Harry and Earl at a conference. Thank you Mr. Silverman for all you did.
Social service types might still tell you that no one is to blame for a suicide, except the person who chooses to take their own life. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, they say.
Of course, the latter has changed dramatically in the last 20 years or so. Now only men are responsible, they say, not just for their own actions, but for the wrongful actions of women.
Though I’ve never thought of it until now, perhaps that’s one reason (of the many reasons) the Feminist State refuses to provide emergency shelter services for men and their children. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons my friend Earl Silverman is dead.
Maybe that’s why he hung himself in his garage.
Maybe in a split second of regret, eyes bulging in terror, he dug at the tightening noose around his neck trying for a second chance at life. But alas here we are today and no one to blame but Earl, so they say.
Yep, he did it all to himself. He put the noose around his neck. His hands tightened it. Only he, a Man, is responsible so they say.
Earl was married a couple of decades ago. He was abused, so abused that he reached out to his community for help. He received none. Everyone in his community knew whatever happened had to be his fault. He must have made her do it, made her beat him, made her demean and emotionally abuse him. It, (all of “It”) – his doing… He deserved what he got. It couldn’t be any other way. He was, after all, a MAN; she, the ever innocent and hapless woman, victimized by history and her rape culture patriarchal schmuck of a husband. Everyone knew… They knew…
Abused men, Earl thought, bleed just like women do. He had. Did. Men hurt, have feelings, they need support, especially when being abused, just like women do. So Earl believed. So abused had been Earl that he devoted his post divorce life to making the world better for the rest of us, especially abused men and their abused children, the marginalized and underserved who his country refused to help. They refused.
Death by asphyxia, no oxygen to the brain, his fault… No turning back. How often must he have contemplated the Darkness, an end to his unbearable emotional pain? Could death be worse than the loneliness left by the flippant betrayal of his country? A betrayal (as surely as he once breathed), that’s the “cause of death” of many others, beat down dead men swinging ever so slightly from a noose in the musty stillness of their garage? Do they care? Not one Canadian dime.
The Feminist State doesn’t care about men, except for their ability to work and fill their wallets for plunder. After all, the money for shelters for abused women has to come from someone, right? However it happened, Earl’s wallet was picked clean; then government bled out the rest of him at the morgue.
He, Earl, just didn’t get it. He figured some of the money taken by government should help men as well as women. Dumb. Men, entitled? That’s a Feminist State concept, “entitle,” as in “I’m entitled;” or, “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too,” I, Liberated Woman, stand on “Her” two feet after we pick him clean, dispose of, and bury him.
He gasped, convulsed a few minutes, then urinated and defecated down his legs, in what the day before was his own garage. Having sold his house, the shelter for abused men, he became just another man without a home. He had achieved male disposability, his hardest and final reality.
Over the years since his divorce Earl petitioned the rich provincial and Canadian governments for money to keep his shelter for men and their children open. Except for one small token grant he received nothing, while the same governments lavished millions upon millions on abused women shelters and programs!
Noose pulled tight by his body weight… Suspended, swinging, kicking, fingers digging to loosen the noose, desperately trying to turn time around for another chance… Lost and isolated; all thoughts of anyone he might turn too gone. He was alone in a maze of confusion, unable to navigate to safety. He was not crazy. He was defeated. Resolved. But would they say… his fault entirely.
Earl spent the last years of his life trying to make the world a better place for all of us. He tried one thing after another to raise funds for the shelter. He staged informational booths at various events, spoke at conferences, developed educational materials, became a liaison for the National Coalition For Men, tried to organize like minded organizations, did whatever he could to help others understand that domestic violence is not gender specific and abused men needed help too.
Did the air stir when the new homeowner and a friend found him? Did Earl swing ever so slightly in the stench of his own murder? And that’s what it was as surely as it was a suicide – murder, murder by disinterest by the Feminist State of Canada. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is or will be mine too, especially in death, they say.
I don’t think he had any heirs, though I hope he does. I hope someone inherits whatever Earl left behind. I hope it’s not the Feminist State of Canada. One more insult to Earl that would be. Pay his abuser for murdering him. Ironically, for those of you in the know, that’s a not unusual truth – just macabre.
Alone he died. Together we cry. We love you Mr. Silverman, my friend, our compatriot. You will be sorely missed.
He was one of my heroes. He towered tall for a short guy. He helped so many in so many ways…He hung himself, alone, kicking, grasping at the noose…
They murdered Earl by suicide. We will flush out your killers my friend, we surely will…
Maybe now, in light of Mr. Silverman’s premature death, the Feminist State of Canada will find funds to help abused men, establish several “Earl Silverman Abused Men Shelters,” and finally realize that women and feminized governments are capable of abusing men to death, even if it takes 20 years. They certainly should…
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More about Mr. Silverman:
Man who ran Canada’s only shelter dedicated solely to male victims of domestic abuse dies in apparent suicide, National Post, April 28, 2013
Because nobody cares about men and boys , Dean Esmay, A Voice For Men, April 26, 2013
Fundraiser for Earl Silverman Center , The Moderate Voice-Apr 29, 2013
[…] violence against men should not continue to be denied, ignored or […]
Devastating.