by Holly Dunn
The terrorist attacks served only to remind me what Chris’s death had taught me four years earlier: I had to enjoy my one, fragile, precious life. It was all I had been given, and I didn’t want to waste it.
• • •
By mid-2002, I had moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to be closer to Jacob and to enroll in the manager-in-training program at the Courtyard by Marriott Louisville Airport, one of my dad’s hotels at the time. I’d been working on my MBA at USI since the fall of 2001, and my plan was to continue online or locally at the University of Louisville, but two more years would go by before I got back to wrapping up my master’s degree.
Jacob still lived in Lexington, now just an hour away from me, where he worked a demanding job for a home builder. Though I visited him once or twice a month, I never lived in Lexington again. With distance from the scene of the crime, the anxiety and panic I felt around railroad tracks in the early years after my attack finally started to fade. Railroad tracks in Louisville still tended to bother me, but not to the degree those Norfolk Southern tracks back in Lexington did. The rumble and whistle of a train continued to remind me of what happened, but other sights and sounds reminded me of Chris, and I chose to focus on those things instead.
One evening, I was sitting on the porch swing outside my house in the Upper Highlands of Louisville, an old and eclectic neighborhood on the east side of town. A Bar Harbor bell hung from the porch ceiling above me. The Maiers had sent me the wind chime after one of their own pilgrimages to Maine in honor of their son. The large, triangular bell had a wind catcher in the shape of a buoy and a deep, commanding tone when a strong enough wind took hold.
As I swayed gently back and forth on the porch swing, I felt an odd fear sweep over me out of nowhere, an inexplicable sense of not being safe. Something didn’t feel quite right, even though I lived in a very safe neighborhood. My mind was taking me back to being vulnerable, at risk of attack. The fear wasn’t warranted, but I couldn’t shake it.
Just then the Bar Harbor bell started to clang; though the day had been calm, a sudden gust blew through and rattled the chime. Its deep tones evoked the sounds of the harbor in Maine where we bought lobster off the boat, and its loud and distinctive sound helped me back to a place where I could rest assured I was safe. My fear vanished and my body relaxed. I looked up at the Bar Harbor wind chime, still swaying in the breeze, and thought of Chris. His spirit comforted me still.
CHAPTER 17.
The Gift of Story
Back in August of 2000, shortly before I started my job as a traveling consultant to Kappa chapters around the country, a representative from the University of Kentucky’s panhellenic council asked me to share my story with incoming freshmen women who planned on participating in recruitment. The event, which was mandatory for prospective sorority members, would focus on campus safety.
“You’re absolutely crazy,” I responded. “Are you kidding? How do you think I know anything about safety given what happened to me?”
Being asked to speak to college kids about safety after being attacked reminded me of when Nancy Grimes asked me to speak about faith when mine was at an all-time low. The night of the attack, I thought we were safe, but obviously we weren’t. What did I have to offer these girls? But I also remembered how empowered and transformed I felt after sharing my story at Chrysalis, and how much I still wanted my story to be used for good.
I was told I had twenty minutes for my part, which would be the prologue to a presentation by a university police officer who would then give tips on how to avoid violence. I wrote out my talk on two sheets of paper, and I practiced reading it in front of a couple of my sorority sisters who were still in school. The night of the event, a group of around seven hundred girls gathered at Memorial Hall, including an outpouring of many active sorority members who heard I would be speaking. As always, my Kappa sisters rallied around me. Not only had they helped me prepare, but they walked with me to the auditorium and sat right up front to support me through it.
More than two years had passed since I gave my first-ever talk at Chrysalis, and this time was just as tough. I started right into the story of that dark night three years earlier, what happened to Chris, what happened to me, what it took to heal, and the agony and glory of finally facing Resendiz at the trial—all in vivid detail. I stayed strong and poised for about the first minute—and then I couldn’t help but cry through the rest of it. The audience endured long silences as I struggled to get the words out, and just like at Chrysalis, the room full of women sobbed along with me. My sorority sisters were crying. The freshmen were crying. So much emotion filled that room and flowed back and forth between us.
“You think something like this can’t ever happen to you,” I said, “but it can. I was with a guy who was nearly six foot five inches tall. I had pepper spray in his backpack. Why should I have ever felt unsafe?”
Chris and I acted according to what we thought we should do in such a situation, but hindsight shows me things I couldn’t see at the time. The night of the attack was nearly pitch black. Should we have taken that walk on a dark night at midnight? Should Chris and I have gone back with Mike and Ryan when they were ready to leave? We were stronger and safer as a foursome, and it wasn’t until we were split up that Resendiz approached us. I told the girls how things like this went through my head that night, but I didn’t necessarily ponder them for long. I was in la-la land with my new boyfriend, and I wasn’t thinking we were being unsafe in any way. But I don’t like to dwell on what I might have done wrong that night. I like to think I did at least something right—because I’m still here.
