When Love Lets you Down

Today I got the devastating news that a woman I know, through social media, had to do the absolute unthinkable.  After a building pattern of mental and physical abuse she was put in a position by her partner where it was truly life or death. Blessedly, she chose life and yet her choice meant his immediate demise. What that life will look like going forward is hard to say. How do you go back to any form of normalcy once you've been to that edge? How do you turn your face to the sun after love has so utterly betrayed you?

Another dear friend had the brutal misfortune of learning that the man who swore to protect and honour her, let her down in the most heinous and selfish of ways. In doing so, he stripped away her entire past and that of their children. Her life has completely been turned upside down and her self opinion has been struck a fierce blow. All because his narcissistic behaviour was masked under the guise of a loving partner. He played her like a fiddle and left her when he was discovered. What he doesn't know or care about is the wreckage and rust he has left behind. All these pieces my friend has to sift through and put back together in some semblance of a life. All because love let her down.

It breaks my heart and boggles my mind that people who stood before a god they doggedly believe in, and pledged with  their mortal soul to honour, respect and cherish another human, simply could not follow through.

I wanted to try to understand what went so wrong for my friends. So I began reading, as the mother of a daughter what I gleaned made my blood run cold.

• Children are more likely to witness domestic abuse if the victim is female
• Domestic Abuse is described as a pattern of behaviour which involves physical, emotional or sexual abuse by one person against another in a domestic setting such as marriage or cohabitation

These are real and this is happening. People are dying, people are losing so much more than their innocence and oft times children are part of the equation. Children who didn't ask to see/hear/feel what is being forced upon them. Families ripped apart and battered by lies and feelings of shame. This happens in every community, all the time. ALL THE TIME! 

I don't have a magic solution to stop it. I wish that I did. What I can tell you is what I am going to try really hard to do. I am going to try really hard to raise my daughter to know her worth and not settle for anyone or anything that doesn't appreciate that. I am going to raise my son to value his partner and to always strive to be worthy of their affections without compromising who he is in his soul. 

I pray that I can achieve this lofty goal and I hope with all that I have that it will be enough to keep my babies safe. I don't want love to let them down. Not in this way. 

Martin Luther King Jr Day

Today is a day to remember a man who, through his dogged determination, was able to change the lives of millions of people for the better. He opened the door to change and even today reminds us that the things worth having in life are worth the struggle to get them.

I was maybe in my early teens, perhaps younger, when I realized that I would most likely marry a man whose skin was different from mine and that our babies would be interracial. Growing up black in a very white city, I struggled to find faces that looked like mine. I was given BA Baracus on the A-Team, Marilyn Magoo on Solid Gold and then the Cosby family. While they were better than nothing, I was left reading books about white kids like the twins in Sweet Valley High. I decided then and there to strive to raise my babies, whenever they came, to see themselves in all forms of media.It was important to me that they see how we can live and work side by side with every colour and creed.
I used my love of books to start a collection for them.
It was harder than you'd think to find decent children's books in the early 90's, without the help of the internet. Yet my collection grew thanks to friends and family. By the time I was ready to start my family, I had over 65 books spanning pre-school to middle school reading levels.
My son was around 4 when he learned about Martin Luther King Jr and what he did for the world. I used the book Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport. We read other stories afterwards about slavery and the Underground Railroad.

I'd like to toot my own horn for a moment and say that in the past few years, the school has asked if I would lend my collection to each February for teachers to use. They display the books in the trophy case! This year, the grade 2 teacher wrote to ask if I could send some MLK Jr books for today.

" Only in darkness can you see the stars" ~ Martin Luther King Jr