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Anne Thacker's avatar

Darya!! What an incredibly inspiring story...Your strength and perseverance is simply amazing...Thank you for sharing this...My mother was the victim of domestic violence and she did get away but it broke her in some senses and she never fully recovered...You give me hope and bolster my will to keep going no matter what...All the best to you and your family...XOXO

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David Petersen's avatar

Very powerful reading. I am the son of a woman much like you. Sometimes, I wonder if there is a god. For the past say 12 hours or so, like a faucet being suddenly turned on, I have started thinking about my mother, what she went thru, the hate and cruelty she endured all her life. The way she died at the hands of a doctor with a God complex....words fail me here. Except, your latest post added some context to helping me to understand my mother a little better.

I don't have an inspirational song but I do understand at a primal level some things, and I understand how sick russia is as a people for I was raised in a country that values human decency, and understood that healthy societies need institutions and pathways so that a person's fate is not dependent on the wealth of their family, or their relationship to someone in a position of power. Modestly, I hope, I assert, I am the product of such a country, and I know that on the mean, I am part of a generation, whose grandparents suffered so much, and understood what needed to be done to prevent what my home country went thru from being repeated. I know that many people are confused and have massive angst especially at this current crop of western leaders, but as bad as it is, as much BS we daily read, we are still infinitely not as fucked up as russia. And, like you said, it ain't Putin, it's their culture.

So, we survivors, IMHO do have a responsibility to the future even though today we may not have any influence. My wife is American, and she gets really pissed off with me. Even though she studied law, whenever we talk about hot button issues, my response is generally "yes, but how would you codified that so that justice does not wind up being perceived like it was something akin to a popularity contest". I now live in the US too, and I see it all the time, the proverbial kicking of the can down the road, the effect of PACs on public discourse.

This is my song, when issues compete in the marketplace of ideas how do solutions get codified with the greatest utility to the public welfare.

I am happy for you for your recent victory. I am happy you found somebody like your husband who "gets you". What I suggesting that there is a good chance that the injustice you suffered/suffering will burn brightly within you all the days of your life, and perhaps even in your children. In the west, we try to build upon past lessons. Hate, only takes you so far, and like alcohol, it's not the person drinking from the bottle that does the damage, it is the bottle draining from you that does the damage.

Thanks for sharing. I was amazed at your openness.

D

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