I am a volunteer with the rape hotline. I answer calls and texts and generally spend between twenty and thirty hours every week talking to people who have been impacted by sexual violence. I am passionate about it because I have the power that being heard and being witnessed can bring. Freedom rarely starts with fireworks; freedom usually starts with an uncomfortable decision, like I’ll just see what they say and dialing a hotline number. Although I’d argue that that’s just the first observable manifestation of freedom, not its origins. For the origin, I’d scour the hours, days, weeks before the I’ll just see what they say thought to find the person, event, place or object that interrupted the numbness caused by the trauma.

For example, we recently took a trip to D.C. to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. As we were headed back home, I went to the bathroom in BWI airport. On the back of the stall was a sticker that said, “You are in restroom BG414882, stall 4.” And, sitting on the toilet after a long and, in some ways, challenging trip, I felt the backs of my eyes sting with tears. Because someone thought of putting that sign, took the idea to others to get it approved, spent funds printing the signs and then spent time and labor to install them in every bathroom in that airport so that, in the event of a catastrophic event, I would be able to tell someone where I was. It would be one less thing I’d have to worry about. These were ordered in December 2019 and the first ones opened in Concourse A in May 2021. It was part of a $55 million restroom overhall. I was in Concourse B, which means the sign I saw was likely installed between 2022 and 2024.

What that sign meant was that someone cared about whoever was in that stall enough to anticipate a need that statistically most travelers would never need. That sign isn’t there for all of the 25.22 million people who pass through BWI airport annually–it’s there in the event of an attack. Do you know how many attacks took place at BWI last year (the year 25.22 million people passed through)? Zero. I also dug hard for records to see how many times those placards have been used to help someone, but I couldn’t find that granular data without a records request from the state but, suffice to say, very little.

Now I know that the placards are not installed only for attacks. Airports are human trafficking hubs; someone being trafficked may go pee and see that sign just when she’s at her breaking point and reach out. Or maybe someone has a medical emergency–a heart attack, say, or panic attack–and needs assistance while alone. Far more mundane purpose for the signs: maintenance. If a toilet clogs, they know exactly where to send repair. I get it. But my point remains: having visible signs that provide strangers with their exact location is a protective detail most will never need… but that could save somebody’s life. I was not in an emergency situation and did not need help… and it still impacted me enough that I went on a quest to find out how much it cost the airport and when they installed it.

Because I felt seen. Thought of.

Being seen or thought of provides freedom by alleviating, or at least challenging, the idea that you are alone. I’ve spent most of my life–since I was a twelve-year-old researching the Holocaust–looking for the thing that keeps some of us getting up in the mornings and some of us deciding we can’t. Surviving. What’s the thing that keeps us here when we don’t have to be, when the world seems to crash and the floor drops from beneath us? To answer that, I first wanted to understand the etymology of the words survive and survivor.

The word survive originally comprised two Latin words, super, which means “over” or “beyond” and vivere which means “to live”. Together the word was supervivere: the live beyond. Interestingly, it was a legal term that referred to descendants or things that lived on after someone else’s death. It showed up first in mid-15th century in documents that talked about the inheritance due to those who lived after someone else’s death. It wasn’t until 1971 when the word started to be more broadly applied to emotional and psychological things: she survived that break-up. The idea of living past something and of it being in reference to an inheritance intrigued me. For survivors of trauma, what is the inheritance due after a crisis? To answer that, I wanted to understand what “inheritance” really means. Inheritance can be traced back to Latin (can’t everything?) hereditare which means “to appoint as heir.” Heir can be traced back to mean to grasp or to hold. So…. upon a death, someone who remained living was given something she could hold or grasp. But why leave an inheritance at all? The most logical answer to that was to help ease the burden of life for the one(s) left behind. An inheritance, then, allows the living to feel that they mattered at one point–enough that they are still seen and thought of even after death.

I mulled on this during the flight home. Took random notes on my phone so I wouldn’t lose some of the very disorganized thoughts. The thing I kept coming back to was how it connected to my survivors–and to me.

Because there have been moments where I understood not wanting to be here. Sometimes pain is an ache and other times it’s a volcano spewing lava hot enough to incinerate motivation. The ash left behind in that kind of heat can blind you to perfectly sound reasons for getting up the next day. Especially when you feel as though nothing you say or do matters and no one would notice if you were gone. The sign in the BWI bathroom stall told me someone cared enough to spend labor and money and time to put up a helpful sign statistically very few of the millions passing by would ever need. They weren’t doing it for the millions. They were doing it for the one: the one trafficked survivor who might take a chance after an unbearable flight, the one diabetic collapsed on the floor in an unfamiliar airport with no one else to call but 911, the one hiding terrified because gunshots are going off in the concourse. Any one of those three individual people were worth the investment made a really hard decision even a little easier. And what sparked the idea? I work in corporate America; I know all about administrative decisions. Assigning specific locations for maintenance workers is one thing; putting those locations in view of the public is another.

The signs became part of the plan in December 2019 and installed beginning in 2021.

