Women are encouraged to leave abusive relationships, but are we preparing our men to cope when they leave? Are boys being taught to be confident and well-balanced? Are they being trained to practice self-control? Is anger management a part of their schooling? Are they prepared to be vulnerable and seek help when they cannot cope? Are we raising boys who will be honourable men or those who will learn to creep and stand but only walk on the peripheries of the qualities that define good men – like being strong but not fearful of being vulnerable, kind and compassionate, honest and respectable?
The stories of women who left abusive relationships and then were killed or seriously harmed are not unfamiliar to us. Their names have been written in blood from being stabbed and decapitated, on the bullets that pierced them, in the ashes from the fires that burned them, on the hands of those who have strangled them, on the surfaces where they collapsed and died, and in the memories of those who loved them.
Below the dirt, their once beautiful selves have turned to bones and dust or their ashes flow in the rivers or blow in the wind or are still in the urns, and the voices of those who loved and miss them will often call their names, like those of Reona Payne, Deoranie Inderpaul, Onica King, Dianna Hernandez, Lowtie Atwaroo, Rosemary Rudder and now Omwattie Gill.