Just before midnight on August 4, 1960, I was startled awake by loud voices and crashing sounds coming from the living room inside our small Bronx apartment. I was almost three, my sister four. My father claimed he grabbed the jump rope after my mother attacked him. He said he had no intention to kill her but we will only hear his side of the story. My mother was twenty-four years old.

Even though I have faint impressions of my mother from when I was a child, her death has had a greater impact on me than her life. A haunting image of blue flashing lights on a dark, rainy night remains fixed in my memory. Writing my mother’s story not only paid tribute to her life and her sister that raised me but also helped me find the significance of my own life and my connection to her.

Each year five million women in America report physical abuse by an intimate partner, and domestic homicides number in the thousands. Child survivors must learn to live without their mothers, and often their fathers are incarcerated. I did not realize until writing this book what it meant to be a survivor and how the trajectory of my childhood radically changed because of it.

We can never predict the circumstances in our life, nor do we have a choice about the family we are born into. The loss of my mother from domestic abuse not only affected me but created deep divisions within our extended families. Secrets and lies were created to protect the image of my father who was released from prison after only six years. My sister and I were raised by my aunt on the south side of Chicago, and at any time, my father was allowed to visit.

Violence against mothers is violence against our children. Motherless children suffer greater risk for depression, substance abuse, and suicide and may have difficulty forming healthy and functional relationships as adults.  I’m not saying it is easy, but with therapy and education around trauma, I’ve been able to take the necessary steps to live in peace and without my mother.  I’m forever grateful to my aunt who raised me.