A Silent Song 6
February 14th, 2010 by ComputerBob
Regular visitors to this Web site know that I’ve survived several bad things in my life, including domestic violence. That’s why I considered it an honor to be able to help victims become survivors, by working more than full-time as a volunteer at a domestic violence center and shelter for an entire year.
Along with serving as a legal advocate, both in and out of the courts, I was happy to help out many other ways, including caring for groups of preschool to teenage children several times each week, while their mothers attended DV support group meetings.
Regular readers of this Journal also know that I worked hard to motivate the young survivors to read, and that I had the honor of actually seeing my efforts make a big difference in a few of their lives.
One Tuesday night, I had described Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books to the girl who ended up hugging me in the story that I linked above.
Her eyes had lit up with excitement and anticipation, and from then on, every week, she would ask me if I had found a Ripley’s book for her yet. Unfortunately, I was unable to find one at any of the used-book places that I usually checked.
So finally, I decided to order a few brand-new Ripley’s books for her online.
At Amazon.com, I looked through a large selection of Ripley’s books and then ordered four hardcover ones that I thought that she and her little sister would really like.
I remember being mesmerized by the stories and drawings in the old paperback Ripley’s books when I was a kid. But I discovered that today’s Ripley’s books are even better — they include hundreds of color photographs. I think that Ripley’s books are an excellent reading motivator for kids because they’re really interesting, and even kids who aren’t old enough to read yet can look at the photos and ask questions about them.
It took two weeks for the books to arrive at my home from three different Amazon booksellers.
Once I had all four of them, I wrote a note inside the front cover of each one, telling the girls that I love them and I’m very proud of them.
I emailed the mom and told her that the books had arrived.
She called me to say that she was very happy to hear about the books, but for personal reasons that don’t need to be shared here, she was too busy to meet me at that time, to get them.
I understood perfectly. Llife can be very hectic and stressful, especially during the early stages of the slow metamorphosis from being a victim to being a survivor.
So I waited.
But I didn’t hear back from her.
Several days later, I got an email message from one of the other DV survivors, telling me that the mom and her two daughters had suddently left and moved back to one of the northern states.
I sent an email message to the mom, telling her that if she sent me her new address, I would be happy to ship the four books to her girls. But I didn’t know if she would still have email access up north, or if would even receive my message, let alone want to tell me their new address.
Several days later, I was happily surprised — and relieved — to receive her reply.
Yes, she and the girls had moved back up north — again, for personal reasons that don’t need to be shared here. They were doing well and were very happy.
But during their trip, in the car, one of the girls had reminded her that they had forgotten to get the Ripley’s books from Mr. Bob before they left.
So she was really happy to give me their new address.
I quickly packed up the books, addressed the box and went right to the post office to mail it.
A few weeks later, the mom sent me another email message. The girls had finally received the Ripley’s books.
They loved them.
And they were reading them every day.
Since then, I’ve ordered several more Ripley’s books, and given them to other children that I care about.
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Tags:
Domestic Violence, Inspirational, Personal, Survivors