By Michelle Barrett, Staff ReporterTHE FIRST time she felt the wrath of her husband was in 1997 when, during an argument, he slapped her with a machete across her chest, leaving her skin swollen and bruised.
"He had just been laid off from the hardware store where he was working at the time. I guessed he used his free time to pursue a teenage girl who was attending our church. I asked him about the relationship and we got in an argument. During the quarrel, he took up a cutlass and slapped me across the chest with it, it was like he was out of control," said Rose, the slim-framed woman
sitting in front of me.
At 41 years old, Rose is running for her life and that of her three
children. Today, she has taken a rest from running to talk about her life as an abused wife, a life that she never dreamt she would have found herself in. She has been married for 15 years to a man who has a bad temper,
abuses drugs and drinks alcoholic beverages occasionally.
"It wasn't always like this between us. Markwas a kind and caring man when we were first married, he would babysit our daughter when I was away at work, cooked the dinner and helped me with the chores around the house. Back then, I didn't know he was capable of hitting me as we were devout church-goers and he was even interested in becoming a pastor," she further explained during our conversation at the Women's Crisis Centre on Denehurst Avenue in Kingston.
STRING OF BROKEN PROMISES
After that first attack, Rose went to the Spanish Town Police Station and reported the incident. A couple of policemen then accompanied her back home to collect her clothes. On her return that day, he was very repentant and promised that he would never do it again. However, that promise was short-lived. He attacked her a few months later and like the first time, he again apologised.
"He would always tell me that he was sorry after beating me, and when I reminded him about what he had done, he often denied his action. One time I remember he grabbed my neck and almost strangled me to death and when I talked to him about the incident, he said that he had no idea what I was talking about."
When asked why she didn't just walk out on her husband following the abuse meted to her, the former assistant librarian's response was that she did not have much support.
"One time, I did walk out on him and wandered on the road until late at night. I bumped into a male stranger on the road who invited me into his house and offered me one of his beds. As I was sleeping, the man came in the room and I had to fight him off. Since I didn't give him what he wanted, he ran me out of his house. Having nowhere else to go, I sat under a tree until the sun came up and then went home.
"I have three children and a younger sister. Both of my parents are dead and I have no close friend to really turn to for assistance. I didn't want to go to the church for help as I was too ashamed, so I had no other choice but to go back home to my husband and children," Rose added.
She said she called the police several times when she lived with him. She even noted that Cops for Christ, a Christian group within the Police Force, came and spoke to her husband but to no avail, as the beatings got worse and the pains became sharper.
"There were times that I fought him back, although he is a little taller than me. I wasn't living in a marriage, I was living in a battlefield. Any little thing happens to him on the road and he was in a bad mood, he would take it out on me. I was like his beating stick," she said, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
SPLIT PERSONALITY
As she tore a piece of facial tissue to wipe her eyes, Rose further explained that her husband's unruly behaviour was caused by using cocaine. She said she caught him using drugs before and advised
him to go to a Rehabilitation Centre at the Salvation Army but soon after coming back out, he started doing it again.
"When he's on it, it's as if he has two different personalities. Sometimes he can be jovial and then there are times he becomes a real monster. I'm really worried about him, he needs help and needs it now. If you only understood..." her voice trailed off as she shook her head in despair.
She admits she still loves Mark despite his abuse. After all, he was her first boyfriend and the father of her three children who are nine, 11, and 13 years old. Like other couples they have had their good times and memories bittersweet as they were, she would always hold them close to her heart.
CHILDREN AFFECTED
Seeing mom being beaten mercilessly by daddy has had a lasting effect on her children which she fears will scar them for life. She hastily added that he never laid a finger on them, but during the couple's many fights, the children had on a few occasions tried to defend their mother.
"I remember one time when Mark and I were fighting, Marvinlashed a leather belt after his father and the buckle caught his daddy above one of his eyes. The buckle cut deeply in his skin for which he got a few stitches. That day I came to realise how seriously affected our son was," Rose reminisced.
Through the years, the battles between her husband and herself have somehow festered resentment in the children towards their father and on two separate occasions Rose caught her 11-year-old son standing over his sleeping father with a knife in his hand.
"Two years ago, he told me that would stab his father about 100 times, and my daughter, the eldest one, confessed that one night she also thought of stabbing him. Trust me, I was shocked when they told me these things. I didn't know they harboured such feelings," she said.
Despite this new-found
knowledge about the children, she still stuck with her husband and escape was the furthest thing from her mind, thinking that things will get better one day. In January this year, she woke up to the harsh
reality that the situation was not
getting any better and decided that she had had enough. One Sunday
afternoon, during a very heated argument, he took up a concrete block that was in their backyard, and threw it at her, hitting her lower leg, digging out a chunk of flesh.
"At this point, I saw fire in his eyes as he was going for the cutlass I swear he was going to kill me that day. My sister who was living with us at the time, held on to him allowing me to escape. I ran out of the house barefoot and jumped into a passing pick-up van and begged the driver to carry me to the Duhaney Park Police Station as we were living on Weymouth Drive at the time.
INCONSIDERATE POLICE
"When I reached the police station, I explained to them that I needed him out of the house which really belonged to my side of family. They told me that I needed documents to prove this as they couldn't 'run the man from outta 'im house'. In short, they were insensitive and didn't seem as if they were about to help me. At that moment, I felt as if I was the perpetrator and not the victim.
"I left and went to a friend who lived near the station. His mother helped dress my foot, gave me a pair of shoes and taxi fare. I used the money and went back home, grabbed my purse and bought some dry food for the children. When I was leaving, they said they wanted to come with me and they put on their clothes and we left," she recalled.
Her search for a place that could render assistance proved futile that Sunday afternoon as several organisations that she visited were all closed. Being exhausted and hungry, she headed to the home of her sister's supervisor where she begged a 'kotch' for the night. She was later told about the Women's Crisis Centre and so went there the next morning where they offered her temporary shelter, as well as counselling for her and the children.
After that terrible ordeal she has vowed not to return home to her husband and insists on moving on with her life. She has paid down some money for a place in the rural area and intends to start a little business from funds she has managed to save from buying and selling clothes.
"Looking back now, I realised that he would certainly have killed me and my children would have neither parents around 'cause I would be dead and he would be in prison I don't even want to think 'bout it," she concluded.
Not their real names.
