I sat down for a chat recently with Gloria Jackson, Coordinator of Community Based Victim Services with the Campbell River Family Services Society to talk about domestic abuse and gender-based violence.
Fun topic to spend an afternoon thinking about, right?
Well, as much as I enjoy telling feel-good stories of non-profits helping educate school kids, realtors painting the downtown businesses’ windows for the holidays and taking photos of trucks all decked out in Christmas lights, I think it’s important to sometimes force yourself to think about the unpleasant things in this world, because that’s the only way we’ll make it a better place.
I’m working on at least one follow-up article to the piece in this past Wednesday’s paper, which was entitled, “Campbell River no stranger to domestic violence,” where I will explore a few more aspects of the topic, but for now I’m just going to tell a quick story.
About 15 years ago, I was leaving a New Year’s Eve party on Alder Street shortly after midnight. I’d had a few beverages, but no one would say I was intoxicated in any sense of the word. I was going to walk home when I was stopped in my tracks before I got two houses away from the gathering.
The scream was faint from the sidewalk, but there was a power to it that is hard to explain if you haven’t heard it.
It was terror.
I walked up to the front door of the house. There were whimpers of “no” and “stop” and a sound I hadn’t heard since my last hockey fight – the unmistakable sound of fist on face. Then a body hitting a wall.
I went back next door to the party to get backup. This would simply not do.
We broke through the front door of the house, ran up the stairs and into the bedroom the screams were coming from. We pulled him off her as she cowered in the corner trying to protect her head and face. A good sized chunk of her hair was still in his closed fist as we brought him to the living room.
The girls stayed with her in the bedroom to comfort her while the boys kept him on the couch and waited for the police.
I don’t know where they are now. I hope they both got the help they needed.
I do know that I don’t regret a single thing I did that night – except maybe that I lingered at the door considering what to do for a minute before going back to the party for help.
I’m certainly glad I left the party when I did and was able to intervene in this degeneracy.
Let me be clear: I’m not advocating home invasion.
I’m saying that the least you can do is tell your buddy that his joke about beating his girlfriend if she doesn’t have dinner ready when he gets home from work isn’t funny.
Be more than a bystander.
Let’s change the world.