After Mitzi found me that March morning, she of course called the police and the ambulance, and I was taken to the hospital. I was in a state of shock and stayed that way for over two weeks. Mitzi stayed right there beside me, as she whispered pra...
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My Safe Place
Chapter Three
After Mitzi found me that March morning, she of course called the police and the ambulance, and I was taken to the hospital. I was in a state of shock and stayed that way for over two weeks. Mitzi stayed right there beside me, as she whispered prayers and scriptures in my ears. She played some of my favorite music, and she sat and stroked my long hair, as she talked to me and told me how much she needed me. Without her tender words, I am not sure I would have come back. But she was stuck in there, and eventually I opened my eyes, and it was horror all over again, as soon as I remembered just what had happened. I had not forgotten, and maybe it would have been easier if I had.
But I instantly began calling for my husband and my children, and Mitzi just had to sit there and rock me like I was a baby. She rocked and rocked, and I cried and cried, between bouts of screaming with anger. But I did get better, at least the hospital said I was, and they sent me home with Mitz; and she took me to her house, and I stayed there for three months straight. I eventually wanted to go back home, to be able to pack up what I wished to keep, and I decided to sell the house. Keeping it was no option for me.
Time went on and I grew so attached to my home that I could not part with it. I absolutely refused to sell it, even though it was against Mitz' better judgment. So, I kept the house, and she moved in with me. I think it scared her most of the time, and now I know that was not fair at all, to force her into staying in a house with such painful scars. We lived there for six months and that was all we both could take, so I sold it and let go. We then found us a cute little cottage house, just on the outskirts of town, close to a nearby park, and that would be where I would venture out to do my runs. No more country roads for me, Mitzi would not allow that at all.
We called the cottage "My Safe Place", because it just felt like a little jail, with bars across the windows, big double locks on all the doors, a gate across the front lot that stayed locked.
IT WAS A FORTRESS, but it fit the bill, and neither one of us thought otherwise. There were many nights that we took turns on being the night watchman. One night I would stay awake, the next night she would. Sometimes, more than not; we would meet each other in the hallway running for cover if we heard the slightest noise. We both stayed on edge, on the ledge. But we also had some sweet times together, allowing ourselves to bask in the sun in our little backyard which consisted of a little concrete slab, and one small block of grass. The outside was not so important to us when we picked this new home. It was inside that mattered most. Was it cozy? Was it dark or lit up, would it be affordable to heat and cool, could we add a dog or two if we decided to, was there two bathrooms, how many locks did the doors have and did the windows have locks? That was the main concerns when we chose our "Safe Place", and it seemed to be better than most we looked at.
We hardly made any decisions without very careful consideration, and we monitored each other, probably too much. If Mitz was going into town, either I was to go with her, or she would be back exactly as she said before she left. We had secret hiding places that we shared and meeting places during the night in case someone broke in. We agreed to never watch any kind of movie again that made you feel afraid, so that got rid of much of our TV time. We traded it in for playing cards and board games or cooking together. We did inspections on our home every week and we never once skipped over it. We would check and re-check locks on doors and windows. We would check where we stored knives, we never kept them out where they could be seen, and they stayed hidden only where we knew they would be.
We checked our electricity boxes to make sure they had not been tampered with, and we did daily checks on our cars and tires on our cars. We spent more on mechanical bills in the first three months after my ordeal than we have all our life combined. Maybe we did go overboard, but not sure you can go overboard when you have watched your children die in front of you and came so close to death. Our little home was our "Safe Place", and we planned to keep it that way.
