Why do you have a fake hand? is what young children typically ask my mother. They are the brave few out of many people, young and old, who want to know the answer. What dominates an outsider’s first impression is merely a fact of life for my mother. However, what strangers don’t know, and would not easily learn, is that my mom is a survivor of domestic violence.
When I was just four years old, my siblings, my grandmother and I witnessed her violent attack at the hands of my father. During the attack, my mother sustained numerous defensive wounds on her arms and body.
The image of my mother writhing on the floor in pain, surrounded by blood, with her right hand hanging detached from the majority of her wrist was ingrained in my young mind. The