Take Down

I took down my last post about the disturbing email (disturbing in content).  There is absolutely nothing I can do about this situation except support things if someone in authority needs information from me.  People who run things like classes, etc,, have authority and I do not.  I am sad for all the times people have approached me about this individual in the last year, even in the years we were together.  I have a great deal of worry about this, for ALL the people involved; I care about the person who is doing this because I worry about his health in all ways when I hear of this and know that at heart he is a very good person, and probably would correct his behavior if people in authority would just mention something to him kindly.

I am in turmoil when I hear of these things because I am grieving what I did not have, that I carried this man's child, our child, even though for such a brief time, and that all of this has made me very sensitive to information about him.  Would things have been different if I had told him I was pregnant? If the baby had been born?  Would he have turned towards me, instead of drifting so far away?  I will never know, and I cry when I hear of the things that seem to always go wrong--I get angry, and then immensely sad.  I have lost so, so much.  I can't help anyone unless I help myself, and I need to grieve--it is getting better, but I am in no shape to deal with things like this.

While writing this, I flashed on a memory of a real creeper, a guy in his 50s who used to ask out every under-25 woman at my undergraduate Writing Center.  One woman actually went out with him because she didn't know how to say no to him, and then the guy just kept going with the requests for dates from her, like some sort of demented Energizer Bunny, until she finally said no. A few of the women, including the woman who went out with him, approached me and wanted me to talk to him--I guess I had some sort of authorial presence there, though I wasn't one of the student directors.  I decided to go to the faculty advisor for the center, and he spoke to the man, who went psycho.  He quit, but he was still very weird and creepy whenever I ran into him, but I am glad I was not in harm's way by approaching him myself.

 I keep thinking of all the women at the market who complained about McClish to others, and how rarely women are believed...we are called "crazy," "vengeful," "delusional"...until someone gets REALLY hurt. McClish was a man who harrassed women for many years before a defiant woman came along--Asha would have her baby; she would ask for child support, and she hit Mr. Wonderful where he lived: no more control.  And, as I have said too many times, she lost her life for it.  She is not at fault for wanting what she wanted with the life she was planning to make with her baby.  I don't think any authority figure at the market ever tried to stop him.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Asha Veil, by the way; her husband, Richard, took it.  This is why I write her story: to remember the joy she exuded and the light we lost.