What Matters Most

This very week as I was heading to work I heard a report, or maybe it was a minor write-up, a barely audible reading of news from some practically foreign newswire….  It was early, 6:40 am, that time when newswire news is read on the radio, before the “real” audience tunes in and the “real” newsworthy news is read.  It seems to be shared as a filler to avoid dead air.  It won’t be aired again, I’m sure, at least not here.

But I hear this news and it stops my thoughts, otherwise random, loosely related to the day ahead, the vibrant color of the sky crisp and contrasted perfectly against the autumn leaves.  Damn, What? Where? Johnstown? Jobstown? No, those are not towns or cities in the near or far-reaching rural landscape of New York, upstate, that expanse of place encompassing everywhere 20 miles north of the city.  At the stoplight I Google, any bit of this news… Johnstown… 2 boys… 2 women… dead.  Gunshots, fire?  I try to grasp for some bit of what I heard reported.  This is not standard operation for me.  It’s against my nature to ambulance chase; seek the macabre, the grizzly, the darkest edges of humanity.  I tend to stay as far away as I can.  I’m sure it’s related to superstition, Catholic and Irish voodoo, tempting fates, alerting the souls of newly departed is not a practice I care to toy with.  But this story calls to me. It disturbs me.  It bothers me the way it is reported, without substance or weight. Two women, two young boys, dead or hurt or some gruesome combination.  Estranged boyfriend, a clue word for abusive prick. Murderer even.  

I find it:  Two boys, 3 and 4 yrs old, dead, in fire set by estranged boyfriend. 

No outrage, no social media storm, no outcry or vigils, or demands for change will follow.  Black Lives Matter. The Kardashian’s matter.  Hillary and Donald Matter. Mass shootings matter, slightly, or for a short prescribed time, and more for political positioning, than for the lives lost and destroyed. The coverage of these events mostly glorify and celebritize the shooter(s) at the expense of the next set of victims, when soon, some other young, lost, more than likely, white boy, dreams of fame in the name of some grudge he has been harboring for some time and ready access to guns, uncontrolled, will walk into a school, or theater, or public place and shoot people that don’t matter to him. 

My thoughts, extreme, at times, offend and provoke.  Women’s lives don’t much matter.  I think, too often, of late.  The children of women matter less, unless they are the unborn and unwanted children, and then they matter simply as a means to control women or at least their bodies.

Two boys lost their lives Monday morning in a fire set by an estranged boyfriend of one of the women. The two women are both still in critical condition in a hospital in Johnson City.  And if you don’t live much closer to Binghamton, in or around Johnson City, and weren’t paying attention at 6:40 or 42 A.M. on Tuesday you probably don’t know about this.

I start to wonder, knowing some of the statistics, regarding women and domestic violence and women and rape, and women and poverty, and women and equality, and I question how many other children and women have died this week or are in critical condition at the hands of their estranged boyfriends or husbands or ex husbands. And why isn’t it reported?  Why isn’t there media coverage?  Outrage? A growing movement that demands change, consequences, sensitivity? Why isn’t the news of this fire reported at 7 am even, or 9 am or on the nightly news?  Statisics from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, tell me 2 million injuries and 1,300 deaths are caused each year as a result of domestic violence.

I realize a few days later my own part in this national condition of disinterest, or apathy, or is it despair?   I recall the prior weekend seeing my once estranged partner.   When I spotted him heading in my direction, I laughed nervously, covering up what seemed at the time only slight discomfort, maybe disbelief.  Recalling, always, immediately, the hidden secrets, and this continued collusion I share in covering up for him.  The truth of his addictions and afflictions.  His drinking, his gambling, his lies, his shame.  The truth of my silence covers up my weak attempt to avoid the truth of his abuse.  I struggled in and out of the next few days after seeing him, bothered by my response, at believing I have had little choice but to be complicit in my own repression. 

What were my choices otherwise?  How do I end the silence now? I imagine saying something. What? A snarky remark, would that redeem me? I could take the high road, giving a vibrant hello would require at least acknowledgement, a risk, that might not be met, would I react badly to such a slight?  Would I call attention to myself? Be too emotional? Would I seem “out of control”, aggressive, crazy? I have thought about asking him why.  Knowing in advance there is not an answer that would alter the outcome or erase the 20 years of harm.  I sometimes wonder how he survives without seeing and knowing his son, living within 3 miles of him.  How does he explain this to himself? What would possibly make sense or be believable to others?  This doesn’t matter.

My only recourse is to live my life in full view, with honesty and empathy and love.  I wasted so much time wanting him to be accountable for his own pain, I did not imagine he would try to hurt me by cutting off his son.  His being capable of this made me understand,  I can’t hold someone accountable to actions that hold no meaning.  I had suffered too long an overwhelming need for validation, while tightly refusing to own my role as his mask.  I lost myself within that space.  Seeing him now can act to remind me how far I’ve journeyed since, how much I’ve healed. I don’t need to feel comfortable in his presence.  I don’t need to shout and I no longer need to ask why. The loudness of knowing that I am safe, stronger, that my children, though scarred, have flourished is the most beautiful sound. I don’t need to tell him we matter.  We do. 

I wish all women's lives mattered, more, as much as, equal to men's lives.  I wish those boys from Johnson City mattered to a court system.   The court system that processed papers to protect a woman from the violence and abuse that the estranged boyfriend had been charged with on numerous occasions. I wish the children of women were not harmed as a means to inflict pain, but were valued and protected and cared for.  But courts can't enforce caring, the way they can enforce child support payments.  The court can't enforce protection, after two boys lives are lost in a fire by an estranged boyfriend, enraged because he could not control a woman, that did not, could not have mattered very much to him.    I wish the mother of those boys healing and safety and peace.  I wish the ex-girlfriend of that man, strength and courage to help her overcome what lies ahead.