C’est la vie

Years ago, I was good friends with a woman originally from Mexico. She was working for an airline in Montreal when she met a young man on a vacation from Toronto. They eventually married and had three children. Mary wasn’t a poor uneducated Mexican immigrant trying to make it in the big city. In fact, she came from a wealthy privileged background and her mother was a prominent businesswoman of some renown in Acapulco.

Things went well for them until the children started to arrive. John became increasingly possessive and controlling. Eventually, it came to the point where she dreaded going out even on family outings such as picnics, Marineland or even the grocery store with John. As inevitably, John would accuse Mary of acting in a manner improper for a mother and a wife. Maybe Mary would smile and say thank-you to a male teller as he handed her change or a man would give Mary the once over while she waited for her turn in a line. Sadly for Mary, she was an incredibly beautiful young woman and was an easy target for the appreciative glances of other men.

There was no rhyme or reason as to what would set John off but once John got going the going got rough for Mary. I met Mary while in college and we hit it off and for the first time in a long time Mary was allowed to have a friend and that friend was me. I haven’t a clue as to why I passed muster with John but I did – at least for a couple of years. John and Mary and their children were frequent guests in my home. My children adored Mary and in truth, it was hard not too. She had the most beautiful easy laugh and the face and manner of a Madonna. Besides she could cook up a storm and I have a real fondness for Mexican cuisine. Mary was the only woman that I ever turned over total control of my kitchen to.

A few months after the birth of her third child Mary showed up at my door swollen and battered with her babe in arms. For a long time I suspected John beat Mary but I was never entirely sure until she showed up battered at my door looking for a safe harbour. I didn’t hesitate to take her in and she cried out her sad story in my arms. Perhaps the hardest thing for me to stomach was to take in the depth of her despair and then listen to her tell me of her “great” love for John and her need to only be a better “wife” to him.

I didn’t force Mary to leave John and I laid out Mary’s options; call the police, lay charges, leave John and I did offer my home as long as she needed to get on her feet again. Mary stayed about a week until John begged, groveled and pleaded enough to convince her to come home, and this time, things would be different. John’s ultimate trump card was the bible. It was wrong for a wife to leave her husband and it was her duty to accept “correction” from her husband. And even if he was wrong, it was her duty to offer forgiveness as a Christian which is why I have been tempted over the years to pray to be saved from the occasional Christian mercy.

Maybe I was wrong but I never came outright and told her what to do. That is just not my way. I expect grown-ups to make their own decisions. I can advise what I would do, but ultimately, they must live out their own lives. I can’t live out their lives and my own too.

When Mary left, I figured that John would never allow Mary to be friends with me again as I had seen the handiwork of his sin, but strangely my stock with John only rose as I did not insist that Mary should leave him. Things went well for a couple of months, but then one day out of the black and blue Mary showed again up at my door - bleeding and with all three children in tow. This time I needed to take Mary to the hospital, and this time, the police were called. Stitches and statements were given and pictures were taken.

She held out two weeks this time. When John came to collect Mary and family, the children and I followed them out to the car as grim as a funeral dirge. I glanced down at my son Montana who must have been 8 years old at the time. He was hyperventilating and clinching his small fists over and over again in an impotent rage. He adored Mary, and I knew instinctively that he knew this was wrong, very, very wrong. At that moment something snapped in my head. This time, for my children’s sake, I would make the stand that Mary couldn’t find it in her being to make.

A very public scene ensued and it got ugly. Always being small I have learned to be a very dirty fighter. I rely more on surprise and wits than actually brawn, and frankly, John wasn’t use to women who fight back. I drew a line in the sand that day for Mary as well as my own children. Some things are always wrong, and no amount of patience, love and understanding can make right what is just flat out wrong.

My last words to Mary were that if she left with John, she cannot come to my home again and our friendship is over. I told her in my opinion she was doing a great harm not only to herself but to her children as well. In fact, it was tantamount to abusing her children by exposing them to a home where immense psychological and physical harm is the norm.

I never spoke to Mary again. I only saw her once after she left my home and it was in a provincial courtroom as I listened to her lie about how she received her injuries. After giving testimony, I left without ever learning how the case ended. Hearing Mary lie was all the resolution I needed.

I miss our friendship and I often wonder what has happened to her. I still pray for miracles, but ultimately, if abusive relationships are to end; it has to be because the abused spouse takes responsibility over the quality of their own lives. No amount of laws metered out to punish abusers, nor shelters to give safe refugee to a battered spouse for a moment and a day replace the need for an individual to take responsibility and control over their own life and choices.

Years later, as a commissioner of oaths it was my duty to witness an affidavit for one of the most badly beaten woman I had ever the misfortune to lay eyes on. She had been beaten so badly that even two weeks later she still didn’t look human. A crowbar had been taken to almost every bit of body she possessed. It was a miracle that she was even alive, and she had her neighbors and the police to thank for that. When the police came crashing through her door her common-law husband was seen fleeing out the back window. The police pursued him out the back and eventually caught up to him with her blood and bits of her guts still on his clothes as well as the crowbar in his possession.

Her statement to police was that she was a prostitute who had brought a ‘john’ home and it got ugly. The ‘john’ started to beat her when her common-law husband came home and attempted to stop the beating. When the police came charging through the door the ‘john’ used the distraction to get away from the ‘spouse’ and went out the back door. The spouse followed so that the ‘john’ wouldn’t get away Scot free. The police didn’t believe either him or her, and duly arrested the ‘spouse’ on the charge or attempted murder. I was asked by my employer (who was defense counsel to the ‘spouse’) to witness the woman’s statement.

Why do I think of these things? Because tonight, I woke up to the sounds of a woman being beaten outside my bedroom window and I rushed outside to stop it. When I appeared and raised my voice, the man fled and I attempted to help the woman. Even though it was obvious she was bleeding, she still wanted to follow the man. I tried to help her get help, and for my time and trouble; I got called me an ‘interfering old fucking bitch’.

In the end, you cannot help those who refuse to help themselves.