I was recently doing my morning routine on the elliptical and was mindlessly watching highlights on ESPN. It was the usual array of highlights from the NBA and NHL playoffs and the scores from the overnight Major League Baseball games.
This show separated itself from the thousands of others with a 10-minute feature that really caught my attention and stopped me cold in my tracks. The video segment was aired on Mother’s Day, and it was ostensibly about former Penn State tight end, Theo Johnson, who was recently drafted by the New York Giants.
The piece didn’t really focus on the recent football draft, where Theo fell lower in the draft than expected. Rather, this Mother’s Day piece focused on the courage and sheer will of his amazing mother, Amy Johnson, as she braved and survived the brutalness of being married to a violent husband – who we learned sadistically beat his wife and 6 children throughout the course of their 11-year marriage.
I listened to the entire segment and then researched more about this family and their shocking survival. The video and printed accounts of the domestic abuse are sickening and had an unexpected impact on me. The father, Nate Johnson, was a former NFL player and was described as “unpredictable” and rather “terrifying” by Amy. The stoic mom went on to state that most of the time in the marriage was “unpleasant and difficult.”
Theo detailed the daily beatings and abuse – it was chilling to listen to. Theo talked about going to bed scared as a young boy and waking up to see his mom bruised and suffering from injuries from the overnight beatings.
After enduring years of daily physical and mental abuse, Amy decided it was time to leave after one final harrowing experience. As she returned from her college class, she found her husband lining up all six young boys and beating the oldest four with a hockey stick, as the two younger ones were forced to watch. You could tell that these beatings were routine and had devasting impacts on the children. One of the most heart-breaking and poignant points made was when Theo said that his mother could endure pain and suffering to her, but she could no longer endure watching her own flesh and blood get brutally beaten by their own father.
After witnessing the last beatdown of her children, Amy took her six boys and found shelter in a local church. Amy and Theo spoke from the heart and recalled the generosity of others and the harshness of being homeless but coming out okay. Talk about perspective.
Theo proudly describes his mom as a fighter who “fought, scratched and clawed” for everything to survive. He went on to salute his mom and said the bravery and sacrifice shown by Amy is “what mothers do.” This is what Amy did. The story ends with some surprising revelations about Amy.
While single-handedly raising six young boys under these circumstances, Amy went on to graduate not only from college, but she miraculously attended and graduated from law school. She now owns her own law firm and concentrates on family law. Amy also has created a charity called Cuddles Clothing for Kids, which provides badly needed clothes for children in dire situations. I was compelled to immediately donate $1,000.00 dollars to this worthy cause.
What is the point of all this? You never know what happens behind closed doors and you never know the trauma children or spouses suffer from abusive parents and partners. We all grew up in an era where the disciplining of children was a little aggressive and rough by today’s standards. In those days, concerned neighbors or relatives wouldn’t think about interfering with an abusive domestic situation. Thankfully, we have come a long way from those dark days. Unfortunately, the damage and hurt from the unchecked and unspoken domestic trauma still haunts too many in our community.
As far as the future, we need to look for those cases where spouses and children are in trouble, and we need to find a way to get them out of harm’s way and in a safe space. We need to make sure that there are adequate resources for the victims, and we need to find the courage to speak out on the subject of domestic injustice.