Saturday

Brrr, cold here! The colder it gets the creepier Nabal gets. He's looking for a cuddle buddy...he's just bored, and/or just working on his plan.

A young friend recently lost her husband. I'm sorry for her loss and that of her kids. I'm just glad she's out of  harms way. Her husband of 5 years never stopped being the party boy. He drank with his friends almost every night. He disrespected her to such an extent that her toddler boys followed suit one night while he was drunk he 'misjudged' and 'accidently' hit this young woman. Many of her friends perked up, but she's a scraper and agreed it was an accident, but we all filed it away. Not to many months later he blacked her eye. She couldn't justify this one and began admitint to the verbal abuse. She got a restraining order on him and upheld it. She loved him but was not going to be his punching bag nor let her sons acquire his violence. He decided that since he no longer lived in their home it was not his financial responsibility. She didn't make enough money to cover it all and their house went into foreclosure. The women's shelter was right there ready to place her when she was ready to move. In the mean time her husband was all over Facebook lamenting that she was keeping him away from his predacious boys. (Those boys he missed so much time with when he was drinking, yet he didn't seem to lament those times...) he whined on her page as her friends silently held her up. She was gracious only answering him that his actions had caused the separation.

She scrubbed and sorted, straightened and did any and all yard work to get their home ready for a short sale. She enlisted friends for heavy work, she donated her overflow to people affected by hurricane Sandy. She is and has always been a good hearted soul. The very last things to ready their house was when we all first noticed it. The fleeting thank yous to her husband for lending a hand, for distracting their boys. Then the announcement that the boys were waking daddy up. I honestly was afraid for her. He had shown that he was escalating in violence. He was working the cycle and he was back in. Two weeks in he was driving late at night and in a single car accident while not wearing a seatbelt, it was all over. My friend was crushed, my friend felt guilty... Guilt for not telling him he had improved so. Guilt for making him leave. Oh, what a liar grief is at times. Here in the south we don't speak ill of the dead, but this is a case of hoping a life isn't consummed by false guilt. All his friends were Jonny on the spot with their condolences and how nothing had been more important to him than his beloved wife and children... He's gone, I don't have to wonder his intent. I just know she's now out of harms way, from him. I pray she is not consumed with a false guilt as she will not pursue work that needs to happen within herself so she doesn't make the same choice again. She worries so about not telling him enough of his good efforts to improve. I'm hoping Thad as the grief becomes more tolerable she is able to put what happened into perspective. We will never know if he was immature or if he was a long term abuser. We just won't. She's out of harm's way...