Touching Lives & Changing Attitudes

As Linda and I have traveled around speaking to people about domestic violence, we have had some very special experiences. Some of the more memorable have been our invitation from the Arizona Department of Corrections, to make presentations to the inmates in the prisons. I must tell you we were a little unsure when we went to the first presentation. But, for those of you that know Linda, she took care of that in the first few minutes of the session. Here is this little 110 pound blonde lady out walking through the inmates, shaking hands and asking their names. Throughout the presentation she would call them by name and ask them questions.

The response from the audience was amazing. Linda always tells a little about the reason we got into the domestic violence prevention so actively. As she tells about Lisa, it is interesting to see these worldly men weep, and express frustration about this issue. They always ask about the time penalty the abuser got and when told, they express outrage.

After Linda finishes her part, I give a power point presentation on issues of domestic violence and we get a good response from the group. When we are finished there are always a few of the inmates that want to hang around, talk and ask questions. They never fail to express feelings that we have treated them like human beings, not caged animals. It is my belief that because Linda treats these men this way they are more receptive to our presentation and anxious to be more involved in further learning opportunities. One of the groups we spoke to were inmates who were there for life with no hope of parole and still the reception was the same.

We know that service to our fellow men is an important part of our society. I often wonder how many of the men we speak to would be there if someone had cared enough to show some concern and consideration earlier in their lives?

This principle was reinforced to me a few years back when Linda arranged for some volunteers to go to a resource center for the homeless and give hair cuts. The volunteers would wear white shirts and ties, and as the homeless would sit down, the volunteers would put their hand on their shoulder and ask how they wanted their haircut.

The director of the center was talking to Linda later and told her how much it meant to the people. Linda said, “I am sure it is a relief to get that hair cut especially in the summer.” The director said, “Yes it is a relief, but what means more to these homeless people than the hair cut, is the fact that a person wearing a white shirt and tie would actually care enough to cut their hair and touch them on the shoulder in the process.”

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”.

We are encouraged by the response to “Domestic Violence the Musical? ” We believe this musical will cause people to better understand the plight of the victim, cause them to hold the abuser accountable and not be able to leave the performance and feel good about doing nothing!

John

Pre-Teens' Thoughts

The El Paso Office of the Texas Attorney General's Office sponsored tickets to Domestic Violence The Musical for a group of pre-teens. I had the pleasure of meeting them when they attended the performance.



My friend, Susan Hatch with the AG's office, was kind enough to fax me copies of their impressions of the play and I will pass them along, without revealing their names.



“Domestic Violence can hurt people, physical and emotional. Most of the time it is men, but not all the time, sometimes the abuser can be a female. The abuser can tell the victm that he loves her and by (sic) her all kind of expensive things to make up all the time he hit and abused her and most of the time the victim doesn’t know how to leave. They keep coming back because he keeps saying he loves her and the victim thinks that the abuser will kill her and that is what I learned about Domestic Violence.”


“The main idea is that abuse is not the right thing to do and that anyone can be an abuser, females and males, that is what I learned at the play.”


“The main idea is where the girl was going to die at the hands of her husband. I had seen these emotions – happiness, sadness and anger. The play had a very dramatic scene where she plays the part where she tells everyone to stop laughing. She had enough confidence in herself to say stop. As for the actors and actresses, they did an excellent show.”


“The play was very good and it taught everyone a lesson. Not only males can be abusers, females can, too. I think most people should see this play because it teaches people about real life. And that is what I learned today.”

“The musical dealt with life situations that are faced by victims of abuse. This presentation will be beneficial to our program, especially for our family workshops. It was very well attended and putting the scenes to music made it easier for our youth and other children in attendance to follow.” Program Coordinator



My hope is that the message will stick and that they will be able to identify behaviors and "red flags" that will empower them to separate themselves from potentially violent relationships. If we can reach just one, with the necessary skills she/he may need for a happy, productive life without violence, then I will be happy.

Linda

A Father's Reaction

A question that is always asked a parent is, “How do you handle losing a child?” The answer is always, “What choice do you have?” The answer sounds trite, but the truth is, “What choice do you have?” Of course there are different ways to react.

I recall when my oldest son was in a car wreck and I saw him in the hospital in Phoenix, comatose and connected to all kinds of wires and tubes. I must tell you I felt a little confused, a little angry and a lot lost. But you see he was in a one car accident and there was no one to blame. I finally came to peace with the ordeal and was able to let him go when he was called home at the end of 16 months.

Almost 15 years later, I received a call telling me that my second child, a beautiful girl of 33 had been murdered execution style. I always felt she was murdered by her boyfriend and was anxious to find out. We never did and so I had to work through that one, too.

