A lady sent me an email last week. I read it twice with tears in my eyes. She sent it late at night. It was well polished and edited. I guessed that she had been writing it for a couple of days, making several adjustments to ensure that I got the exact message. I felt the exact pain that she and her children were going through. Every weight felt.

One morning, a month ago, she reported to work as usual. She works at a cyber café. The business is in the topmost floor. The building hosts several other businesses including a butchery and ‘mutura’ ( African sausage) center downstairs.

During the afternoon, she decided to buy a soda at a shop downstairs since it was pretty hot. I tend to think it was a hot dry day, one with wind blowing dust into all offices, one that looked like it spelled doom on her. As she approached the shop, someone held her hand. Tightly. She looked behind only to see her estranged husband staring at her with eyes that dug deep into her inner being. Eyes seething with anger and hatred. Spelling disgust just from his look. They had not seen each other for a yea leaving her to raise their 5 children singlehandedly.

The man quickly grabbed a knife from the ‘mutura’ rack!  Before the vendor could notice, the husband quickly dug it into the lady’s neck. She fell down. He then stabbed her in the chest, he removed it as if he was pulling a knife stuck in margarine, dug it into her inner thigh. Removed it once more, stuck it into her other inner thigh, she rolled over and he angrily dug it into each of her buttocks. How angry could someone be to do that? She claims that he was so fast that after the 6th stab us when people noticed and came to her aid. Good Samaritans rushed her to the hospital where she has been for so long.

Why she shared this story with me is because her children are suffering. They have not been going to school as they live with her very old mother in the village. The youngest cries every single day as she misses her mother. According to her, the emotional trauma that her children are going through is worse than the physical injuries and pain that she has.

She would also want to appeal to men out there, ”Physical and emotional abuse to the mother of your children hurts the children the most. It destroys and eats them out. It might turn them into heartless monsters, or make them into timid individuals who will unconsciously fall into the same incidences again.”

Do you have a similar story to share? Send me an email on info@excitingparenting.com. Let us all strive to protect our children, by maintaining a loving a peaceful environment around them.

Lots of Love,

Ruguru Kimani.