My elderly mom and her husband had been married 24 years. My brother and I (both adults at this point) knew he was uncomfortably snarky but didn’t realize he’d become abusive. For all those years, the only person she’d told about the abuse was her pastor, who instructed her to stay in the marriage because divorce was a sin.
It wasn’t until she got cancer that things escalated and she decided it was time to tell us everything. He would mock her for being sick after chemo and forced her to clean up her own vomit. He wouldn’t allow her to sleep during the day (saying it was lazy). He made her wear an itchy wig day and night because her bald head looked “stupid”. He forced her to perform her “wifely duties” in every capacity, regardless of pain or exhaustion from the chemo. Those are sharable things. There are so many more horrifically unsharable things.
Once we discovered what was happening, we began planning to get her safely out of this marriage.
Savings account was opened. Family members all contributed to it. A battered women’s center helped her find a little apartment. We made many lists.
Within a week of her disclosure, the day came to escape.
Her husband went to work that morning like normal, dressed in his friendly Wal-mart smock. Our cousin followed him to make sure he was truly gone while the rest of us swooped in. Three of us had flown in the night before and stayed in a hotel. Two of her siblings woke up pre-dawn to make the 3 hour drive to her town. We all converged on the house within minutes of his leaving and we had a plan.
Every person had a list of responsibilities: things to pack, items to locate, and details to handle.
We were quick and efficient. Everything was loaded into my uncle’s truck and driven to her little apartment within 2 hours.
She wrote a note explaining that she had left him due to abuse. She also left a copy of the restraining order.
We stayed with her that first evening, helping her deal with the reality of leaving. She knew she’d made the right decision but she was still heartbroken, embarrassed, and scared.
The next day, we intended to help her unpack and set up her new place. But one phone call changed all that. Her husband’s boss called her, concerned that he’d not shown up for work. She was his emergency contact and nobody knew she’d left him the day before.
We told her he was probably too emotional to go to work. But something in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise. My brother tried calling him. No answer. He drove by the house and saw his truck in the driveway and the newspaper on the step.
That’s when we decided to call for a wellness check.
My brother was there when the police showed up. No answer at the door. Peeked through all the windows. No sign of him. My brother had my mom’s key and let the police in.
They searched the little house and found his bible laid out on the bed and his Wal-Mart smock hung in the bathroom. They also found 2 empty bottles of whiskey on the coffee table.
When they went into the garage, they found a third bottle of whisky shattered on the floor, glass and brown liquid everywhere. The smell of the booze was heavy in the air as they made their way to the basement stairs. And that’s where they found him, broom next to him at the bottom on the concrete stairs and blood everywhere.
They surmised he’d gone to get a broom to clean up the broken bottle and fell backward down the concrete stairs. It was a slow and possibly painful death due to head injury.
We had to tell my mom he was dead. And that it was an accident.
But we also told her she was free.
To this day, the few of us who helped her move out are the only ones who know she’d left him. We’re also the only ones who know about the whiskey bottles.
To everyone else, it was a tragic accident.
To everyone else, she’s a grieving widow.
To everyone else, she had a happy, godly marriage.
But we know the truth.
To us, she’s a hero.
