In Horsham she approached me with her own Mother. She was dressed in her Chemist Uniform and she was nervous. One because she was on her break and due back soon, and two, because she wanted to tell her story but couldn’t risk being filmed.
Petite and quiet in her stance, she would be the first anonymous podcast and her story would not only deeply resonate with me, but it would encapsulate all the impersonal cruelty of Dan’s Mandates, while symbolizing too the courage of Mothers everywhere.
She proved to me that when you are powerless, there is still a great power in grace. And while this is a war on love, I know, despite having to bend to their relentless coercion, she is not broken, for it her decision, was made out of love, so in defeat she is victorious.
When you listen to her, imagine a bench in an unremarkable path, a small crowd, Charlotte parked, our flags flying, and this Woman with me, talking like this and managing somehow to hold in the tears that I think she left in me.
Michael
The Brave and Coerced Horsham Mother Who Haunts Me.