“… to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all …”
– Elie Weisel
I have been an angel of soldiers for many years. Unfortunately, my volunteer services have been needed for more than eight years. I wish they weren’t anymore. I wish we had peace.
The women and men who serve our country have taught me a lot over the past decade. With boxes of saved letters that have been sent to me, photos, coins of their units, and more … there are messages and life lessons in every communication. Many times I will write without an answer. That’s fine. I never expect to receive an answer. When I do, it is my pleasure. One that I appreciate very much, because in the desert, the jungle, in the midst of the bombings and decay, someone thought of me to write. And what I read changes my life.
There are many stories in the letters that I received over the years. A lot of knowledge, feeling and also a lot of fear. One of the most moving was that of a 21-year-old “boy” from Texas. I keep thinking about him a lot lately. Especially since last week when I wrote to my own children. My children, who reside in Westchester County, New York, are not fighting to survive, they are not fighting for freedoms, but are trying to erase mine. They want to silence me. His father said he would make me suffer, “I would end up dead in the street” to be exact. That’s fine with my boys.
This 21-year-old soldier appreciated some packages I sent him … and my cards and letters. Usually I write about my passions, my dog (s), my favorite music, and what I’m doing on that particular day. This young man, in Afghanistan, did not know my own fears here in the United States. He also did not know that I suffered from PTSD. When I write, I like it to be light: no problems or difficulties are mentioned.
He wrote me about his fears, as I hear so often in the words they convey to me. Within each space between the words, between the letters, are the fears. He told me something I will never forget.
Things can happen to you, things can happen that make it impossible for you to go back to being the person you were just moments ago. In a split second, you can lose who you were and become another version of yourself. It may or may not be for the better.
He told me that the first time he looked his “enemy” in the eye, he did not know the person to shoot and kill. All he saw was the face of a stranger. But he knew he had a momentous decision to make, a split second that changed him forever. He asked me in his letter: “Do you know what it feels like to have to kill someone you didn’t even know, just a stranger?”
Of course I don’t know. He said the miniscule moment, at the young age of 21, when he had to look a stranger in the face, pull a trigger and survive, he was no longer the person who got off that plane in Afghanistan. And he would never be the same again. He took the life of another. And he had a tremendous struggle with his own mortality.
I think about him … I don’t know where he is now. Many times, most of the time, when one of my soldiers comes home, they don’t keep in touch. It’s hard to remember where you ever were, and I remind you. A friend, a Navy officer, explained it to me years ago. But I am also grateful for the soldiers who continue to call me “friend” and have stayed in my life. God bless the internet for that!
I know of cases that change you, not to the degree of my soldier in Afghanistan, oh, never to that degree. But there are times when you change and you know it will be a transformation forever.
My children would like me to shut up. You see, it used to be. When I married Robert Levine and lived in Bedford, New York, I had no voice and was a total victim. Things have changed. I tasted life without abuse. And step by step, with the help of many people along the way, I decided that I no longer wanted to remain silent.
The first time I told people about the horrors that Mr. Levine bestowed on me, it was a relief. I can never be silent again. And you know what? I don’t think it should be. It took me years to “screech” … someday, I might scream! So even though my children are never going to get used to me not being silent, as much as I never want to hurt them … and I have protected them by not sharing many sensitive stories from my past …
Like my soldier, I know that there was a moment in time when my heart and my head knew: life changed for me, forever. In the second, I decided to have a voice against domestic violence … I knew I was taking a risk. Robert Levine continues to harass and try to kill me in our court system. It has taken away everything that meant the most to me, my children, and continues to fill you with lies, as it controls you psychologically.
I…? I learned that the second I said “no more” … it was not the same woman who lived in that house in Bedford. I’m not the same mother whose son brought her ice packs after his father’s beatings. Not the same woman whose son saw me unconscious on a bathroom floor, and when I woke up, his father told him not to help me. No, I’m not the same woman whose son hid food scraps in a kitchen cupboard when his father wouldn’t let me eat.
I can never be that woman again. It does not mean that I cannot be a mother to my children. Just not that one. Unfortunately, the woman I am now is a stranger to my children. My ex-husband, Mr. Levine himself, is making sure it stays that way. All I know for sure is that silence is a sin. And my faith means too much to me: I must keep moving forward, not be the victim that I was again. No, I don’t want to back down.
In fact, I just can’t.
