Mom
Since I really don’t know how to begin to talk about recent events in the lives of me and my family, I’m going to open with a letter I found myself writing to a Stark County Prosecutor last week:
| Dear Sir: On July 10th, my mother, Becky Slabaugh, was attacked by her husband, William Slabaugh. In a manner that was ruthless, repugnant, and entirely unprovoked, he grabbed her, held her down, and sprayed her face and body with a deadly Nitric Acid mixture he’d obtained from the internet. Bill is scheduled to appear for a pre-trial on July 21st. My mother is easily one of the most dynamic, magnetic, and selfless individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Unfortunately, over 50% of her body is now covered with 2nd and 3rd degree chemical burns. She’s become entirely dependent on the small kindnesses of friends and family while enduring stupefying degrees of physical pain and mental anguish that can only be partially relieved by outrageous amounts of medication. She requires a series of skin grafting surgeries to survive and every time she closes her eyes, she relives a nightmare. All because she told him she wanted a divorce. In Bill’s own words: “I wanted to disfigure her in such a way that no one would ever want to look at her again.” Sir, I wish I could impress upon you the devastation that this horrific act has wrought. My mother now lives in mortal fear of her husband. Our family has been hurled into a distressed frenzy. It will be a very long time before Mom’ll be able to do the simple sorts of things that the rest of us take for granted: shopping, working, cooking, driving, going to a movie. As angry as my sisters and I are at Bill, we don’t hate him. We love our mom fiercely, though, and we’re committed to doing whatever we possibly can to ensure that she gets the rest and peace of mind she needs… a rest that can only come with the knowledge that Bill will never be given the opportunity to hurt her again. I’m writing to implore you: please do whatever you can to ensure that Bill is dealt with justly. I feel that the consequences for anyone who would pre-meditate and carry out an act so savage against another human being should be harsh. Although Bill was unable to take away the qualities about my mother that make her truly beautiful, he succeeded in robbing her of her peace and her freedom. And that’s something no one should ever have to endure. Thank you, Jeremy Bear |
Carey and I were called by my sister in our San Francisco hotel. She told us Mom had been attacked by Bill with acid and that she was being flown by helicopter to Akron Children’s Medical Hospital. Mom had asked Bill for a divorce a few weeks ago (regard previous enigmatic posts about a Mystery Issue that I wasn’t prepared to talk about yet), and his behavior was becoming increasingly erratic. Without going into too many details, it was becoming apparent that he may have been suicidal and he was taking drastic measures to convince my mother to change her mind. He’d started on anti-depressants, which my mother saw as a good sign at the time.
Needless to say, the past week has been a sort of surreal television drama. I anguished over whether or not I should even begin to try to chronicle this on the blogger… whether it would be appropriate, whether it would affect the coming trials, whether my thoughts on the ordeal would do more harm than good in terms of the healing my mother and the rest of her friends and family will need.
In the end, I’ve decided to, rather than give a chronological blow-by-blow, convey certain moments and situations that have impacted me personally in the past week. I’m not sure how else to do it and, Jesus, if I don’t begin to get some of this out, I believe I may begin weeping blood.
I knew it was Erin on the other end – caller ID had confirmed that – but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. She was screaming, frantic. All I was able to make out were the words “mom” and “Bill” and “hurt”.
“Erin, Erin, slow down,” I said. Honestly, I’d assumed that Bill had gone through with the suicide he’d been threatening over the course of the last week and Erin had discovered his body or something. “I can’t understand a word, what’s this about Mom and Bill?”
She tried to compose herself. I was staring at myself holding my cell phone in our room at the Hotel Triton in downtown San Francisco.
“Bill! He’s hurt mom! She’s on her way to the hospital! Jeremy, I can’t believe I ever stuck up for that bastard!”
“What do you mean ‘he’s hurt Mom’? Hurt her how?”
“With acid! HE THREW ACID ALL OVER HER!”
Steve, my sister’s husband, pointed at the room with the purple entrance. “It’s that one.”
I walked in with my heart in my throat. Carey and I had put on the yellow hospital gowns that we’d end up spending most of the week in. No fear. No fear. No goddamn fear.
And there was Mom. She was bandaged head-to-toe, with only her toes and face exposed. Her head was violently swollen, covered in some sort of Vaseline-ish film, and she was easily as dark as an African American. A yellow feeding tube snaked into her nose. Her right eye was puffy, bloodshot, and fogged over. Splotches and stains covered her face. Her lips were cracked and flaky.
She craned her head around as best she could and, in a raspy throat that (as I’d soon learn) was damaged by the acid mist, she said, “who’s that?”
“It’s me, Mom. It’s Jeremy. How are you?”
“It’s my son! My baby boy, come from California!” she croaked.
I couldn’t really stop it anymore. My vision blurred with tears as I grasped the gauze-covered hand of my lovely, lovely little mother. For a few seconds, there weren’t any words.
“I love you, Mom.”
She looked at me, woozy with pain medicine.
“Oh, my baby. I’m sorry this upsets you.”
Finally, I’d gotten in touch with the Stark County Sheriff’s office. Carey and I may have been stranded in San Francisco at the moment, but I’d be damned before I was going to sit there and do nothing.
