Run

The pale hall light crept under the uneven closed door. Natalie often went to bed long before she was tired because restlessness was preferable to the beatings she endured when her husband's mood plunged from affable to angry. He wasn't an alcoholic and he didn't abuse drugs. He also was no longer the man she married 12 years earlier. Chronic unemployment after the death of their daughter altered their familial landscape forever and the numbness they both felt was demonstrated differently by each one.

She withdrew into a shell; Cut herself off from those wishing to help her struggle through the grief. There was little point in looking forward when all her dreams for the future would remain forever in the past. Days dragged on into weeks and months and before she knew it, years had passed. Things never got easier and time was not the great healer that poets lamented about. Life was not imitating art.

The physical violence began a few months after the accident. Initially, it was infrequent and he plead remorse after every encounter. But he never seemed sorry enough to stop and the more she endured, the greater his contempt for her grew. It was pointless to fight back and calling the police meant she would have to follow through with a plan that she was scared to implement. Anyway... He always said he was sorry.

The pale hall light was interrupted by the silhouette of a monster who abandoned decency long ago. Feigning sleep would offer no salvation on this night.

Two days later she found herself sitting on the edge of a bed at the shelter. In a room full of strangers, her's was just one more story of a woman who preferred homelessness to domestic violence. The beatings were not her fault but she was being punished. She fled a horrific scene and substituted freedom for safety. She refused to go back. Her life would take a different direction from this point forward, and she simply needed a little while to collect her thoughts and make a plan.

She had not been destitute and her employment résumé was impeccable. But she had no place to go. Her clothes were not tattered or dirty. She was not an addict nor a criminal. But her family lived two time zones away and her self-imposed shame kept her from reaching out to them for help.

So she sat on the edge of the bed.

Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness in the United States. Some studies indicate that every 8 seconds a person is the victim of physical abuse. The psychological impact of embracing homelessness as an alternative to living in a violent environment must be unimaginable. Please take some time to see if there is anything you might be able to do to help with this epidemic.