What Would YOU Do?

[space.ace.jase]

WWYD - What Would You Do is a TV Show from ABC news (http://abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/) in where they sit up a scenario, hide camera's all around the area and use actors to play out the scenario and record how people react. Probably some of you have seen it but I found a link to one of the videos and 4 hours later I'm still watching them- very addictive!

Anyway I just wanted to share one that really hit home for me - WWYD? - I'm Falling And I Can't Get Up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7B19jywTo

Just wanted to say as a man I never really cry but I bawled my eyes out watching this (multiple times) and I just wanted to share.  I would have been one of those people just walking past. 

[Gina]

I know exactly what you mean Jase.  I don't think it's entirely your fault that you'd have walked by.  Lots of people say "don't get involved" and "what's the use?"

The cost can be extremely high if you're not careful or know what you're getting into, that's for sure.  Caught an episode where this woman was being abused by her "boyfriend."  And a man and a woman finally spoke up and called for help. 

It reminds of when I was 12 years old and my dad took his 2-inch leather belt and BUCKLE to my and my 11-year-old brother's backs for a half hour - quite literally.    Neither one of us could sit, lay down or bathe for a solid week.  Neighbors heard us screaming and begging for help, my sisters heard us and saw what he was doing, but he was a maniac and in those days the laws were such that you couldn't be charged with child abuse.  I was so terrified of him.  We kept begging him to stop and he wouldn't.  It was as if he enjoyed doing what he was doing.  To this day I have a very high pain tolerance.

The next day our caretaker Priscilla broke down sobbing (never saw her cry like that ever and this woman had been through a LOT in her life) when she saw our arms, backs and legs all swollen with welts.   She was a retired, single black woman about 65 at the time, who took care of our family because she really loved us kids.  She was not making any money off Social Security and my sisters had to beg my father, who was making about $50 grand a year, to give her a raise on her measly $200 a month salary.

That night after she went home and after my dad got home from work, she called him on the phone and gave him a piece of her mind (to put it mildly).  I mean, she yelled at him and said, Don't you ever let me see marks on those children like that again.  Those are MY children.  haha!  She was fired up!!  And I could hear every word she said over the receiver that was at my dad's ear. 

I couldn't believe the GUTS this woman had.  She wasn't afraid of nobody.  My dad could've said, F-U! or something and fired her on the spot and she would have been destitute or had to go live with her kids or something.  But no, lol, he listened to e-v-e-r-y w-o-r-d that woman said and when SHE was finished talking she told him, And I want you to take a good look at their backs and see what you did; it's disgusting.  (And it really was, but we didn't know any different.)

When I was about 20 my aforementioned brother Vincent and I were renting a room in a house owned by a hotheaded Italian who had a son about 4 and he would treat him almost as bad as my father treated his kids.  And I thought, I can't sit here and not say something to this man and told him to stop and said if he touched his son again I'd call the police.  And he kicked me out of the house.  I had a place to go.  I was not destitute and I'm not sorry I said anything.  But I grant you -- it is not always the easiest or the wisest thing to do--stand up to someone. 

But you should be congratulated for having so much desire that you would if you could.

[space.ace.jase]

Wow that must have been horrific! Good for you for telling that man off, more courageous than I am 

Yeah I guess it has just been on my mind lately after watching some of those episodes about how I would react in some of those situations. I basically avoid pretty much everyone but it would be nice to have a bit more compassion for others. Hope it didn't come across as judgmental or anything, I just found it interesting.

[Gina]

I believe you have compassion, Jase, and no I don't think you were being judgmental towards anyone. 

It was horrific.  But God is so good.  He set it up where after my mom died, my sister Patty moved to California w/ her husband and a year later, after another brutal beating at 16, I was on a plane to southern Cali 3,000 miles away where he couldn't touch me.  He was so angry (I don't know why he wasn't happy about me leaving).

He accused Priscilla of helping me run away (but she had no idea) and then he cussed her out and fired her on the spot - after 17 years of dedicated service and love to our family.  She wasn't able to see "her children" (my younger brothers) for the longest time after and that tore her heart out. 

Her last words to my dad were - You're not going to have any good luck for treating me this way.  You're going to die an lonely old man.

Two years after that, the domestic abuse laws changed drastically (thank God for compassionate people!) and child protection services came and took my brothers away from him.

We were all, including Priscilla, set to testify against him in family court, but dad didn't want his "dirty laundry" aired, and didn't fight the charges so the Court gave my brothers to my two older sisters.  I liked the judge we had.  He was cool.

Dad was so humiliated from being "defeated" he wouldn't speak to us kids for decades and now, true to Priscilla's words, he is dying a lonely old man.  Unbelievable.

But thank God this story doesn't end here. 

Some people are very hard to have compassion on.  And God understands this. 

p.s. I should also say that my dad did apologize to me about 5 years ago for the way he beat me.  For whatever reason God did not give my dad the ability to control his temper and that is not my dad's fault.