In 2020, my husband and I lived the epitome of an ideal life. Falling in love, buying a large house, having children, and even hosting Thanksgiving dinners. When I was pregnant with my third child, a situation we did not provoke left me lying on the ground, in front of the house we cherished, in my own blood.
One Saturday in February, a married couple left their two young children at our home, for us to babysit. This was not abnormal, as I babysat many children in our area. Unbeknownst to us, the couple were in a violent marriage. Coming to pick up their children at 10 p.m., the husband decided he was going to kill his wife in our front yard and had been planning it for quite some time.
They began to argue outside, I saw through the window, and I decided the best course of action was for her to leave with the children. She ran into my house to escape, and I helped her scoop her daughters up and hurry outside to the car to strap them in their car seats. The husband, believing I was his wife, appeared from the dark and put the gun to the right side of my face. As I turned, he pulled the trigger. I laid there with his screaming toddler next to my body, who was in my arms when he pulled the trigger.
I have since lost my son, who was in my womb when this happened. I have been on life support, suffered the loss of my temporal lobe, lost my right eye, had reconstructive surgery to my face, and now I have seizures, but I survived. And he is in prison.