Chapter 1
My smile slowly died when I was with him.
I was always a bright little girl.
An adventurous teenager.
A happy woman.
I never really cared for gifts or possessions and I could be happy with very little.
Yet, he stole that from me; happiness, and I am not sure if it will come back.
Sure, I can put a big smile on during the daytime. However, I still cry at night in the room he stabbed me in. I just wait until all the children sleep before I start.
He did not want me to participate in a life outside our home. He was angry with everything that I did that could advance my own life. He successfully convinced me to stop chairing AA and NA Meetings. Little by little, he striped away what made me who I was. He placed so much fear in me that I listened to what he told me to do. He said he loved my singing and the songs that I wrote. When I performed my songs in bars for Pride’s Queerlesque, I often came along with bruises. The second time I sang, I practiced for the show when I was pregnant. I remember that it was filmed because I could not attend in person. I sang even though he continued to try and strangle my voice away. It was the same the previous year when I sang the first time. He strangled me then too and I remember having to use make-up to cover the wounds. He had a harder time getting me to stop singing but eventually I stopped doing it outside our home. Something inside me just didn’t want to quit. It wasn’t that I was great at it, it just made me feel so damn good to do it. I know that it was the hardest for him to stop. I know why that was too. I felt if I couldn’t sing; I was already dead. When I stopped, he killed something inside me. Something bright and warm turned tiny and cold.
The same happened with school. He managed to put a hault to my schooling three times. First, with a severe beating that left me so terrified that I felt like if I even tried to do the opposite of what he asked that I would get that one again, or maybe worse the next time. The second time, he did it by finally getting me to have his baby. Our first live birth together; a daughter. Even though he did not work or go to school or properly care for the house or the children, he expected me to cease my schooling to care for her. The College allowed motheRs to bring their children and I tried for a few days, but he asked me to stop that too, so i did. Classes stopped immediately. I tried a third time after he and I separated. I even got good child care, funding for school and finished a whole term with top grades in Nursing. He put an end to that too the night that he stabbed me, and left me with no home to live in for a while. He did that with everything. He deliberately killed the crops in my garden so sunflowers would fall to the dirt, and the birds would fly away with the seeds. I let him know that they needed to be buried in a row and he insisted that we scatter them. I was right; the birds stole the seeds before any seedlings took to the soil. It was not just the garden. He did everything to push everything I loved from me. I used to bake everyday but he left me with such a bad head injury, I often forget the bread and bannock recipes that I did a hundred times. The cheese and bacon bannock that my Granny taught me to memorize since I was a child was gone. I hated him for that one the most. I felt like he stole a piece of my Granny that I might never get back. Really, why does any of this matter to you? Well, it doesn’t, but it is time for me to share my truth. I feel like I am running out of time. People say time goes fast when you are having fun. Well, time actually moves a lot faster when the man that tried to murder you more times than you can count on your fingers is set for release soon. I am not sure If i can impart any lessons for other women going through something similar. I felt like I did a lot of it wrong. When I say “it,” I am talking about how I handle the whole experience. I didn’t leave the first time he hurt me. Most women actually don’t. It is easier said by those who never experienced it, than it is done by those living it.
I always loved boxing. I wanted to be a boxer when I was in grade five but the city I grew up in didn’t enlist girls then. I enjoyed watching a good fight. I just never thought I would live one. My whole damn life felt like a fight. I am only 39 and now I am exhausted. Eleven. That is the number of times he tried to kill me. When they release him again, I am not sure if I can make it through Round Twelve.
