HAWC Talk

This was my first year volunteering for the Holiday Store at the Houston Area Women’s Center. Before I began, I knew what an incredible thing it was for mothers and children to pick out holiday gifts…but it didn’t actually sink in until I saw it for myself! Imagine a single mom who has never been able to buy her kids presents, walking into a room with piles of brand-new toys she can choose from, for not just one, but ALL her kids. There are so many stories I want to share, especially one in particular of a mom who walked past the our holiday store room and stopped in her tracks exclaiming, “That is EXACTLY what my youngest daughter said she wanted for Christmas!” With tears in her eyes she pointed to a wooden rocking horse and said, “Since I couldn’t afford a new one I went to a garage sale to see if I could find what she wanted, except all they had was a rusty, chipped rocking horse.” As she happily took the brand-new rocking horse with her she said, “My daughter is not going to believe that for the first time in her life, I got her what she wanted, she is going to be so happy. Thank you!”  It’s moments like these that really put life into perspective. Watching all the mothers’ and children’s joyous expressions and being able to share in their happiness is one of the best presents I could ever ask for. I wish everyone a safe and wonderful holiday season with family, loved ones and friends! Happy Holidays!

(Amber’s mother has requested that her story be published on this blog.)

On the evening of March 22, 2008, my life changed dramatically. Before this day, life was so fabulous and fun, I really felt free! I had two adult daughters that were employed and were managing their responsibilities and kids well. I was in my 40s, with grandchildren, and by all accounts happy!

Amber’s birthday was on March 22; I called her that morning wishing her a happy birthday and asked her to come by and pick up her gift. She stopped by on her way to work; she looked beautiful! We laughed, hugged, and after she left we talked on the phone all the way to work. That evening my phone kept ringing and I refused to answer it; instinctively I knew that something awful happened to Amber. My Aunt came over and told me the news, “That boy, he shot Amber.” The pain and grief of knowing that she had been shot was unimaginable. I thought maybe I could make it to the hospital in time, or maybe it was a superficial flesh wound. But there was no hospital visit; I was not able to see my baby. When I arrived at the scene all I was able to see was yellow crime tape, and police officers sympathetically asking me not to cross. My baby, my beautiful Amber, was gone, all too soon.

I was lost, I wanted my baby back, I wanted life again as it was before that fateful, awful day. It was her birthday! I did not want this pain. Yet I never asked God,“Why?” because I believed in the power of prayer. I believed in God, and I knew that God placed a suit of armor on me. Now, four years after the tragedy, I can stand here and truly say that God saw the beauty of my jewel – Amber, whom HE had only lent to me on a loan.

Losing Amber has allowed me to gain the opportunity to help victims of domestic abuse. If you are a mother, struggling to come to grips with losing a child; I can guide you through it. If you are a family member who has lost a loved one wanting revenge, and acting out hate, and anger, I can now help you. I too had to learn to redirect my thoughts with positive thoughts and feelings. I knew if I gave in to hate, I would be lost in the darkness, like the offender who murdered my daughter. Amber was love personified, she gave light to everyone that she encountered in her daily life. She was truly an angel, she worked very hard, and she was a great mother, daughter, sister, best-friend, niece, cousin, and co-worker. She graduated with high honors, and always dreamed of working in the medical field. She never let being a young mom stop her from achieving her dreams. I received the acceptance letter from the career college a week after her death. She was determined, extremely goal-oriented and she wanted to make a difference. If you are going through an abusive relationship or know someone who is, will you allow Amber’s story to make a difference? Will you get the help that you need today?

Thank you for listening to our story.

Sincerely,

Amber’s
Mom

*According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, leaving can be the most dangerous time for a domestic violence victim fleeing her/his abuser.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence, call the numbers provided below for help or more information:

Houston Area Women’s Center 24/7 Hotline: 713-528-2121

(Crisis intervention, shelter, referrals)

HPD Family Violence Unit: 713-308-1100

(Filing police report and information about your rights)

Harris County District Attorney: 713-755-52888

(Information and help filing a protective order)

Family Law Hotline: 1-800-777-3247

(Legal questions on family and domestic violence issues)

*If outside of the greater Houston area, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

(The survivor has granted permission for her story to be published on this blog.)

