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It
started out - and still is - a lovely cool morning,
the kind of cool that reminds me of my childhood when
the house was cold and the day seemed apart from everything,
wasn't quite what would come, until it started to
warm itself up.
The
morning has been punctuated by phone calls regarding
the man who was shot in the Short Strand last night;
the last few days have been marked by others worried
about family of theirs who are under threat. Last
week I had written in my journal about the toll this
takes:
The
other day I was thinking too on all of the people
I have met and come to know and the misery I have
seen. When I first started living here I was very
firey, and outraged, and spoke out against a lot
of what I saw. I don't know if I have become assimilated
or inured to what I still see. I know now the consequences
of speaking out better and I probably won't share
this anywhere. But I have to write it.
What
did I see? Mothers, sisters, aunts, nowhere else
to go but my living room to plead for some sort
of help for their son, brother, nephew - who had
been shot or was about to be shot or a combination
of both or some other awful thing, abducted and
tortured, harassed and put out of their home, beaten
in front of younger siblings, tales of blood everywhere,
fright. I would suppose even just knowing this,
hearing these things, seeing the ...results etched
in all these women's faces would affect you. Maybe
it is catching up with me. Seeing the madness in
some of my neighbors, brought on by the way we live
here.
It
just doesn't seem to have any end to it. It is a massively
dysfunctional family and the legacy of abuse is already
seared into the next generation. If anyone has been
in a family where abuse has a history, you know what
I am talking about; the secrets, the denials, everything
that comes along with the abuse and persists well
after the abuse itself has stopped.
How
do we cope with it? Last night I was watching Law
& Order Special Victims Unit and at the end of
it one of the characters, a detective named Olivia,
breaks down. Her partner tries to comfort her by telling
her that at least, unlike the victims she tries to
help, she can leave it behind her at the end of the
day. And she looks at her partner with tears in her
eyes and says, very quietly, "No, I can't."
You realize that while she has not had to endure the
rape, or the attack itself, she carries the burden
of being witness to so much trauma and tragedy and
horror. She can't turn it off, she can't leave it
behind, and, unlike the victims, she carries in her
the nightmares from a multitude of terrors, not just
the single incident that brought the victims to her
door.
Everyone
who lives in these areas carries a similar multitude
of terrors, when their neighbors are shot or tortured,
when other neighbors' sons or husbands suddenly are
no longer around, having to have left the country
until cooler heads prevail or forever. It is not just
the passing mention, as the BBC so coolly puts it
in their "News in Brief" section -
Man
suffers gunshot wounds
A
man has been taken to hospital after a paramilitary-style
attack in east Belfast.
He
suffered gunshot wounds to both ankles and both
elbows in the attack in Beechfield Street on Monday
night.
It is the woman who makes the tea next door as the
wife or daughters of the man beaten and broken bring
their raw nerves and fear in with them to bear witness
to what happened when the men showed up at their door.
As the woman asks how much sugar or milk, as the milk
merges into the tea so too does the panic and the
worry and the fear merge into her consciousness. No
matter if the women in her sitting room are stoic
and appearing strong, or tearful and worrying their
lower lip, or playing with the edge of their jumper
over and over and over, that terror now becomes part
of them all.
And
yet it still is a lovely morning, the sunlight has
that cold quality it takes on in the cool of the fall;
my daughter has discovered where I hid the cookies
I baked yesterday and has used her toybox as a stepstool
to help her snatch some, telling me she is going to
make some chocolate milk 'for the rabbit'. Beauty
is everywhere around me, no matter what else lurks
in the corners, the shadows, no matter what else permeates
our existence here.
We
go on, life goes on, and the next time we see each
other, no acknowledgment is made of the horror shared.
If it is spoken of, it shows - weakness, maybe. Somehow
one of the rules made along the way in this horrible
game was that above all else you cannot show that
you were affected by what happened to you. Again,
the secrets. Don't tell anyone or I'll kill you, or
your mother, or your family. The underlying threat
of bearing witness. You want to reach out, to offer
comfort. Instead the two of you upon meeting at the
shops or down the town chat about nothing and communicate
with your eyes, both wondering, "Does the other
remember?" Then the eyes drop and you go on about
your business.
Life
with fear. Living with the shadows.
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