Someone just help her...please

Monday morning, I was on my way to work when I decided to call my mom and say hello. This happens all the time--us talking on our ways to work. When she answered, she told me she couldn't talk long, because she was almost at work. She was going in early because she had to cancel the hygenist's appointments (my mom is the office manager at a dentist office). Then she told me that her friend, the hygenist, wasn't coming to work that day because saturday night she had been beaten and raped.

Now, can you seriously just drop something like that on someone? Of course, I had to hear the story, and now I feel like I need to share it with my friends--sort of a wake up call to us all.

For the purposes of this story, her name is Kelly.

Kelly is about my age--she'll be 27 soon. I don't know her, but she was at my wedding, and she got married not that long before me. She's a dental hygenist, and my mom really likes her. A lot. In fact, my mom talks about her all the time and tells me how Kelly reminds her of me. I think it's funny. From her description, she sounds really similar to me--same age, newly married, has a job, and struggles with her weight all the time--my mom even mentioned that we are about the same size.

Now, my hometown is pretty small. It's a small-ish town in the middle to northern part of Michigan. Nothing really happens there, ever. The town is known for having a lot of churches and bars. Kelly was hanging out at a bar with her friends. The bar is one I have been to several times--it's very close to my parent's house. I've walked there and back before. I've walked there and back before after dark by myself. It's out in the middle of nowhere, and you think it's pretty safe. Nothing is going to happen out there, and it's not a wild party spot. Just a small quiet bar in the middle of nothing. It was getting late, and Kelly went out to her car to get her cell phone. Her friends were all there, and she just decided to run out and grab it quickly, by herself. Not something I would have done after dark at a bar in Philadelphia or something maybe, but, back home, at that bar, that close to my house--I would have done that.

Someone grabbed her from behind and threw her into a vehicle--she can't remember what type of vehicle it was. She can't remember almost any of the details. But he threw her into a vehicle, and stuffed something into her mouth so she couldn't scream, and then he beat her up, raped her, and sodomized her. Then he dumped her back out into the parking lot and just drove away.

She went to the hospital, talked to the cops.

It gets worse.

Along with the scratches and bruises from the beating, she has tears in her vagina and anus. The cops told her that it's normal for her not to remember much, because it's some defense mechanism we have, that enables or forces us to forget these things. They said if this is his first time (or first reported time), then they will probably never catch him.

And her husband told her that he just can't take it and wants a divorce.

I guess he has since retracted that statement, but geez, what a total jerk.

She said she cries all the time, and she wishes she would just die. My heart bleeds for her.

It's horrifying to think about, isn't it? It's horrifying to look at how easily he over powered her--it's horrifying that it happened in a place where people feel so safe and are so much less likely to have their guard up....

It's horrifying that the police told her they had been called out to that bar lots of other times because of reports of women screaming in the parking lot, but have never found anything and nothing has ever been reported.

It's puzzling to think about--what made him stop? It makes me wonder, when someone is sick enough that they can do something like this, what goes through their head that makes them think--"well, I raped and injured her, but well, killing her would just be wrong"?? I mean obviously, thank God he didn't kill her or hurt her worse, but--what is the threshold? Where in our minds do we determine what constitiutes right and wrong? Does someone who does this think raping a woman isn't wrong? Is it less wrong that killing someone? Do they know it's wrong, but don't care? But what is it about this particular act makes them not care that it's wrong, when they clearly care about not doing other wrong things, like killing her?

Look how vulnerable we are. I have never thought of myself as vulnerable. I have never thought I could be overpowered like that--but I suppose I can. I have thought about all the times that Kevin and I have played around together, where he has teasingly held me down to the bed to kiss me, while I argue that he has to let me up because I have something to go and take care of--always something to do--and he tells me that the only way he'll let me up is if I 'pay' him with kisses or something. And we laugh about it and I kiss him and he lets me up--the point is, is that he can hold me down. And it's easy for him. It's easy for him despite the fact that I outweigh him a little bit. Now, obviously, I'm not really TRYING to fight my way out of the situation--because it's all in fun. But, he's obviously not TRYING to really hold me down, either. It would be different if I was really trying to get away, and he was really trying to hurt me--but it's startling nonetheless.

Since I heard about this, I can't forget about it. The other night, we ran out of milk. Kevin was going to bed, I was just going to run over to the grocery store and get a gallon of milk. It was dark, but not that late--around 10. As I tied my tennis shoes, grabbed my purse, and locked the apartment door behind me, I thought about Kelly. I thought about her being unexpectedly vulnerable, just running out to her car to grab her cell phone, the way I was just running down the street to Safeway for some milk. I thought about the pain she has to be feeling, and the guilt and the regret and the fact that she blames herself. I realized that if something happened to me in that dark parking lot, I would blame myself, even though I have a right to go to the grocery store whenever I want to.

I went back inside. We'd survive a day without milk.