You can imagine my feelings when our daughter, Lisa, fell into an abusive relationship with a sociopath, shortly after completing her schooling at college. We would talk to her by the hours and she would agree with everything we said, then go right back to him. As I saw the bruises, broken fingers and hurt in her eyes, I finally found someone to blame. At the peak of my frustration I recall the words of a good friend, saying to me, “John we can hire someone to break his legs.” I must confess instead of telling him, "NO!", I told him, “Let me think about it for while”. I puzzled over it for about two weeks and during that time I think I decided to ask if he was serious and tell him yes, about 6 or 8 times, but would always pick up the phone, then put the phone down and not give the order. Finally, I decided that was not the thing to do. I may have wished a little he would take it on himself to do it, but he didn’t.

I have since learned that it would have been the worst thing I could have done to my relationship with my daughter. I am sure she would have hated me for it.

You may have seen the movie, “The Bucket List”, with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, Nicholson is telling Freeman why he and his daughter have not spoken for years. He says, “The first time her husband hit her she came to me and I wanted to bash his brains in, she wouldn’t let me, said it was her fault, she provoked the fight, he had been drinking. The second time he hit her she didn’t come to me, my ex-wife told me. I called a guy that called a guy that takes care of these things. I don’t know what he did to the guy, he didn’t kill him, but my daughter never heard from him again, but she said I was dead to her and called me a lot of bad names you wouldn’t believe.”

And so you see, we old gruff guys often think of diabolical punishments for the abusers, too.

I remember my wife sitting on the sofa and telling me some of the low class, sinful and unspeakable things Lisa told her the jerk would make her do that just broke my heart. She was a tender little thing when she met him just out of school and learned the ways of the world from an evil man that was supposed to love her and cherish her.

I have grown a lot and understand a lot better what I wish I had known years back. I hope I would have listened a lot more to these special kids that I love so much. I should have been less prone to act, and a lot more prone to listen, encourage, love, and tell them how special they are.

We recently hired a very talented writer to write a musical and we are producing the play, called Domestic Violence the Musical? In the musical ,a song is entitled, “Listen, Listen, Listen.” Such sound advice to parents that have kids involved in violent relationships! But also very sound advice for friends who have friends in violent relationships. The Musical is playing at the Herberger in Phoenix on September 22, 2008.

But, I digress, or maybe not. How do fathers handle the loss of children? With a lot of faith that there is a higher power looking over all and by going out and working to do all we can do to try and keep other parents from experiencing the same heartbreak.

John King

Portrait Courtesy of The Bravery Project and Vickie Florschetz

This Is For Lisa

This is for Lisa. This is for all Lisa's, or Julie's, or Mark's. Domestic Violence The Musical? is dedicated to her memory and theirs, in hopes that because of the knowledge gained through this production, another mother, father, sister, aunt, friend will not lose a loved one to domestic violence.

The auditions, the rehearsals, the trips to El Paso to promote Domestic Violence The Musical? What an incredible adventure this has been for me and John, my husband and biggest fan, Loren Marsters, our amazingly talented writer/director, Anne Pratt, my friend and super composer, Ceci Cortez, choreographer supreme, and our wonderful cast, who has caught the vision of the message we want to send. I have seen the play a number of times and each time at a certain point my eyes fill with tears. One member of the cast watches me and after the play, says "gotcha" again.

Domestic Violence The Musical? began as John and I were searching for a different way to present the message of what happens to victims, their children, their families and friends and as we researched extensively, and found that aside from training opportunities, seminars, books, and lecturers, there did not seem to be a "gotcha" method of sending the message we felt needed to be heard. John said, "Let's do a play." "A play. . . what do we know about writing a play?" We didn't know anything about writing a script, but we certainly knew someone that did. Enter our friend, Loren Marsters. As we sat and told him our thoughts about a play . . . his comment was, "Let's make it a musical - Domestic Violence The Musical?" And so it began this journey of meeting incredible people, gaining support and encouragement and acceptance and touching lives.

The El Paso Center Against Family Violence and the YWCA Transitional Living Center welcomed this production with open arms and early on said, "Let's do it."

The highlight of this work was performing in El Paso and seeing the reaction of the audiences, hearing their comments and knowing that we had achieved our goal -- that people were actually listening and hearing the message we were sending.

We are so excited to bring Domestic Violence The Musical? to the Herberger Theater in Phoenix, AZ on September 22, 2008, sponsored by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

This is just the beginning, and we won't stop until the communities get the message, victims are liberated, abusers are held accountable and domestic violence STOPS. We are not naive enough to think that just attending the play will accomplish this goal, we stand ready with well-planned training programs to train, educate and enlist the community in this fight.

Linda King

Photo courtesy of Arizona Republic