Reflections…
It’s eight o’clock on Saturday evening. She calls the hotline from the payphone she just walked eight miles to reach. A friend gave her Caring Unlimited’s number a while back and she’s kept it in her pocket ever since. Tonight she used it. He told her that if she was leaving him she would do it alone and she would do it on foot—without her babies and without her car. It had started as it always does. Six feet four inches and 230 pounds of icy silence evolving to stinging sarcasm, a litany of curses, shattered dishes, uprooted house plants and fist-imprinted walls. He’s hot. He’s hungry. He’s exhausted. It’s all her fault. She tries to appease. She pleads. She tries to become invisible. She knows that in the final act she will become the wall. She tries to call for help and the phone is ripped from the wall. The baby is crying in her crib. Her three-year-old is watching. She moves to comfort her and he gets between them. He has her car keys in his pocket. She picks up her purse, walks out the door, down the road and disappears around the bend—his raging condemnations trailing behind her, exploding in her head in spite of the growing distance between them. She’s a failure as a wife, a failure as a mother, a failure as a woman. If you leave you’ll never see these kids again!

By nine-thirty she’s settled at shelter—assured that an advocate will accompany her to court first thing Monday to get a Protection From Abuse order and then she’ll be able to get her daughters. No, he’s the girls’ father—the police don’t remove children without the order. By ten-thirty she’s distraught. She must get her children! The baby’s sick—just out of the hospital that morning. The advocate calls staff back-up who calls the police. Four phone calls and four hours later the state police agree to accompany her back to get her children. By day break she’s back at shelter with her children and her car. By Monday evening she has her order and has filled out housing applications. By the end of the week she’s connected with services. By the end of the month she’s moving into her new apartment. By the end of the year she’s enrolled in college—and a hefty tome could be written about the obstacles she’s overcome to get herself there.

Everyday for the past twenty-five years, Caring Unlimited staff and volunteers have answered this woman’s call and the calls of literally thousands like her.  Read more >>