Photo Credit: L.Y. Marlow Photo

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September 23, 2010

As a little girl, I was traumatized by stories of how my grandfather horrifically abused my grandmother and her eight children, beating them in the nude until they bled, even forcing his three year old son to eat a dead rat.

My mother was one of his daughters. When she turned eighteen, she met and married my father. Shortly after the nuptials, her husband suddenly turned into her father— continuing the cycle of abuse that hospitalized her with a death prognosis. Years later, at just sixteen years old, I continued the cycle of abuse the first time my eye was blackened, my lip split. My abuser even kicked me in my eight months pregnant belly, endangering my life and the life of our unborn child.

I wish I could say that my story ended that fateful day when the swelling started to rise. I wish I could say that this tragedy did not exist before I was a stitch in my family’s fabric line, a seed in my mother’s womb.

But those wishes are just that—wishes. I come from a legacy of women—four generations of mothers and daughters (my grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughter) that suffered and survived 60+ years of domestic violence and abuse—a story that inspired my novel, Color Me Butterfly.

I was the third generation of women in my family to be trapped in the cycle of violence. Twenty two years later, my daughter became the fourth when her boyfriend tried to kill her twice and threatened the life of their daughter, Promise. His words, “I’m going to bury Promise’s body where nobody can find it.” After realizing that the cycle was continuing into a fifth generation, I decided to turn my family’s legacy and pain into a Promise for Change. I founded Saving Promise—a national grassroots movement to make domestic violence a national priority in the same way as breast cancer awareness.

When I first wrote Color Me Butterfly, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand that my story would be used to put a face to this horrible pandemic, to bring about change. It was merely my story. I would not come to understand it until a little girl named Promise, my granddaughter, would become the fifth generation.

Saving Promise is in many ways the first of its kind, bringing new energies and strategies to address domestic violence. With call to action campaigns such as ONEVOICE—a campaign to get 100,000 people to sign our petition to show America we care about this issue; a national tour entitled Saving Promise Comes to You, the Gotta Talk About It campaign—to get America talking about it before the next tragedy happens, and a host of other initiatives planned over the coming months and years, our goal is to take domestic violence head on and strengthen it as a national priority.

With the onslaught of recent domestic violence tragedies—stories like Yeardley Love, the University of Virginia Lacrosse player allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend in a violent rage, and Rihanna whose story gripped America with the horrifying details of her abusive encounter with boyfriend Chris Brown, and more recently, Mel Gibson whose outlandish rage reminded us all of the seriousness of this issue—it is painfully apparent that domestic violence is a national pandemic.

Three year old Promise is not alone. There are countless little Promises out there. Countless families whose story, unfortunately, mirrors mine. “Some would say I lived a sad life, a pained life,” so begins Color Me Butterfly. Let’s not let that sad life, pained life—my story, continue to be America’s story. Instead, allow it to inspire you to action.

L.Y. Marlow, Author of Color Me Butterfly (Three Rivers Press, August 3, 2010)and the Founder of SavingPromise and Color Me Butterfly.

E-Mail her at: lymarlow@savingpromise.us

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