"The Choice" - Poem by a domestic violence victim's father

As National Domestic Violence Awareness Month draws to a close, we would like to illuminate an often overlooked aspect of domestic violence: the perspective of parents who see first hand the devastating effects domestic violence has on their children and grandchildren. The following is a personal testimony and poem submitted to the YWCA Resolve Program by Philip Jarrett - a caring father whose life has been changed by violence in his daughter's life.


Philip Jarrett: "My situation is shared by many. I have a daughter who is in an abusive relationship. I have five grandchildren watching their mother and father in violent, physical confrontations and learning that this is normal behavior for a man and a wife - that you're either the one giving the beating or you're the one getting beaten. I didn't know what to do. I really believed the best thing to do was to go along silently. Being a pacifist means I take violence out of my repertoire of reactions. It doesn't mean that I can't fight back in my own way. And the first step was naming what it was and what my daughter's abuser was aloud. I told him he was an abuser and a user."

"It's especially hard on a man in our culture of violence and vengeance under the guise of protection and love. I listen to people…men and women…on a bus talking about how they would beat up or kill someone over some minor offense to their worn out and unjustified pride. I watch movies that show victims of abuse learning to fight back, whicn can even end in the murder of their abuser. The wrongness and futility of using violence against violence both saddens and angers me."

"It has been difficult for me, as a man, to learn the only thing I can give my daughter, the best thing I can give her, is the choice to make her own decisions. So, as odd as it may seem, I am offering this poem for your use...or the use of any domestic violence group anywhere...in the hopes that other men who are faced with this nightmare I am living can be taught that violence from one man cannot be solved by violence from another."


the choice by Philip Jarrett

if i could catch you like a dark firefly
and hold you in my hand
prick my thumb with your mosquito’s tongue
till your eyes glowed bright again
then i would think my life completed
that i had finally done my part
and as my soul depleted
give my blood, not just my heart

but you are not an insect
to spare or slay with a swatter
and i am not so perfect
yet i claim you as my daughter
and life is not so gentle
and fate is never kind
and the price of love parental
is to give up love that’s blind

so i sit in stony silence
as befits a man who’s died
watch you suffer another’s violence
bear the bruises of false pride
i scream behind lips tightly stitched
burning bile has stole my voice
knowing you, alone, must come un-bewitched
and the best i have to offer you
is the choice

Copyright 2009 by Philip Jarrett