I was 16 years old. One afternoon, I was at home with my nine-year-old sister and my two-year-old brother.  My parents were out for a few hours and I was taking a nap. While I was asleep, I heard a BOOM and my bedroom door flew open. A masked man with a gun came into the room and began to jump up and down on the twin bed adjacent to mine. I was terrified; I had just woken up to a real life nightmare. He had broken in through my mom’s room, and for some reason had her swimsuit hanging from his face. It kept swinging from side to side as he jumped up and down, while still pointing the gun at me. He told me if I moved or made a sound he would go after my little sister. With a gun to my head, he blindfolded me, grabbed me by my neck, and told me to get up. He led me through our house, asking me when my dad was going to come back home. My entire body was shaking and I was so afraid I wet my pants.  The man took me to a den near our kitchen and told me to get on the floor. To this day, I still remember the way he smelled, like sweat and death. With a gun to my head, he made me perform oral sex on him, and then he raped me. Afterwards, he took me to the kitchen, opened our fridge and drank a carton of juice. As he was drinking, I noticed his shoes through a peephole in my blindfold. I had seen those shoes many times before; they belonged to my next door neighbor’s Uncle. After he finished his drink, he told me to get underneath a pile of dirty laundry on the kitchen floor. Shaking, I curled up like a ball under the laundry and thought he was going to kill me. I laid there for a few minutes until I heard the door shut and a car start outside. He was gone. The moment I realized he had left I ran to get my siblings. With my sister in one hand and my brother on my hip, I ran down the street to my neighbor’s house. As soon as I got there I passed out and they called an ambulance. When the ambulance arrived, my friends that lived next door came over to see what had happened. I told them, “Your Uncle raped me.” I knew it was him because I used to go next door to hang out with them and he would always watch me. He was an older man and had just gotten out of prison. It was his shoes and his voice that led me to identify him. Later that week I identified him as my rapist at the police station and he was sent back to prison.

After I was raped, I blamed myself for many years. I only wore baggy, loose fitting clothes. It wasn’t until last year, when I first came to the Houston Area Women’s Center, that I realized it was not my fault. He did not rape me because of the way I dressed. It was entirely his fault, NOT mine. I forgave him and now I take any chance I get to tell rape victims that it was not their fault. The rapist is the only one to blame. I am a rape survivor and I hope my story will help other women know and understand that rape is never their fault, and that there is help.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing/has experienced sexual assault, call the numbers provided below for help or more information:

Houston Area Women’s Center 24/7 Hotline: 713-528-7273

(Crisis intervention, shelter, referrals)

HPD Sex Crimes Unit: 713-308-1180

(Filing police report and information about your rights)

Harris County District Attorney: 713-755-52888

(Information and help filing a protective order)

*If outside of the greater Houston area, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE(4673)

Join us this Giving Tuesday by giving a little to help a lot! During this season of giving, you can give the gift of a future free from violence.  The Houston Area Women’s Center’s core mission is to help individuals affected by domestic and sexual violence in their efforts to move their lives forward.  We provide shelter, counseling and advocacy to support them in building lives free from the effects of the violence they’ve suffered.  Services are confidential, available to everyone and offered free of charge. Last year alone, our shelter provided safety, support and temporary housing to 1,198 women and 1,006 children. In addition, 8,588 adults and 4,811 children and youth received counseling and advocacy services.

Help us continue giving these courageous survivors the resources, options and support they deserve to move their loves forward to a brighter future.

It doesn’t take a lot to make a difference in the lives of domestic and sexual violence survivors…

Ways you can help on #GivingTuesday

• Monetary donations can do the following

$ 10       can provide one full day of meals for a child living at our shelter

$25        can help a mom with a week of baby formula

$42        allows a woman to be safe from domestic violence for one night at our emergency shelter

$100      provides one day of everything a mother and child need from food, diapers, and clothing to job counseling and child care

• Join our Young Leaders Group on #GivingTuesday for a Happy Hour benefiting our Holiday store!
• Donate to our Holiday store!

