She Looks Like An Ethiopian!!

 18 years old

They let the girl leave Baltimore and go see her family in Tennessee for a visit. 

By this point her husband didn't come home from work until late in the evenings and it was a sexless marriage. He told her that her protruding pubic bone hurt him. 

At her mother's house she was given her sister's room to sleep in and as she undressed for the night her sister barged into the room. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked at her unclothed body, and yelled loudly, "she looks like an Ethiopian!!!!"

The girl laid on the bed and cried hard until she had cried herself to sleep. No one came to comfort her. No one checked her weight. No one asked her if she had food to eat up there in Baltimore. And then her husband came and she and the babies were sent back with him.

Ed - 8

 Ed took the girl to a bar with him and his brother. She had never been in a bar before. She was 17. 

There were pool tables and Ed and his brother played pool. They were talking and suddenly she was shocked to see Ed's brother punch Ed in the face.

More shocking though was the next thing she knew she was on Ed's brother's back, legs wrapped around his waist, screaming "don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!!!!!"

The brother very calmly and gently said "it's ok. It's over now. You can let go." The girl slid down. Embarrassed. 

Then somehow she was leaving with the brother without Ed and he parked his truck in his mother's driveway. They never got out. The brother played old country songs on the radio.

A song came on called Sneaky Snake and the brother started putting his hand on the girl's leg like it was a snake. She tensed up. Afraid. What would Ed do when he showed up?

They sat in the truck all night. Ed came and got her. He never said a word about any of it. 

She couldn't understand why she had reacted so strongly to him being hurt as he hurt her every day? Why? Why did she defend him? 

Ed - 7

 The girl's co-workers, and even her boss, stepped in to give her advice on how to get away safely.

The police came out and allowed her to take clothes only. She had no car so she could only take what she could carry anyway.

The apartment complex she worked at had locks on the door where you had to have a magnetic card to gain access. Her boss told her to use those foyers as a safe place. No matter what he said to not let him in.

He did show up while she was in one of the foyers. He smiled and spoke through the glass and asked her to let him in. She didn't respond. He started yelling and beating on the door but she wouldn't respond. He finally left and thankfully she never saw him again. Ever.

The Girl

 The girl, now no longer a young girl, wondered.....

.......is it possible to feel safe after being beat on? Or do you forever wonder if you say, or do, the wrong thing you may be beaten again?

......after being sexually abused can you ever trust that it won't happen again?

........after being abandoned will you worry every minute for the rest of your life that at any moment you will be abandoned again?

........after being hungry and malnourished do you forever have a love/hate relationship with food?

........once your trust is betrayed can you ever trust again?

........once rejected by those who are supposed to love you can you ever feel that you are worthy of ANYONE'S love?

.......when you lose a child does the emptiness and pain ever stop?

.......once you hear the words that make you feel you are worthless will they ever stop echoing in your head?

.......when your child calls someone else momma does your heart ever stop breaking? Or does it ache until the day you die?

........in heaven,  can you look into your children's eyes and without saying a word convey to them how you had loved them since before they were even born and that you didn't ever want to be without them and you think of them every single day and think of all of the "could have beens"?

Does the hurt girl child ever leave that place in time and become a whole woman?