For Dorothy

I can’t stop thinking about her. Dorothy Dixon, a 29-year-old woman, pregnant and developmentally disabled, who according to the AP article, died after being beaten by aluminum bat, doused with liquids that burned her skin off, shot with BB guns (30 BBs lodged in her body), covered in infected wounds, deprived of clothing, and dehydrated. The article claims that she and her infant son moved in with her torturers in order to keep a roof over their heads. Five people plus a juvenile are accused of her torture and the resulting death, and police Lt. David Hayes, claims they show no remorse.

It amazes me that someone can fall so far through the cracks that no one notices she is being tortured to death. Family? Friends? Significant other? It seems that Dorothy Dixon had no one to wonder how she and her son (still alive, if severely underweight) were faring. Even if she had the courage to cry out for help, likely there would have been no one to cry out to. Even her neighbors had nothing more to say than that she was a nice girl.

As a woman, I feel as though it is my right to be adored. While I can’t say that I am, in reality, adored, I do have a family who loves me and friends who like me. And I have the hope of being adored. Of finding someone who thinks I am the most delightful person he’s ever met.

But what did Dorothy have? Surely, her desire was to be adored as well, to know that someone loved her exactly as she was and wanted the best for her. She needed love and a safe place for her and for her small son. As she spent her last days, scavenging for food and fleeing BBs and other physical attacks, had she become so accustomed to this abuse that she actually felt she deserved it?

I’ve never had abusive parents or an abusive husband or live-in boyfriend, so I don’t know what it is like to be felt left without a sanctuary, to not have a safe place to call home. It’s a reality for far too many women and children (and some men), but I have no concept of what it is like or the helplessness that it brings.

It’s Easter. For those of us who claim to be Christians, it’s a time to rejoice in the resurrection of Christ, the defeat of sin, and mankind being restored to God. A time of hope. Yet it is too late for hope for Dorothy Dixon. No one can give her a hug now, and let her know that things will get better, that she’ll find the love and safety she needs. And what of her sisters? Abused women, seeking to be invisible, to escape the notice of sadistic predators? Will we be too late for them, too?