Remember My Name

By AUSTIN CUNNINGHAM

"My story must be told,

Must remain in constant memory

So my daughters won't cry my tears,

Or follow my tortured legacy ...

Love ain't a tricky thing if it's coming

From a healthy place ...

Maybe I should have loved him a little less ...

Maybe I should have not believed he'd

Never hit me again;

All those maybes will not bring me back again."

That's a prose poem by a dying woman and I've taken liberties in compressing the words of a final victim of domestic violence -- repetitive, relentless, domestic violence, a war between the sexes. We're aware of its presence, going on behind those walls we walk by, drive by every day. Maybe we're tired of hearing about it, bored by it because of its propinquity (nearness). Behind expensive walls but mostly behind dirty, littered walls. It's as old as Genesis but as current as the next 15 minutes, a strong body beating on a weaker body with fists, furniture, whatever's handy. The reasons are multiple, no single pattern. A man (most often) with the self control of a child. In his mindless fury taking his revenge on adults like those others who may have abused him when he was weak, helpless and tiny.

Elder Abuse is Everyones Problem:

Excerpt from Paradise Costs



A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.



?What food might it contain?? the mouse wondered.

He became frightened and devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.



Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning to all: ?There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!?



The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head, and said, ?Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.?



The mouse scurried to the pig and told him, ?There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!?



The pig sympathized, but said, ?I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it. I?d be very careful if I were you, but it?s no threat to me.?



The mouse turned to the cow and said, ?There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!?



The cow sighed and said, ?Wow, Mr. Mouse. I?m sorry for you, but it?s no skin off my nose.?



So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer?s mousetrap alone.



That very night, a sound was heard throughout the house the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.



The farmer?s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was

a venomous snake whose tail had caught the trap.



The snake bit the farmer?s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.



Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup?s main ingredient: chicken.



But his wife?s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. to feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.



The farmer?s wife did not get well; she died. Many people came to her funeral to share the farmer?s pain. To provide enough food for all of the mourners, the farmer slaughtered the cow.



The mouse looked out on it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. All of his barnyard friends were gone, and he was all alone.



He sniffled and choked back tears, thinking, ?I tried so hard to warn them, and they wouldn?t listen.?



Perhaps next time you hear someone is facing a problem And, you think it doesn?t concern you, you?ll remember:



When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.