Access Alaska

It was the year of 2000 and it was a hot summer day, and I was sitting in the court house downtown Fairbanks.
Waiting for the District Attorney’s office staff to come out and talk to us. Sitting next to me was my friend, my spirit sister, I'll call her Betty. We were waiting to be escorted into court, for us to be represented by the State of Alaska. In over thirty five years Betty finally was given the tools and the support to stand up to the man that she called “uncle” that had sexually assaulted her over more than half of her life time.

I guess the story really started six months before we walked into the court house.
It was a cold day, and I had taken Betty to the small airport so she could go home for the Holiday’s. We had gone over it time and time again, was it safe for her to go home? Did she have a safety plan? Did she really want to go some where’s where someone could hurt her again? Did she know how to yell, “NO”? Did she know how to get help? So on that cold December day we made a pact, if she needed help, and needed to get home, all she had to do is call me, and I would get her somewhere safe.

That dark day happened when I received the phone call from The Alaska State Troopers that they had a young woman in the clinic, she had been sexually assaulted and she wanted to call me. I requested the Alaska State Troopers to put Betty on the next plane out of the village, they expressed they could not, that the plane was filled, and that is was Christmas time, that there was no room for Betty, I pleaded that it was not safe for her to stay one more moment in the village, and that I would be at the airport waiting for her arrival. Within the next two hours, my friend, my spirit sister, Betty was standing in front of me, scared, beaten, and had been sexually assaulted.
By the man she had called “uncle”.

In the next six months we filed with the State of Alaska, that Betty was an adult with a developmental disability that had been sexually assaulted more than half of her life time. We went through therapy; we met with District Attorney Office. Every time we met everyone was so scared how would someone with a disability be able to take the stand?
Would Betty be able to handle the court room?
Would Betty understand the questions?
Would the jury believe Betty?
Would Betty mentally be able to handle going through this long process?

On that long hot summer day in 2000, we entered the court room in Fairbanks Alaska, and before we walked into that court room, Betty’s sister came up along side us, and puts her arm around Betty, and looks at me, and say’s “ Thank You, you look at my sister as a Woman, not a woman with a disability.”

That is the day, the seed was planted inside of me, no woman should be sexually assaulted, not a woman with a disability, not a woman that does not have a disability. The silence needs to be broken. When did it become ok, because a woman has a disability that it’s ok that she is sexually assaulted? It’s not ok.

It’s been eight years since that hot summer day.
My spirit sister won the battle against the person that victimized her; she did not win the battle with Breast Cancer. Every day that I can make one more person aware of the Disability Abuse Response Team, is one more day that Betty’s story will live on, and her spirit will not be gone here on earth.

Lorraine Trask is a Developmental Disability Specialist, advocate and DART (Disability Abuse Response Team) coordinator in the Access Alaska Fairbanks office.

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The tailor of my spirit
fashioned for me a cloak,
of fatherhood,
Cut from the cloth
of the father I knew,
not just the man
the world saw,
but the father
He longed to be,
if I were to be a father
I could be that man for him....
The Cloak, made over my lifetime,
hidden, all but forgotten,
lay folded in wait,
sprung from its hiding place
fitted itself to me
in less than a blink, at feeling
the first kick of my child, through
the thinning skin of her mother’s belly.
The strong fabric of many lives,
stitched, woven into a garment of identity
often liberating, in its confining nature,
always there, a perfect fit.
Over the years, snagged on reality, many times,
the fabric would fray & fringe,
never failing, always there, giving
purpose to my life, guiding
my every step.
I, in contemplation, am comforted,
seeing loose threads, thought lost,
were chosen by my children
to weave into their own garment,
now hanging in the closet of their soul
until needed.
I know in my heart, Somewhere
my father is proud of the
way his grand children chose
to dress themselves.

