There's a memory gently tapping at the back door of my mind and she won't be silent until she is heard.
Try as I might, I can't turn her away ... this time.
She was a divorced mother of two, and I couldn't help her. I wanted to, I tried to, but the Program Director had said that we didn't have the room for three more.
I found that to be a ridiculous statement.
I knew that one of the other women was planning on leaving - she was going to take herself and her infant child back home; this had all been a ploy to make her boyfriend pay attention to her.
So when the call came from the shelter down in the desert asking if we could take in a mother and her two children because the ex-husband had found out her location, I was forced to decline.
As I think back on it now, I should have stood my ground. I could have said yes, but I deferred to the Director.
In the shelter I managed, newspapers were taboo. It never bothered me. The women had magazines and books, television and games. We had out counseling sessions, self-image work shops and other assorted classes. I was far too busy to sit down and enjoy the morning paper.
The mother and two children? I didn't think about them again. I assumed they had found refuge in another shelter.
Then "that" morning came. A morning not so unlike every other morning at the shelter. Women and children needed to be fed. The kitchen duties had been mapped out, menus written, and I was gently prodding those assigned to making breakfast to get out of bed.
It was a bright, chilly morning and things were going along smoothly.
One of the volunteers had stopped by to relieve me. She was a dear woman, and always willing to help when I needed a break. She had brought a newspaper from the neighboring city and sent me on my way. I was actually excited to have the newspaper and time alone.
I can recall this all too vividly.
I was sitting on the couch, coffee in hand, enjoying the silence and catching up on the world outside. I scanned the pages, flipped through the sale ads and found myself starting at a very tiny article about a woman murdered by her ex-husband. It was just a little blurb, something one might not even take notice of ... but I did.
I slowly rose off the couch and went into my office. I tore my desk apart looking for that slip of paper I'd written a name on. I'd seen it the day before, and thought I really needed to clean my desk. And there it was. I read the name on that slip of paper and then read the name of the murdered woman.
I couldn't breathe. The room began to spin and I fell to my knees.
He had found her. He had shot her to death in front of her children. She'd never left the shelter in the desert
I was cold, numb from the shock of what I'd read ... of what I'd done.
If only's and what if's screamed through my mind!
I hadn't pulled that trigger, but it's possible I could have prevented it.
The Director and our in-house therapist tried to console me, telling me it wasn't my fault. I think they just wanted me to stay, but I quit my job that day.
I didn't care that they had no one to replace me. I didn't care that it meant some "volunteer" would have to step in.
I didn't care about the other women still in the shelter. I'd already figured out who would stay and who would go back home, and then there would have been room.
All I could see in my mind's eye .. was the murdered mother of two.
Forgive me, because I haven't forgiven myself.
* This all occurred more than 15 years ago. I'd pushed it so far out of my mind, that when this came flooding back into the light - I was devastated.
I know I have no culpability in what transpired, but I will always feel the pain and anger of it all.