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”
― Maya Angelou

Before you gather with friends and family this Thanksgiving, take a moment and reflect on what Thanksgiving is really all about. Thanksgiving is a holiday that unifies us as a nation, whatever our backgrounds may be. Thanksgiving is a time to focus on the blessings in our lives—and express our gratitude for them. Here at the Houston Area Women’s Center, we have many things to be thankful for. We could never give enough thanks to all of our incredible staff, volunteers, donors and supporters! Without their support and encouragement we would not be able to make a difference in so many lives affected by domestic and sexual violence. We would like to THANK everyone who helps us move our mission forward, helping our clients build lives free from the effects of violence.

Below are a few words of thanks from two of our clients during this season:

 “I am thankful for HAWC, I never imagined all the healing that has taken place in my life.  I am thankful for all of the amazing and strong women I have met in my journey, I am thankful that I have an opportunity to share my story with people and help women around the Houston area and the U.S. I’m thankful that I am not alone today.”

– Anonymous domestic and sexual violence survivor

“I am personally grateful for each day I wake up that:

• I am free to make my own choices about where I go, how I dress and who I talk to
• I can walk without the aid of a cane or a walker
• I am able to know when someone is not treating me in a loving kind way and have the wherewithal to stay away from them
• I have a voice and can speak out about domestic violence, I get to hug my grandchildren and tell them that I love them
• I am able to walk proudly and hold my head up and not feel guilty about the bad choices I have made in my life
• That I have a kind gracious most loving God who will protect me from anyone who wants to harm me.”

–  Laura White, domestic violence survivor

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
―Marcus Tullius Cicero

(The survivor in this story has granted permission for her story to be published on this blog. Names have been changed and details have been fictionalized to protect the identities of the individuals involved.)

I met Richard in December of 2007. He was cute and charming and we stayed up all night talking to each other. All I noticed back then were the things we had in common. Little did I know about the monster that he truly was. Our first three years together were heavenly, and nothing would ever prepare me for what was to come. The first time he hit me was a devastating blow to my fairytale. He blacked both my eyes, busted my lip and gashed my head open by smashing a thick glass ashtray against it. That incident landed me in the hospital and it was the beginning of the terror I was about to endure for the next year.

The next incident that I remember is the one in which I ended up actually leaving him for the first time. After a brutal beating I went to a shelter for abused women in Beaumont and they sent me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, the nurse said she would have to call the police. So I lied to protect him and ended up calling his mom to let her know I was safe. Richard answered the phone and began to cry and asked me to go back home. He told me that he loved me and promised to never hurt me again. I went back to the facility and told them that I was going to a friend’s house, but instead I went back to him.

The days ahead were filled with terror. When he wasn’t beating me with his hands he was beating me with his words. One day the neighbors called the police when he beat me up in front of them. He went to jail for the first time that night, but then his mom and I bonded him out three days later and the abuse began all over again. I was isolated, lost, hopeless, faithless and desolate; I wanted to die. We lost our apartment because of the violence and ended up living in a seedy motel for the next month. The violence turned into a daily thing. One night, he tormented me until dawn by beating me, holding a knife to my throat and peeing on me. He asked me if I wanted to die and I said yes. I don’t know what stopped him from killing me that night.

The second time he went to jail he had blacked my eye so badly that a broken piece of bone still floats around under my eye to this day. While he was in jail, I ended up going to treatment for drugs and alcohol. Months later he was released on a four year probation and once again, he convinced me to go back home to him. He promised me that he had changed, and told me that he loved me. But soon enough, he beat me one last time—this time almost to my death. He gave me two black eyes, shattered both of my eye sockets, split my lips open, broke my ribs, raped and sodomized me with a hot curling iron, and then he hung me from the ceiling with a lamp cord.

I was on a respirator for three weeks, suffered a pulmonary embolism and my memories and nightmares are still just as vivid as if it happened yesterday. He was sentenced to four years in prison, and is now out. I am a survivor by all means, and am still enraged that the justice system does not do more to protect other women going through similar things.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic violence, call the numbers provided below for help or more information:

Houston Area Women’s Center 24/7 Hotline: 713-528-2121                   

(Crisis intervention, shelter, referrals )

HPD Family Violence Unit:  713-308-1100                   

(Filing police report and information about your rights)

Harris County District Attorney :  713-755-52888               

(Information and help filing a protective order)

Family Law Hotline:  1-800-777-3247                   

(Legal questions on family and domestic violence issues)

Aids to Victims of Domestic Abuse (AVDA) 713-224-9911

(Legal advice and representation)