The Other Side of Yet by Michelle D. Hord

Author:Michelle D. Hord
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

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I HAVE DRAWN enormous strength from my friends, family, and community. I have drawn enormous strength from my own rituals, history, and heritage. But it is also incredibly important to note that I have drawn strength from working with professionals who have been trained to help people process the unimaginable. And that is why another important way to control what we can is through therapy. My therapist, Caroline Kern, had a background in the Manhattan DA’s office. When we first started working together, I had been incredibly intentional to pick someone who got it. She was from my town. She was a mom. And she understood violent trauma. I needed more than grief counseling and she got that. Because I had experienced loss and “normal” grief counseling when my mother died decades earlier, I knew this was different. I had done stories about women with the frozen shock and emptiness that I now saw in my own eyes. A comforting bereavement specialist was not going to be enough. When we met for the first time, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she admitted to knowing my story. She let off a few colorful words as we talked, which, frankly, endeared her to me even more. At the end of our first meeting, I looked at her and said, “I like you. You’re smart and you swear. I’ll be coming back.”

And I’m still coming back. There have been countless hours of texts, calls, meetings, and court appearances that she has done, yes because she’s a counselor, but mostly because she is a woman and a mother. This woman trained me like a prizefighter for what lay ahead. Given her background, she knew what I was facing even though I did not. She knew the complexity and constraints of the judicial system. She knew that my trauma was so pronounced that I needed tools to pull myself back from the edge in the middle of the night. And because of her training, she had those tools, which she was able to share with me. A rubber band on my wrist to literally “snap” me back at times. A mental picture of Gabrielle lying next to me in bed to call on when the images of her after her death haunted me.

When it came time to prepare to see Hank in court, Caroline started showing me pictures of him. Then videos so I could watch him move. Then, we worked on enduring the sound of his voice. She went with me to every single court hearing. Whether it was a divorce hearing where we sat outside for several hours only to find out that he had opted out of showing up from prison, or the murder trial, or the sentencing. Caroline was always close by.

In many ways, she was my justice doula, reminding me how to breathe. Reminding me how to move and be in and out of my body as necessary for survival throughout the process. I was releasing from my body the turmoil, hate, and pain that had been set upon me.

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