Memories of suffering

By
Omar Castiblanco

Profile Journal
English 110
Mrs. Nancy Quinn
04/1/15
Sometimes we think we have gone through difficult situations in life without considering that there are other people who have been through worse situations, and they are around us. According to The National Domestic Violence Hotline, 24 people per minute are victims of physical violence by an intimate partner in the United States, 29% women and 10% men. More than 12 million over the course of a year.
This is the case of Maribel, a woman I met six months ago and gradually has told me her life story which caused me so much interest, that motivated me to know a little bit more in detail what she lived in the past. Maribel has a calm gaze, eyes slightly muted brown color, her hair is long and black. Her smile is subtle and delicate, almost imperceptible. Her face and body language shows part of the suffering that she experienced in her life with someone she refers to as the father of her children.
She is a Mexican woman who lived with her parents until she was 16 years old. They lived in a small town in Mexico. She had a boyfriend. This relationship lasted three years. During that time everything was good, but the family of the young man saw that this relationship could soon become formally to be married. The family of this young man could not allow this marriage because it would affect their university study. Due to this situation, Maribel and her boyfriend began to have problems in their relationship to the point of braking up. After this, Maribel entered into a terrible depression. During the time that her relationship with the young man lasted, another older man about late 30’s began chasing her to every place without speaking. That man was single and lived by himself. As soon as this guy knew that she was no longer in a relationship with the young guy, he began to court her. This man knew many people in there town, soon came the news to Maribel's parents that there was an older man who was courting her. When her father found out, he became annoyed and upset restricting her just to go to school. He even counted the time she took from school to home, so she would not go to talk to the man.
"My parents took care of me very much, to the point of feeling prisoner in my own home without going out to meet anyone.”
On December 5, 1993 Maribel left her home to buy stuff for dinner. That afternoon she met the old man who finally made the decision to talk to her. They were talking for more than 4 hours. She knew that having been so long out of the house for so long disturbed her father greatly to the point he would perhaps to punish her severely. She panicked and began to cry. She was so afraid to go home and she did not know what to do. This man took advantage of this situation and he proposed to her to live with him. He said he take care of her.
"It was the dumbest decision I've never made in my life, but I agreed to live with him just because the fear of returning to the house and maybe my father would have punished me" Three days after her escape, she called her parents to tell them what happened because they believed she had disappeared. Her father asked her,
"Are you sure you're okay?, we are very concerned about you, tell us where you are," "No, I am not to say where I am, I just want to let you know that I am ok". On December 31st of the same year, she went to see her parents to clarify what happened. Maribel told them that she had gone to live with the man whom her parents did not want her to have contact. Maribel's father asked her:
"That's what you really want for your life? If not, so, the doors of this house still open if you decide to return" Because she felt committed to this man, she was forced to say that was what she wanted for her life.
"if that's what you really want, I respect your decision" her father replied.
Two months after leaving from the parent’s home she became pregnant. Their first child