Just saying the word “Thanksgiving” makes me think of that night. 

It was Canadian Thanksgiving, but the anchor is there , rooted to the holiday. 

He tried to kill me that night. Twice. Two times I beat him off me, him in all his 320lb glory – me at a 135lbs. The last time, when my vision was getting dark, and he was shaking me around, spit flying from his mouth like a mad dog, he said something that was so… fucked up, and made me so gaddamned angry, it saved my life.

“I bet you like this, you freaky bitch”, he viciously rasped close to my face. Even blacking out, I could see the vein in his temple pulsing from the strain.

I’m not entirely sure how I got the strength, or how I managed to get the leverage, being pinned to my bed with him above me, but I did. And I managed to scramble out from under him. Sputtering and dizzy and wanting to barf, I watched him and the voice in my head said “KILL HIM if he comes at you again. Because he is most definitely going to kill  you.”

It never came to that. Somehow that crazed rage of his receded, and he was just a ridiculous, angry man after that. 

I laid in my bed until I heard him leave early the next morning for work, Frozen, and also waiting to fly into action. A buzzed, numb terror.

You just never know how you’ll react in a traumatic situation, and even more so, the aftermath.  

So for Thanksgiving, I am always happy, and thankful, to be alive.