T.F. Box

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By T. Frank Box

On the last of my radiation treatments, in September of 1999, I waited to see the oncologist for my chemotherapy referral. I held the strange plastic mesh mask in my lap that had held my head motionless as the six million electron volts of xray radiation was beamed through my brain for all of the thirty treatments. The mask was made of a white thermal plastic that was heated, molded to my face and then bolted to a table as I lay there for twenty minutes for it to cool. I was glad my nuclear treatments were over, but was not looking forward to the twelve months of Chemo that would be starting soon. The mask was a trophy to hang on the wall as a reminder of just how far I had come. 2 brain surgeries and 30 radiation treatments completed, only one year of chemotherapy left to go. My Mother and daughter were with me, but I felt very alone. The thoughts of loosing another year to being sick seemed unbearable until I met the man with the blue mask.

A couple entered the waiting area and as they passed I noticed he had a mask much like mine. Unlike my mask, his was blue, and had the eyes, nose and mouth cut out. He seemed alone like me, separated from a world that has no clue what it feels like to have brain cancer. We eyed each other with the interest just as members of any elite group might; a conversation just seemed to start on its own. He seemed to know that I would understand his anxiety from the radiation burns and surgical scars that made my head look like a red swollen soft ball.

Within minutes we were opening up our lives to each other, trading stories, as two long lost friends, or two soldiers in a foxhole with a common enemy that was seeking to remove their life. Two souls met that talked and understood the language of a brain cancer patient. My mask was solid with only the standard holes left by the plastic mesh to see and breathe through, his mask had the eyes mouth and nose area cut out a little, so I asked if he were claustrophobic. He confirmed my suspicions and added that the MRIs were hellish and the valium was the only thing that saved him.

Then our conversation drifted toward our individual prognosis, his cancer seemed much worse than mine. As he opened up to me, in desperation to explain it to someone who might understand it became clear he had only a few weeks to live. As he unloaded his fears and frustrations on me, every passion filled word slammed home. His wife, just a little behind him and to the left, was out of his peripheral vision, and I could her face as she hung on every word as he retold a story she knew too well.

“Its in my liver, I do what they say! Its in my Lungs, I do what they say! And now it’s in my brain, and I am doing what they say again! But they tell me I only have a few weeks! Maybe six. As he inhaled for next verse of his tirade, I locked eyes with him, and then shifted my gaze to his petrified wife; he turned and saw her pained expression, as if her very core were being sucked out. As he looked back to me I nodded toward the hallway and asked if I could have a word with just him, he followed with his head bowed a little as his wife slumped into a chair sobbing into her hands. We had an unobstructed view of the waiting room through the glass of the personal agony she felt in having her husband torn from her. I was moved to speak some words of comfort, and don’t know where the words came from, but the words flowed with clarity that spoke to his heart as only another cancer patient could.

I said, “She really loves you?” He said, “I know.” I continued, “... and she has been with you through this entire ordeal?” He nodded yes. I said, “Your life is from now till it’s over; how do you want her to remember you? If you only have a few days, make them count! Be strong for her!”

He grabbed me in an appreciative hug, and thanked me. I could see them through the glass as they embraced ready to enjoy their remaining time together in this life.

I have reflected on those few moments of clarity over the last several years as I drift from brain cancer patient to brain cancer survivor status. The words I spoke to him were ones that I needed to hear. I have been given everything that man thought he wanted, and he had everything I thought I wanted. He had some one to love him his whole life through. I was given the time he wanted, but no partner to share it with.

Thinking of life as a proportion; it is difficult to say who got the better deal. I was chosen to live, and he was chosen to have love every minute of his earthly life. He felt his life being torn from him as I felt my true love slipping away with the part of my brain that was removed. I guess life is about suffering well, falling with grace, and loving as if your life depended on it, in the end it does.

T.F.B.

PS. Three years later while sitting church, a nice lady walked in, and we talked a little... drank some coffee... talked a little more. And we were married in September of 2003.

Frank Box is an Independent Living Specialist specializing in Home Modifications and Adaptive Technology, he also coordinates the Head Injury Support Group at Access Alaska - Anchorage. He was named Outstanding Direct Service Professional in the category of Traumatic Brain Injury by the Alaska Alliance for Direct Service Careers

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