At the end I opened up the room to questions. I’ve followed this format in speeches ever since—telling the story and then allowing people to ask me absolutely anything on their minds.
“You might trigger me and make me cry, but don’t worry about it,” I said. “Nothing you say will make me uncomfortable or bother me.”
The attack on the Norfolk Southern tracks near campus was still fairly fresh in the students’ memories, especially since there had been so much media coverage of the manhunt and recent trial. The girls at that first UK event asked a plethora of questions, some intensely graphic and personal.
“Did you get an STD?”
“Did you get pregnant?”
“Are you dating anybody now?”
“Are you ever going to date again?”
The questions these students were asking, whether they realized it or not, reflected the innate fear of what violent crime like rape does to the very essence of a woman. I had feared these same things when I was being raped—getting a disease, getting pregnant—but the emotional damage turned out to be so much worse. Rape stole my personal autonomy, my power over my body and my boundaries. Those harms aren’t evident until it happens to you.
I addressed the girls like they were my friends. I wanted to be authentic and make them feel they were talking to me on a personal level. Some questions could be answered easily, like how I was well taken care of in the hospital, and I’d survived the rape physically intact. My emotional health was another story, and how it affected my relationship with Jacob was an issue I was still sorting out. I had no way of knowing yet whether that aspect of my life would be truly mended. I fielded other questions about the police process and how I dealt with the aftermath, including my experience with the rape support group in Lexington.
When we wrapped up, many of the students came up to say, “Thank you so much for doing this—for telling your story.” They received my vulnerability as a precious gift, and I was enriched by the giving.
I gave that same presentation to the sorority prospects at UK six years in a row. Afterward, I needed a refuge where I could decompress. That place was usually Jacob’s apartment, where I’d go to lie down and recover, even when he was working and not at home. Incidentally, Jacob came to one of these speeches the second or third year I was a presenter. He didn’t tell me he was coming though, which threw me for a lo
op when I saw him standing in the back—as he was one of very few men in the room. When I came to the part of my story about first meeting him and becoming a couple, I called him out. He must have been weirded out, because he didn’t come to another speech again after that!
• • •
Though I didn’t know it at the time, that first talk at UK inaugurated fifteen years of speaking and teaching on my experiences as a survivor of violent crime and sexual assault. My story was a cautionary tale of sorts, an illustration of the very real presence of danger in unexpected places, but in time, my closing note would be on the very real presence of joy despite the trauma and pain. No one is immune to violence or tragedy, but what matters is how you respond to it. I wanted to reassure people that though they may be walking through hell, they can eventually move on to a full and rich life.
Even after so many presentations, telling this story doesn’t necessarily get any easier; I’ve just become more comfortable and more courageous each time I tell it. My nerves are calmer and I’m more prepared. Over the years, I’ve come to measure my healing by how well I hold up. The first few times I spoke, I cried throughout the whole story, but that was because it was still new to me, and I was scared, especially speaking in front of people I knew. As I began speaking more regularly, I found myself becoming less emotional, or emotional at different parts. I still cried at some point in the story, with maybe a few exceptions, but what upset me at any given telling reflected the particular issues and wounds I was processing at the time. Some moments always got to me, like how Chris died, and I’d break just like I did during my testimony at the trial. At other times I’d get upset talking about the rape, or about meeting the Maiers for the first time, or how Jacob and I finally reunited after that heartbreaking separation. Even now I sometimes still get upset when I speak, but I love speaking. It’s like therapy for me and makes me feel good.
I usually point this out to my audiences. “You are all part of my healing process,” I’ll say, “and you can’t get out of it, so you can’t leave the room.”
People often can’t understand how I’ve rebounded so well from the attack. When someone asks how I got to a healthy, whole place, I credit my support system as key to my healing. Not just my family and friends, but also complete strangers from the audience: everyone I encountered when I spoke provided me with support and feedback that was truly healing. They’d say things like, “Thank you so much for offering your story. You helped me so much. You gave me a voice. You validated this feeling I’ve always had.” Such response was empowering and carried me through years and years of continued emotional and psychological recovery.
More and more invitations to speak started pouring in, simply via word of mouth. I remember thinking it was crazy how quickly my speaking career came about. Some events in particular stand out, like addressing another group of freshmen women at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, a couple of years after that first talk at UK. Afterward, a girl came up to me and told me that she too had been raped and had dealt with similar issues as I had. That intensely personal reveal wasn’t something I expected, but I began encountering other survivors more and more often, especially at events like Take Back the Night.
Take Back the Night is a foundation that has been promoting sexual-assault awareness on college campuses and in local communities since the 1970s through vigils, rallies, and marches. The first time I spoke at a Take Back the Night rally was on the grounds of the Evansville State Hospital near the University of Evansville one chilly evening in April of 2003, when the days were getting longer and the sun hadn’t yet set. April is both Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which makes it an ideal time of year for an event against sexual abuse and domestic violence of all kinds. Attendees included people from the community, local college students, law enforcement officers, and survivors of sexual assault, all of whom came to participate in a peaceful march on a nearby main road and to listen to a series of speakers onstage under a big tent set up on the hospital grounds. I didn’t participate in the march because I was too nervous about giving my talk, so stayed at the tent to get ready. On hand to support me were my parents, my sister Heather, and her two kids, my niece Madison, who was four years old at the time, and Michael, who wasn’t yet two.