“Sheriff Deputy speaking.”
“Hi, sir, my name’s Jeremy Bear and my mom’s name is Becky Slabaugh. She was burned with acid by her husband and she’s currently at Children’s Hospital in Akron.”
“Yessir, I’m aware of your mom’s situation. How can I help you?”
“Well, her husband burned his own hands with the acid as well and he’s also being treated at Children’s.”
“Yessir.”
“The trouble is, see, I’ve been told that there’s no one guarding Bill. My mom found out they’re in the same unit at the same hospital and she’s absolutely terrified. She can’t get the rest she needs and it’s interfering with her recovery. What has to happen for there to be a guard posted at Bill’s door… or, I don’t know, maybe at my mom’s door?”
“Yessir, I’m sorry, it’s a very difficult situation. Mr. Slabaugh hasn’t been arrested yet, so there’s not much we can do. We can’t assign a guard to someone who hasn’t even been arrested.”
“Well, why can’t you arrest him?”
“He’s in the hospital. He’s injured.”
“You can’t arrest people who are in the hospital?”
“Nossir, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying… we haven’t even filed charges against him. All this will happen Monday.”
“So you can’t arrest someone unless you’ve filed charges against them?”
“That’s correct.”
“So file charges against him!”
“We will. Monday.”
“Why not today?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“And you can’t file charges against someone who’s in the hospital.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what ARE you saying?”
“Sir, we can’t guard him if he’s not been arrested. It’s as simple as that. He will be arrested Monday. At the moment, he’s receiving care at the hospital. Children’s has a very skilled security team.”
“But, he’s not even being watched by security! His door is being watched by a male nurse!”
“Security’s on alert. They can be called at any moment.”
“I just don’t feel that’s good enough. He tried to kill her.”
“Sir, again, he hasn’t been arrested. Anyhow, the hospital’s in Summit County. That’s out of our jurisdiction.”
“So I need to call the Summit County Sheriff.”
“No, it would be a waste of time. They won’t help you.”
“God! Can you appreciate how frustrating this is for our family?! WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET A GUARD POSTED THERE? Is it a question of money?”
“Sir, calm down. It’s not about money. We can’t spare the manpower. And he hasn’t even been arrested yet.”
“WHY NOT?!”
“Because he’s in the hospital.”
“CAN YOU ARREST PEOPLE THAT ARE IN THE HOSPITAL?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So you CAN’T.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Since Grandpa was still recovering from surgery, he hadn’t been able to visit. Finally, on Sunday, clutching a pillow to his torso to help steady himself, he hobbled in to see her.
I led him and Grandma down the corridor. As we approached the purple entrance, his face grew pale and ashen. It was his daughter. How do you prepare for something like that?
We found Mom sleeping, bandaged as always, with only bits of her face showing. She’d been looking better in recent days, but it’s still a shock to those who haven’t seen her yet.
Grandpa walked in, shook his head, said “o god’, and continued walking right out the door again. Grandma walked with him.
I’d never seen my Grandpa cry before. To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone has.
I gave my Grandparents a minute in the hallway, trying not to look my Grandpa in the eye. It was the saddest I’ve been in a long, long time.
“I’ve seen this situation too many times. You guys are going to get a crash course in just how messed up the United States judicial system really is, I’m sorry to say.”
My sisters, Steve, Carey and I all nodded. Tim Hanna was the third attorney we’d met with so far. His approach to gaining clients was, apparently, Shock Treatment. He considered himself a Realist. None of us knew quite what to think of him… well, that’s not true. Carey and Erin knew exactly what they thought of him: they hated him.
“I’d like to tell you that Bill will be put away for a long, long time and your mother will never have to worry about him again. But that’s not REALITY. If I were her, I’d strongly consider moving to California. You know, SOMEwhere she has relatives. She should probably also start carrying a gun in her purse when the time comes.”
We all shifted uncomfortably.
“Yeah, I can tell you that my mom would never, ever carry a gun,” I said.
Tim Hanna shrugged.
“Well. Okay. But it’s reality.”
We shook our heads.
Never happen.
It was somewhere in the vicinity of 1:00 AM. Mom had had a pretty rough day, pain-wise. Carey and I had stayed with her all night the night before, boosting her pain meds every twenty minutes and feeding her ice chips and grape juice. Since we were running on about three hours of sleep, Lauren and Steve had agreed to switch off with us at 2:00.
“Erin and I were talking about whether or not we’re angry with Bill,” said Mom, raspy and weak. “I don’t really want him to suffer. I’d never want to put him through what he’s put me through.”
“I know,” I said, grasping her hand. “It seems as if everyone is angry and vengeful and seeking violent retribution… everyone except for you and the people that are closest to you. I’ve barely thought about it.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I don’t know, Mom, I don’t feel sorry for Bill, but I can’t bring myself to think of him as a treacherous monster.”
“I can’t either! Isn’t that strange?”
“I guess I just think he’s… I’m not sure. Pathetic, I suppose. But mostly sad. He’s just a silly, silly, sad little man that didn’t even know his own wife. He tried to make you ugly, Mom, and he went after the least consequential part of your beauty. What do you call that?”
