Saturday, March 5, 2011

"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver (p. 180)

Life Lessons

I was very pigheaded when I was younger. Against my mother's advice, I married when I was only 15. The day after my marriage, my husband started physically abusing me. I made excuses to my family to explain my bruises and lacerations. I went through this for two years, always implying to myself that it was my fault and never having enough courage to protect myself. When I was 17, I became pregnant. I miscarried due to kick in my stomach. I became pregnant again rather quickly almost losing this one too due to another kick in the stomach. I somehow managed to carry my child until he was big enough to survive outside of the womb and gave birth to a healthy baby boy right before I turned 18. Mostly things were fine at first, but the stress of parenthood at such a young age was, I gather, too difficult for my then husband to handle. He continued to abuse me. One day, when my son was only three months old, he proceeded to attack me while I was holding my tiny baby in my arms. He went out and I left him that day and never looked back. My eyes were opened due to the fact that if he could harm me while I was holding his baby than the time would come when he would abuse him as well and I couldn't have that. After all, it is supposed to be a parent's job to protect their child. If I had not had a child, I would probably still be very stupid and still be with the abuser. I am very grateful that he helped me open my eyes to get out of that situation.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing such a personal story. Such an important lesson....isn't it amazing what WE will put up with, but when it comes to our children, how that all changes?!

    ReplyDelete