Some of them don't make it to adulthood

I don't know which is sadder, seeing how 3 children were drowned when their mother, a victim of domestic violence, took them with her when she drove into the Hudson River or the fact that I understand completely how she could end up this way. Living with violence when you can see no end in sight is like slowly being pulled under water, not knowing if you'll be able to continue breathing. Depression is far more serious than most want to believe. It is all encompassing and one cannot simply "snap out of it" by themselves. Dismissing domestic violence as someone else's problem is common. So is dismissing depression as it was someone just having a bad day. Every time someone dismisses domestic violence or depression as something that doesn't affect them it does nothing but let more people live in pain and more kids live in fear.

Everyone else needs to "SNAP OUT OF IT" when it comes to denying any responsibility for what happens when they ignore things they can do to help. "Evil is done when good men do nothing." Wish I had said that first, but I can't claim credit for it. Americans are getting far too good at minding their own business at everyone else's peril.and expense.

America, take responsibility, quit ignoring your duties as humans and help your fellow human.
I'm angry because those 3 children did not have to drown if someone had taken seriously the violence in that household. It didn't matter that those children were not beat to death, which would have the country up in arms, but where is the outrage when the depression of their mother from being beat constantly then taking her own life and theirs with it.

Either way the children are still dead from domestic violence.

Japan, TMI and fear - what a trifecta

I have been transfixed on CNN, listening when not watching as this nuclear tragedy unfolds after the horrendous earthquake and tsunami took their tolls first.

Flashbacks. watching scientists sit on a panel and discuss what to do with the hydrogen bubble inside the reactor--how to recombine the elements to become water so the bubble would not explode like a hydrogen bomb. Wait, that was 32 years ago, not today. Today we have seen hydrogen explosions at least 3 times, I've lost count.

Why did they both happen in March? March is MY month. I was born on 3/3, three is my magical number. M.Arch. is the degree I worked my whole life to get to fulfill the dream I had since I was 5 to become an architect. How dare these tragedies take place in MY month.

TMI took place at a very important time in my life. Mom had finally left my alcoholic, wife battering, abusive step-father. We lived within walking distance of school so I could walk home after track practice. We barely had money to cover utilities, once I had to use my part time after school paycheck to have heat. But we were happy. We lived in peace. I was about to graduate high school and had been accepted into an architecture program - I was one of 88 accepted out of 5000 applicants. Life was finally good.

1 pm, March 29, 1979: Principal came on the intercom at school (the principal NEVER came on the intercom) and said there had been an "incident" at Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant so since our school formed an X and many of us went outside to get to classes, we would be allowed an extra 5 minutes and were asked to stay indoors. All after school activities were canceled, there would be no late buses. Everyone was to go home after school at 2:45pm in Lancaster County at Penn Manor High School in Millersville, PA on March 29, 1979.

But wait. 2 pm the principal came back on the intercom (again?) and said the incident was not serious so we could go outside now, but activities had already been canceled and would be rescheduled. No after school practices that day, but they would resume the next day. We all looked around and mumbled no way were we going outside. We had all been on a field trip to Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant which was closer than TMI, so we knew the dangers. We all stayed indoors. Maybe a handful of 1600 students walked outside. Probably the stoners. It was 1979 after all.

I walked home to see mom packing our orange AMC Gremlin X. She motioned for me to go inside and pick up only the most important things I would not want to see lost forever. We were leaving. I packed a few clothes, mom had the photo albums already and the stuffed dog mom gave me as a baby. We took the canned food and anything that would last in a cooler for a day. We weren't rich, remember? Where are we going? To cousin Art's in Powhatan, VA. It was south, the opposite way of the wind blowing for the moment and far enough away to be safe from a meltdown. Mom was a nurse at the hospital, she knew a little about radiation poisoning, but neither of us knew a lot of details, we just knew it was better to be safe. The hospital told her she may not have a job when she came back. Mom said she may not be back and there may not be a hospital. We left. As we drove out of the small town of Millersville, a college town, we noticed other cars, packed full, kids sitting quietly, all leaving. We found out later they were likely the professors as many who evacuated early on were those with education enough to know to be afraid.

Education brought fear. Now there's a thought.

Survival means knowing when to be afraid, but education helps with what to do next. Education also brought skepticism and awareness of when things "didn't seem right". That happened a lot in the next 10 days.

How the Godfather hit home

Watching The Godfather in its entirety for the first time in many years I was struck by a particular scene that I must have suppressed from my memory after the last time I saw the movie. I remembered the scene existed, but I just forgot how true it was.

Connie, Michael and Sonny's sister, is pregnant, angry and yelling at her husband for being with another woman. She screams, he insults her and calls her derogatory names, racial and ethnic slurs while she knocks all the china on the floor. Until he grabs her and takes her into the bathroom where we can only hear him beating her while calling her names. We hear her crying and the thuds of his fist or whatever he uses, on her body and face. Like Psycho, our imagination is more powerful than any filmed scene.

Except for those of us who don't imagine it, but instead remember it.

Imagination may be extremely powerful, but it is no match for a painful memory. Or worse, many painful memories.

If you cannot relate to this, then use your imagination that in that scene you are a 4 year old watching and listening from the doorway. or another room. or another floor. Now imagine this happens enough that you almost expect it to happen. Almost. It is still a shock to your system even when you know the sounds, the screams, the insults, the slurs.

Now imagine you are 5 and it still happens. and keeps happening when you are 6, then 7, then 8 and into your teens. Sometimes it is the night before school on a weeknight. Sometimes it is the night after having a wonderful day at the beach or camping or boating. Then this scene happens before you must go to bed and wake up and face other children at school.

What do those other children live with at home? I didn't know. I thought maybe the same thing as my home. Didn't everyone have a scary dad? Was I so different?

Mario Puzo, who wrote the book that The Godfather was made from, must have been a child in a home with domestic violence or he was very good at research.
I don't know if anyone can be that good at research.

"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

Those words are known by most to be from a speech given by a president of this country. However, they are far more meaningful than any political implications they had at the time.

Fear really is the enemy and it's hard to not be fearful when it is in the core of my memories, but it can be conquered! It still rears it's ugly head once in awhile, but being aware of it when it does is half the battle.

The good thing about growing up in fear is when you find out that's not how everyone else lives and there's another way to walk through this life. What an amazing discovery that was. I can't remember the day--it was more like a slow unfolding that led to a small "aha" moment, more like a "hmmm" I see.