A week or so ago I posted on Facebook that a woman I know is starting a new household and we were looking for donations, mostly of furniture. My friend, CF, privately messaged me that while she didn't have any furniture, she'd love to put together a care package; something to welcome my friend to her new home. We worked out details to get together where I could give her the spiced nuts my mom, her childhood friend, made her for Christmas and where she could drop off the household goods for me to bring to the woman who was staring anew. Simple. Nice.
As life and weather goes, we finally connected tonight when she stopped by our house. As an aside, CF has stopped by our house for other reasons that all involve helping us meet our requirements as residents of our town. We are shameful! CF helps us rise above our shame and meet our obligations to register our dogs and remember to vote. She's the best! And we feel very lucky and appreciative.
Tonight she stopped in and navigated our icy driveway with her care package but added a $bill to the mix, a surprise. To paraphrase, she expressed that, sure, people in transition need stuff, but there is some stuff they just need to be able to buy themselves. She wanted to support that; to support someone to make their own decisions about what they need and want in a time of stress and transition. My generous friend had to stand there while I broke out in tears, only in part for her generosity, but much more for her understanding. I'm so sick and tired of people not believing in survivors' abilities to make their own decisions. Wiser folk than me have said, "domestic violence makes you poor" and as I return to direct advocacy, every survivor I work with has had her credit comprised and her financial sense questioned as a component of the abuse. No one trusts a survivor with cash. And so as a community, when we give only goods and vouchers, though we mean to help and do, we are complicit with the message of batterers that survivors can't manage their money, that they need someone else to take control. So while my friend's gift of cash was generous, my eyes welled up, also, because she trusted the judgment of a woman she didn't know, judge or question. It was a demonstration that supported empowerment and was bigger than the gift itself. It made my day, to say the least.