The most memorable moment onstage during the 2003 Take Back the Night was when a ten-year-old survivor of sexual abuse requested to take the stage to share her story. I stood off to the side as she took her place in front of the microphone, looking out at the crowd. But when she tried to talk, she lost her composure and began bawling. I admired her for her bravery and couldn’t blame her for a second for feeling scared. Who wouldn’t? She was so young—most young victims feel so ashamed that they don’t report their crimes for decades after it happens, if ever, and here she was ready to tell a huge crowd of people she didn’t even know. I knelt down next to her and whispered to her a little secret—a special technique I used to stop crying when I didn’t want to cry.
“It’s okay to cry,” I told her. “But maybe you want to tell us something, and you don’t want to be crying. So, clear your head by thinking about something funny. Imagine everyone in their underwear. Then make a funny noise.”
I made an odd sound like blowing raspberries, and she copied me and we both started laughing. Our exchange connected us, and suddenly she wasn’t scared anymore, though I can’t remember what she went on to say, if anything. We were just beneath the microphone, so people in the audience could hear us, and while the moment was empowering for the young survivor, her emotions alone were a powerful testimony to everyone in attendance.
When I was scheduled to speak again at Take Back the Night in 2006, the rally had been moved to the University of Southern Indiana where Heather was on the faculty. As the sun set, we demonstrated with signs through campus, and then gathered at the University Center where we lit candles, each person sharing his or her flame with the next, as a symbol of solidarity with each other. After a moment of silence in memory of all those affected by sexual violence, I once again shared my story alongside other survivors of sexual assault.
“You are an inspiration to me,” I told them. “We are all survivors. Let’s show the world what we’re made of—live life and be happy.”
The bond with other survivors that began with the Lexington rape survivor group has extended to every rape survivor I’ve met along the way—and there have been many. It’s a sisterhood none of us wanted to join, but we make each other stronger. If I can affect someone in a positive way through sharing my story, it brings me healing too. I’ve come to believe that talking about what happened has eliminated its power over me. Talking about it is what brings the shame out from the shadows. Though there are outspoken survivors like me who address crowds at events like Take Back the Night, there are many others living in silence. I speak for them. I take their stories and their pain with me when I take the stage.
• • •
For about the first five years on the speaking circuit, I addressed almost entirely young female audiences on safety and awareness, often alongside self-defense experts who then advised the women on what they might do differently in a similar situation. My audiences soon broadened to include both male and female first responders, doctors, nurses, judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers. The men were just as inquisitive and responsive during the closing Q&A, though their questions were more logistical—how was Resendiz apprehended? How did various jurisdictions negotiate who would take him to trial first? Eventually I spoke at a number of FBI conferences, often focusing on how biometrics like automated fingerprint systems were key to our case, and how much it meant to have a friendly, personal relationship with the lead investigator. Detectives often disconnect from their feelings to stay safe and sane, but that might not be the best approach when dealing with a victim of rape or domestic violence. In my presentations, I encouraged law enforcement to focus on ways they can be more empathetic and create more personal re
lationships with such victims.
One thing I often share with first responders and law enforcement is how much asking the right questions—and not asking the wrong questions—was a perfect element to my healing. No one ever asked me what might be considered typical assault questions—had I been drinking? Was I wearing a short skirt or something provocative? After being part of the rape support group, and later meeting many more victims in person, I learned a lot about what other women have been through in the legal system. If any such questions were brought up in my case, I never heard them. I am so deeply grateful I was never shamed, directly or indirectly, with any kind of questioning that would have implied I was to blame for my own assault.
I make a point to share this with audiences, to teach people about the victim’s experience, and how crucial it is to avoid shaming them for what happened to them. Rape is never the victim’s fault—period. That doesn’t mean, however, that anyone vulnerable to crime can’t actively remain on the lookout for their own safety. Not long after I began speaking, I attended a conference where I met someone who worked with Gavin de Becker, security consultant to some of the world’s most famous and influential people, and author of a book called The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence. After I read it, I was happy to find something that was truly empowering for women. I’d been telling people in my presentations about the importance of trusting one’s instincts, but this book delved so much more deeply into that concept that I often referred people to it as an important resource for safety.
Though I had a print resource on safety to offer people who wanted more information, my speaking engagements were still missing something. People kept coming up to me after my talks and asking what more they could do. How could they help? Could they give money to something? At the time, I didn’t charge more than my travel expenses to give these talks. I wasn’t selling anything. I had no nonprofit organization or charitable foundation established, and it hadn’t occurred to me how such an endeavor might even take shape.