needed to get it off my chest and I'm just glad I didn't infuriate anyone for posting it.
Sometimes it's hard to stand there and say nothing because you don't know what to say. Often, all we (people like me and Katie) can do is just be there (assuming we're in a role where we can). It's a difficult situation and, speaking for myself, I never know if I did the right thing or enough of something to help.
I'm glad Katie was there for you when you needed her. *hugs*
We should start a group: RWA.
(Anonymous) 2004-08-07 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)In December of '90, I was enjoying Christmas Break of my freshman year of college. I was home, in my own bed again, eating my folks' cooking. I went to a Christmas party, opened presents, scared people with the beard I'd grown and kept after not shaving while studying for finals, caught up with some people after our first semester at the various colleges scattered around the country we'd started at that fall.
One person I called was an out-of-town friend who'd gone to school in or around New Orleans. According to her (I've never been), it was ridiculously easy for everybody to get alcohol no matter what their age, because it's well, "N'awlins." It was during our phone call that she started crying and told me that, during her first semester at school, she'd been raped.
Well, the next weekend, I arranged to visit her at her parents' house and spend the day, just doing goofy friend-stuff. (Her parents had never met me before, and they could have easily, and understandably, spoken up about any discomfort about a strange boy visiting their daughter. I think they were just glad she had a friend that weekend.) She must have been looking forward to my visit, because she called that morning while I was in the shower to make sure I was still coming. We had lunch, we watched a dumb movie (Kindergarten Cop, because all the showings for Dances With Wolves were sold out), we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, we drove around. I didn't press her too much about what happened, and she didn't spill her guts about it -- just told me enough to know the bare details of what happened. I think what she really needed that Christmas break was a friend with whom she could feel, for whatever length of time, relatively safe and normal with. I sure as hell hope that my visit with her did more good for her than harm. (She sent me a note later on that my visit had done more to help her get through that Christmas break than almost anything else, so I guess I did right.)
I don't know where she is anymore -- about a year later, she got married, and while we kept in touch for a couple of years after, eventually we drifted away from each other, and it's been about ten years since we last spoke. I hope she's happy and healthy -- by now, she's got at least one ten-year-old, so I can only hope she was able to build for herself a stronger and happier life.
--skippcomet