25/10/2024
October is always a weird emotional month for me.
Besides being my Mom’s birth month (she would’ve been the sparkliest 74-year-old you ever saw!), it’s also the “official” Domestic Violence Awareness month.
I always plan to share our story at the beginning of October, and fret about it… should I share something I’ve previously written? Should I write something new? It’ll come to me soon… then I go on with my day, and now I’ve looked up and it’s October 25.
In my “previous life,” I would be criticized and ridiculed when I’d post about Mom’s murder for a domestic violence PSA from a very personal place…
“Why are you posting that AGAIN? Don’t you think people get tired of seeing that every year? People already know about it.”
And so, I stopped for a while so that I could avoid that bit of animosity at home, in that “previous life.”
Funny how I can see things so clearly now. I’m grateful for many things I learned while living my “previous life”, but with the more space gained and time spent in my FOREVER LIFE, I’m just a little bit bitter about a lot of things that I accepted and put up with for nine years because I was so manipulated and mentally-controlled, much like my precious mother.
Let me just share some things I’ve learned from Mom’s murder…
Her murderer told us all that he was going to kill us… he said it so much that it really wasn’t much of a threat. It was just the way he talked to us.
Don’t take words for granted. The power of words is far beyond our meager human comprehension.
He didn’t allow her to go places. She was a grandma who couldn’t go somewhere if he didn’t want her to go there.
Once, she took my young daughter swimming for the day at my cousin’s house… since he didn’t want her to go have a fun day with family and my 11 year old daughter, he locked them out of the house when they returned, threatening to kill them.
My ex-husband had dropped my daughter off at her Mimi’s house, against my wishes, because I had already told them I was never stepping foot in that house again as long as HE was still there. I guess someone didn’t get the memo.
Thankfully, my mom and daughter were able to flee to my brother’s house for the night, and go back the next day when he was sober.
He didn’t allow her to talk on the phone freely. Countless times, I would call her and hear him come in hollering at her in the background… “Oh stop, it’s Krysta… … I’ve gotta go.” Click.
Once, he changed her phone number with his so that he got all of her incoming calls, and when she would make a call, it would show up on everyone’s caller ID as him and nobody would answer because nobody wanted to talk to him… we didn’t know he’d switched them for a couple days, when she was able to go live at my brother’s house for two months.
He took her handgun and had it in HIS safe. She had a bag packed and in her car.
She left him so many times, but she always went back, because “he needs me.”
The thing is, no one outside of our immediate family knew the abuse was going on… especially since it had been going on since the 1970s. She hid it behind sparkling eyes and a big smile, just like she taught her kids to do.
If EVEN ONCE they tell you they are going to kill you, MAKE NO MISTAKE - THEY WILL. It’s just a matter of time from thinking it, to saying it, to doing it. GET OUT.
I’m not just talking to women - men are just as much victims of evil as women.
Most shelters that I know of allow pets, which are often what keeps victims in their abusive homes.
If you absolutely can’t leave, please have some way to defend yourself at all times.
In all honesty, EVERY month is Domestic Violence Awareness month for me, and for so many people that I love who have also lost loved ones and/or survived, against all odds ♥️
Our family took a hit that changed us all forever.
I miss her every day of my life. We all do. I’m just telling my part.
In honor of Mom, I share just a snippet - so her death was not in vain.
