After the Vows...

Wedding day.  Photo: K. Lewis 

If marriage is God's design, why does it seem so hard to make it work? And virtually impossible in Hollywood?  

I got to thinking about this as a friend announced her engagement; the same day another friend announced her break up. 

Sadly, I've seen as many endings to marriages as beginnings.  Covering the crime beat, cops will tell you some of their riskiest responses are when one partner is trying to leave the other.

To make ends meet at my first small market TV news gig, I took a part-time job at a women's shelter.  Police brought in most victims with only their kids and the clothes on their backs.

I never got used to seeing the swollen faces, black eyes, bruises...I didn't understand how mothers stayed with men who shattered their kids' bones, or worse. 

"They feel like they have no choice," the director tried to explain, "Most go back."

Later, I was the one dialing 911 for a friend fleeing an explosive husband.  She was terrified he'd come home and find her packing. 

I'd been there when they met.  Celebrated their engagement.  Helped pick the wedding decorations.  We saw no warnings; the beatings started after the vows.  

"I'm calling the police," I said, "That'll give you time to get out."  I'd covered enough crime stories to know this one could turn fatal.

My friend's experience is common; one in four women are in abusive relationships.* The reasons a marriage goes from flowers to fists are as intricate as the lace of a wedding dress.  And love's promises - to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish...until death do us part - just as fragile. 

*Domestic Violence Resource Center www.dvrc-or.org

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She Still Stands

The LA Times is running this photo I shot outside a West Hollywood antiques store.  The owners display collectibles and old movie props  but weeks have passed without a buyer for the 8' statue.  

Just before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, Lady Liberty reminded me...

As journalists, we make a living reporting other peoples' tragedies.  Lost lives usually mean bigger ratings; 9/11 was no exception.  Except it was our tragedy, too.  There's a saying, "History always leaves a witness."  We were all witnesses.

I lived near the Golden Gate Bridge at the time.  The area around the monument went into lockdown.  The F-14 military fighter jets flying overhead made a threat to our lives seem imminent.

Tears are of no use in the newsroom; mine would not stop.  Only one other story had hit me so hard: the crash of TWA Flight 800.  

I'd instantly felt the explosion that killed 380 people was not an accident...even before I learned that my friend, detective Sue Hill, was on board; we'd met years earlier working the same crime scenes.

No tributes mark the crash site of Flight 800.  No monuments honor the victims.  No one can prove whether a missile or mechanical failure brought down Sue's plane but I'm convinced  these tragedies five years apart - on 7/17 and 9/11 - were somehow linked. 

These lost lives remind us of the price we pay to live in a free country - by no means perfect, her leaders are often wrongly motivated; her people often selfish and arrogant.  Yet, despite terrorism, catastrophe and war, her Light still shines.  She still stands.

*"The Mysterious Death of Detective Sue Hill," The Rap Sheet, Nov 2005
http://www.portlandpoliceassociation.com/rsissues/Nov05Rap.pdf

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