From 2017-2020, the Gun Violence Archives shows 1,710 mass shootings (defined as four or more people shot, inured or killed excluding the shooter). And the number rose from 2018 to 2019 by 81. From 2019 to 2020 the number rose by 194. So, the American people – including decision makers from BWI – survived deadly assaults that were rising. The inheritance for decision makers of that survival was increased responsibility to make their space safer. Increased safety leads to increased sense of freedom–even if that newfound freedom is subconscious.

This kept me thinking about correlations to trauma survivors. I have been raped. What was something I “held” or “grasped” as a result of that trauma that might have helped me continue choosing life? For me, I think the two greatest inheritances were: first, the idea that kindness really is greater than evil and second the idea that connection matters.

I’ve spent my life cataloging kindness.

When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Krutsinger, let me read my stories aloud to my classmates which told me she thought writing was a worthwhile thing to do. My mother bought me baby name books to help me name my characters and my blind grandfather bought me a tape recorder for me to record the books so he could listen to them. My sixth-grade teacher let me take the same math test six times because she said she knew I was trying and that was the most important thing: she saw me failing and didn’t call me a failure. A homeless man at a gas station asked me if I’d make him a promise to help three homeless people in my life and reminded me that joy had nothing to do with how much I had or didn’t have. My daughters’ pediatrician gave me a spontaneous hug when he saw shame bloom on my face after I asked him if he thought “everything” looked “okay” on my daughter and had to tell him why I worried. A stranger at a gas station offered to fill my tank up for absolutely no reason, another one told me to take my time choosing a drink, a couple have held doors open for me on days when I felt utterly invisible. Kindness has never once been as bold or as loud as trauma… but it has been consistently present when I’ve taken the time to look for it.

Trauma told me that I was alone, that no one cared, that I was different; connection filled my universe with stories that said ‘you matter.’ Every time I speak in front of an audience about my past–every single time–there is at least one person with whom I feel an authentic, deep connection or understanding. I may never see the person again but I leave the event telling anyone who will listen, that person was why I did this event. Trauma says you are shameful; connection offers a chance to recognize myself in someone else, someone I’d never label as shameful. Trauma says alienate yourself; connection says I’ll follow you into that corner because when you recognize yourself in someone else’s story lies become harder to believe.

And it’s a cycle: connection is kindness, so finding connection gives me another line item to prove kindness is greater than evil.

There’s a little girl who sits in the corner of my mind. I can see her. I know what she looks like. She does not cry. She does not speak. And she does not move. How clear she is in my head depends on how emotionally okay I am. If I am doing well, then she fades. She doesn’t leave, but she’s a lot more shadowy. If I start to feel stressed or vulnerable, she becomes crystal clear and pushes to the forefront of every thought. If I type an email to a coworker, I consider whether the tone of that email might trigger her. If I don’t want to do something, I consider if not doing it is stealing a chance to do something she didn’t get to do. What she went through was debilitating; it impacts me every day. When I get close to a breaking point, I still dream of Kid–nightmares that leave me shaking and crying. There were many nights I genuinely believed I was dying and the fear of that can be paralyzing. I promised her she doesn’t have to be quiet ever again. I promised her no one would hurt her like that again. Trauma devasted me.

But…

It also taught me to see the beauty in the tiny things in life–a flower growing in concrete, blowing dandelion wishes, the smell of honeysuckle, the taste of peaches, the sound of my daughters laughing, talking about yet another character in yet another book. Strangers. These are more than pretty moments, they are the survivor’s inheritance – a survivor knows terror, so a survivor recognizes peace. Deep in her marrow, a survivor understands shame, so she knows how to cultivate a confidence she might not admit to having. A survivor knows the shape of hopelessness, so like a researcher she collects and catalogs things that build hope. The survivor knows trust is foolish, and also she spends a lifetime offering all she can when she can. The survivor knows her own limits, so she doesn’t fight back when she can’t win the battle, and also, when the night is over, she’ll create her own safety plan for next time. The survivor knows she might not win, but she can’t stay still, either, so she’ll run the first chance she gets and, also, even as she runs, she does it not knowing what she’s running to. A survivor scratches, kicks, bites because, if she don’t, she’ll die and, also, when the fight is over, she crashes, wondering why just like other survivors. The point is: however she reacts to the trauma, a survivor’s instincts are survival instincts and they are always the right choice for her. Proof is that she outlives the trauma.

I do not use the word “victim” because originally that word came from the Latin (seriously, don’t they all?) word victima and that word referred to a person or animal sacrificed to a god. “Sacrifice” originally came from sacrificium which meant “to make” or “to perform”. So “victim” then was an animal or person made to perform for a god. This one hurts and it hurts a lot. Some survivors of rape prefer the word “victim” because it correctly places the blame away from them; it implies that something was done to them, intentionally. But for me…the thought of being made to “perform” or being “made for” make the shame much worse. The idea of being “sacrificed” to a “god” means I’d have to assign him more power and give him more control than I ever did. Protecting a little girl buried in me means I cannot do that. What I can do is wake up each morning and spend the day collecting small things–my daughters’ smile, a stranger’s wink, a stadium of singing Scots in America, using my voice through writing, noticing the deer that come into our backyard or a flower growing in concrete, a sign on the back of an airport bathroom stall–and claim my “inheritance” by grasping with my whole self the knowledge of something precious. I did live on past the trauma to find something beautiful in life, even when I wasn’t supposed to.