Violence Against My Mother

My mother chooses to live a life of pain. A stumbling, non-functioning alcoholic, she attempts to drink away the numerous rapes she experienced, the severe abuse by her father and step fathers, the torture each of her husband's have inflicted on her, and the shame of abandoning each of her children.

Every day without regard for time, without holiday or respite, she drinks herself unconscious. She blurs reality by blurring her brain with a substance that eventually will kill her, a fact she has come to terms with in recent years. If I lived in my mother's world, I might drink my way into oblivion.

My mother chooses to cohabitate with her mother's ex-husband. When my grandmother was married to the man, Jim O'Connor, he beat my grandmother nearly to death on regular occasion. The story goes that when my grandma tried to leave Jim, he stalked my great grandmother and took pictures of her so his wife would know he could kill her at any time. The police took no action.

After years of inflicting abuse on my grandmother, my mother decided he was quality companion material. Since he has taken over boyfriend duties for my mother, she has suffered a series of "accidents" that forensics can't explain but the police in her area seem to believe.

One of the more severe incidents occurred when four of my mother's fingers were almost entirely severed off. (Yes, they were able to reattach.) My mother told the police that she had done it herself with a steak knife when she repeatedly stabbed a door. I sat, playing forensic investigator, doing my darndest to figure out how she could have used a steak knife to do what she said happened. I couldn't figure it out. The police took no action.