Beginnings

Forget this year’s Super Bowl. The best-ever Super Bowl had absolutely nothing to do with football.

The Miami Dolphins were playing the Minnesota Vikings, my older brother, a football fan, was with me, and the TV in my apartment was blaring with football talk. A knock at my door stole my attention. I opened the door and there stood a young woman with a black eye, a swollen lip, and long, red hair.

I knew her, but not well. She looked upset. I had met her and her husband several months earlier at a friend’s place. The three of us saw each other a couple of times after that, but they lived two hours distant in a big city. Concerned, I invited her in, showed her to a more private setting, and asked her what had happened.

Our conversation lasted a long time, weeks at least. I won’t go into the details, but you can probably guess. She had misjudged her husband, and so had I. It turns out he had a lightning-quick temper and a history of family violence as a child. You know the story. Children raised in a violent family environment often grow up to be in abusive relationships. The fortunate ones escape their pasts and go on to live successful lives, free from abusive behavior. But not this one. He had unleashed his violent tendencies and repressed anger on the one person who wanted to help him overcome his past. Several times.

She had come to see me because I lived in the same area as her mother, who she was now staying with. Other than a friend of her husband’s, I was the only person she knew in this town. It was clear that she needed help. Her marriage was in tatters; she had no job, no close friends, little money and an uncertain future. I figured I could be a friend and help her recover and get her bearings. After the first week of talking and driving around and getting to know each other, my brother pulled me aside for a big brother talk. “You’d better be careful,” he said. “You don’t want to get in the middle of this. It could be dangerous.”

He was right, but I knew that I could help her. I had been through something similar a few years earlier with a long-running relationship that ended suddenly and left me in the same circumstances — no close relationship or friends, no job, little money and an uncertain future. I had made progress emotionally, but still had no job, little money and an uncertain future. Many of us have been there, especially after a life-altering accident or disease that turns our world upside down.