“No… you’re right, he never knew me. He thought I looked good with him. That’s what I was to him.”
“Everybody you meet understands immediately why you’re beautiful. Why couldn’t Bill?”
Erin showed us the big, thick folder of legal stuff that we could never hope to understand. She'd gotten it at the pre-hearing or whatever the hell it's called. She mentioned that Bill was there.
"You saw Bill?" I asked.
"Yeah. In his orange jump suit. His hands were bandaged."
"Was he handcuffed?"
"Well, he was behind glass."
Carey and Lauren and I were all thinking the same thing: 'what would I do if I saw Bill right now?'
"I looked at him," Erin said. "I wanted to let him know that I wasn't afraid of him. I looked him right in the eye."
"What did he do?"
She shook her head. "He just stared right at me, like a blank. He never turned away or anything. I turned away first. I couldn't take it. I wanted him to be the one to turn away, but he never did."
"Did he look remorseful?"
Erin tried to remember. "I... don't know. He just stared."
Mom's room was showered in cards and flowers. Also, photographs: Mom with her kids, Mom smiling, Mom dancing, Mom laughing.
"These are nice," I said to my sisters.
"Yeah," they said, "we wanted the nurses to see what she really looks like."
Carey hung up the cell phone. We were still stranded in San Francisco. She looked as if she wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry.
"So who was it?" I said.
"Karen. Your Mom's company decided that they wanted to do something for your mom, but they weren't sure what. Finally, they decided that the thing she needs most right now is to be with her kids."
"So... what does that mean?"
"Karen says that Sprenger Enterprises is going to fly us out to visit her for as long as we want."
"They're paying for our flight?"
Carey nodded. We didn't cry, but that's only because we didn't have any tears to spare at the moment. God bless those people.
Karen, Mom's close friend and coworker who's apparently a devoted Catholic, had tied a prayer card to either side of mom's head, on her bed railings. One was a prayer to St. Anthony, the Saint of miracles; the other a prayer to St. Jude, the Saint of desperate situations.
When Mom returned from her first skin graft surgery (her legs... likely the most trying of all the surgeries she'll have to endure), she was waiting in the surgical recovery area, saints still tied to the bedrails.
Carey and I walked back to find her head completely unbandaged. It was the first time since the incident that I'd seen her face completely. Her head was shaved and splotchy acid burns were scattered randomly.
But it was Mom. And it looked more like Mom than I'd seen her all week.
But the thing I guess I'll remember most was the cloth that was behind her head. For some reason, it made her look like every painting of the Virgin Mary I'd ever seen.
Difficult to describe, and I'm no Catholic, but seeing her there, like Mary, with Saints surrounding her head... it filled me with a terrific peace. This particular recovery would probably be the most painful of all and she was obviously in terrible misery... but, I don't know. I knew she would be all right in the end.
And Drew, my boss, said to me, "take whatever time you need. We'll rent you a laptop or something. You should be home with your family."
And my Uncle Joe shook his head in the waiting room outside the burn unit and said, "I can't see how there can be any forgiveness for him. No forgiveness whatsoever."
And my Dad said, "I just feel absolutely awful. She's the mother of my children."
And the woman in the hospital elevator said, "who do you know who's been burned?"
And Grandma said, "Why did this happen, Jer? Why would this happen to someone like Becky?"
And Dennis O'Toole, our lawyer, said, "you and Erin and Lauren may be called to testify when the time comes."
And my mom, heavily medicated, said, "where's Bill? Why hasn't my husband been in to see me?"
And Lauren said, "I can't wait until Mom gets her voice back. I miss her real laugh."
And Dr. Andrews said, "there's a very real possibility that her face will require some grafts as well."
And the Fox News Anchorman said, "William Slabaugh's bail has been set at two million dollars."
And Carey said, "hey. You know I love you, right?"
And I said to my mother, "Mom, I know I'm supposed to be strong and upbeat for you... but, I'm sorry. This is really, really hard on me."
So, Mom's now in Week Two. I'm going to do my best to keep updates going on her. I may start a separate blog just for this, I don't know. I'll figure out something.
So far she's had two skin graft surgeries. Both major, but both a success. Since the news media has been buzzing around this story, they've been told that Mom isn't at Children's, even though she will be for the next six or seven weeks. I really doubt they check this blog, though, so I think it's safe to say that. Security is being very strict about visitors: only immediate family for the time being, so if you do want to visit, please call ahead and please don't be offended if you're told that now's not a good time. Mom needs rest desperately right now.
Speaking of the news, internet-wise, it's been covered by The Canton Repository, The Akron Beacon Journal, NBC 4 Columbus, and WKYC Channel 3 News. Be warned, though, they've mucked up a lot of details. So much for journalistic integrity.
She's got a very long row to hoe yet, but we're all very optimistic. Thanks to all who are offering their prayers or support. Oh, and I understand that a benevolent fund has been started. I don't have the details with me, but I'll get them.
God, I don't know. There's still so much I haven't covered.
Please pray for Mom.
Thanks.
posted by Jeremy Bear at
7:45 PM
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