‘Practice what You Preach: Armed Robbery in my Home’
Last december the 24th it has been five years…
I came home around 23hours. The house was silent, my husband was sleeping downstairs in the guest bed, we had relationship difficulties going on and he wasn’t feeling well so we were sleeping separate since a few days. Our girls were lying upstairs in the big family bed, sound asleep, waiting for me to join them.
I was tired so I dressed myself down to a g-string and a camisole and I laid myself down in our family bed between my Daughters. I was asleep but woke up in the middle of the night because I heard my husband cough. I didn’t want to go down because I was still angry over a fight we had. But I talked to myself and told myself not to be harsh and do what I would normally do. So I went downstairs and checked on him, he was asleep again right away. I whispered his name but he did not respond. I looked at him in the light of the Moon and my Heart was filled with love, still after all the things that were going on. I went upstairs and there the moonlight was shining so serene on my sleeping girls, my heart was so grateful and filled with love, it touched me really deep it still does when I think about it. Looking back that was my ´before´ moment after that, things would never be the same and all would start to fall in a different place than before.
I woke up because of an extreme loud noise, like a wall coming down, it must have been 6.30 in the morning. I sat straight up not understanding what that noise was, the alarm went on, a loud siren like noise. I thought my husband would take care of it and laid myself down but something wasn´t right so I sat up again wondering what was going on? This was all just a few seconds. The bedroom door opened and a flashlight was shining in my face, I thought it was my husband checking on us if we were ok but as he didn´t say anything I knew something was terribly wrong. I moved backwards like I was afraid, planning to press the silent alarm button on my side of the bed…but because I never had to use it I could not find it. Not knowing who was in the bedroom with me and my girls was so scary and terrified I clicked on the light.
I could not even blink my eyes and was immediately punched brutally in my face tree times. I looked at him and I saw I was a bit perplex that I did not pass out. The next moment he grabs me by my hair and drags me out of our bed, I grabbed on to a pole of the bed and the whole bed moved along. My brain was going faster than the speed of light, thinking I have to get out of the bedroom with this guy and make sure I am as far away as possible from my girls. So I let him drag me over the floor by my hair to the hall and stairs. I remembered Oprah saying when you are in a violent situation you need to talk and try to touch some ones feelings. In the mean time my girls woke up from him punching me, just a few inches away from them in the bed. I didn´t not want to scream because I was afraid my girls would come towards me and could get hurt. So I talked very loud but easy in the hope our neighbors would pick up on it. I said ´what do you want? We are good people let me know what you need and I will give it to you`. I tried to free myself by trying to put my hand between his and my hair so I could pull myself loose and kick him down the stairs. But his grip was tight and almost on my skin. He dragged me down the stairs by my hair, dragged me over the hallway floor into the living room. I saw another guy sitting on top of my husband, all this time my thoughts were going crazy, I thought my husband was stabbed or worse, I just didn´t understand why he didn´t came to help us. The man dragged me next to the bed and pressed me down on the floor, I did not understand what he wanted or expected from me. I was lying almost naked,, in the glass that was on the floor from the garden door through which they had entered, violently. The alarm was going of like crazy and I was wrestling to get loose to check on my husband. All of a sudden I heard a third man running down the stairs saying something in a language I didn´t recognize. My head exploded, I was going crazy, if I had known there was someone still in the room with my girls I would have fought myself to death but I would never have left the room, never, never, never…
The third guy ran down the stairs, screamed something and opened the front door with my keys, the guy on top of me jumped up and ran away, I stood up and pulled the one on top of my husband as he was getting up to run as well. I pulled back the blanket, touched my husbands arm asked my husband are you alive….he was unharmed….
The phone kept ringing from the alarm service and I tried calling the police but I lost my cool and did not know how to dial a number anymore. All of a sudden there was a lot of police in the house, I was standing in the middle of the room bleeding like crazy from my face down. Police went upstairs to my girls who were totally unharmed and treated them with lots of gentle care. I could not see them because I was afraid seeing me like this would traumatize them for life. I was standing there, freezing, almost naked with so many police people not allowed to get dressed or covered. After a while an ambulance took me to the hospital for care. The policeman that accompanied me asked me a lot of questions, it was like I could read their minds. They didn’t understand that I was so calm, they thought I didn’t realize what happened. They offered me a mirror I guess to shake me awake and make me realize but I already was very present. I told him you can bring me a mirror I know it’s not pretty. After the mirror I went to the toilet to pee, while I was washing my hands I looked in the mirror, I could hardly see my own eyes because of the swelling and blood. I asked myself ‘what do you think of all that has just happened?’. I had decided a long time beforehand that when I would ever be confronted with violence I would not want revenge, I would not want to give my power away to anger and hatred. I would want to have the strength to make choices of love and peace…This was it…here was the violence in my home, in my bed, with my beloved husband and children. I would have died protecting them all. But I was alive and all that would come after this was my own choice. I choose to forgive. The men, any man doing this to a woman in front of her children in their bed does not deserve a second of my attention, not even in anger. I would not allow them to scare me, this was an incident, not the course of my life. This was our ‘moment’ interaction and after this there would be no form of interaction what’s or ever. I also promised that no man would ever touch me violently in my life again, this was to be the only time! My beloved girls suffered deeply, they both had therapy, my loving Panther felt so small and worthless because she was not able to protect me though she wanted to with all she had in her. My sweet Arizona was wounded so deeply that she shut down her feelings towards me, for years, because she could not bear the pain that had been done to me in front of her eyes, I cannot explain how this broke my heart repeatedly in the past years. Me wanted to protect them and they me. It was so painful. I have seldom met such strong and bright souls as my own girls. I respect and honor them and their love so deeply. Panther still sometimes kisses me on the scar I have on my shoulder from lying in the glass.
Sometimes people think I live in a fairytale or a pink bubble or that I am a bit floaty or not in touch with real life or the harshness of so called ‘real life’…I promise you all the softness and pink there is in my life is there by my choice. I believe in peace, I believe in Love with All I have in me!
Life has tested me and Life will always keep doing that and I always pray for the strength to live up to Truth and Love even in my darkest hour. I have found tremendous strength in being vulnerable and sharing my stories. This story is about making decisions upfront so you will be the light that can guide yourself when you are surrounded with darkness….
We All carry this Light, make it shine.
Picture taken by my dear friend Eunice Lieveld at a very vulnerable moment in my life this Summer…
Don’t be sad or sorry for me for I am one of the most happy and grateful beings dancing on this Earth.