TRIGGER WARNING
It was a long long time ago I wrote a story, one which is probably in one of my books somewhere, in reaction to getting the news in no gentle way that a friend from a support group for battered women had been murdered, along with her children, by her abuser. I cannot even begin to tell you how that shattered not only their lives but also the fragile new ones that we the other support group members had only just begun to build. The whole topic generally tends to remain tucked away for me, but recently a little bubble rose to the surface where it popped with a tiny plip sound. We can deal with that; it's the way it's supposed to be. I wrote a blog entry. News stories about a recent murder hits harder than I'd expected it to. Found myself not quite in a flashback as those have been history for quite a while. Nevertheless I was puzzled (shouldn't have been) when my throat and neck gradually tightened to the point I was having trouble breathing, something I'd not experienced before, at least not in several decades, and never without there being an obvious reason for it. When it dawned on me that I'd just been reading some young women's remarks about the recent tragedy I knew what was happening to me. It *was* a flashback of sorts after all. Making those muscles relax was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, as hard this time as it had been the other times and most especially one in particular. My mind flies back and I don't even try to stop it, not this time. Against all motherly instincts I knew I had to get loose and climb those stairs, away away away from my daughters, because he would follow me and let them be. Away away away and the whole time my mind screaming no no no no no no your babies your babies your babies. Yet away I had to go. Up those stairs whether or not I could. He caught me at the phone on that floor. I scrambled up another set of stairs as I couldn't get past him to an exit. He caught me again, at the phone which rang right then. God bless our men in brown and our men in blue. God bless them each and all.
