This story is not a platform for me to whine "poor me," nor am I asking for any sympathy for my normal situation. Instead it is a simple story of what I need to survive my life while doing what I think is right.
I'm an average person in most ways. I'm slightly smarter and better looking than normal, but not by much. I'm not fat or skinny, I'm five feet four inches (163 cm) tall the average height of a woman in the United States, have a High School education and one year of community college. My hair is a mousy brown, my skin has a normal number of imperfections, and my cup size of B would be normal in the US except for the obesity issues playing out in society at the present time.
Perhaps my only distinguishing feature is that my eyes are Amber in color which I've been told is a rare beautiful eye color; I have had many people tell me throughout my life that I have gorgeous eyes. Fortunately my parents didn't name me Amber. They named me Evelyn Sheraton, and my married surname is Brighton.
I probably had a normal lower-middle class life growing up. I married my husband Bill in 2014 when I was twenty and he was twenty two. He was a soldier who was stateside and we had hoped that he wouldn't be sent to Afghanistan. Since we both wanted kids we had a little daughter Bridgette in 2016. Her birth started to make big life changes for me.
Bridgette was born with severe hyperactivity disorder. Calling her a handful to raise is the understatement of the decade. She can sap your energy, drive you nuts, and wreak havoc all at the same time. Fortunately since Bill got a modest inheritance from his maternal grandmother we were able to put a down payment on a small (1200 sq. feet) house with a decent size yard since we probably would have been kicked out of an apartment building once Bridgette turned two years old.
Since child care for Bridgette is so expensive, and hard to get, it was and is cheaper and easier for me to stay at home and care for her than try to get child care for her. I took classes on how to cope with her and since I have a normally calm demeanor and happy outlook on life I do better with her than the vast majority of people would. However, by herself she is virtually a full time job. That does not mean that having her is unrewarding; when in a calm phase she is very loving, and she is enormously bright, smarter than either Bill or me.
Though Bridgette is challenging the real demanding phase of my life started when Bill got shipped off to Afghanistan in 2019. That was not only because I then had to deal with Bridgette alone whenever she was home, without a break or help from Bill, but what happened there. In combat shortly after arriving in Afghanistan Bill was severely injured.
Bill returned to the U. S. a broken man; not just his body, but his spirit. He must use a wheelchair cannot do many basic things for himself, and has lost not only his ability to perform sexually but the desire. He also has PTSD in spades.
Shortly after Bill came back, and fortunately after he was able to escape the most severe symptoms of depression, my father had a stroke. My mother has health problems of her own and cannot accommodate all of my father's needs, therefore I now also need to help her out.
Since my and Bill's parents are middle class, who basically live paycheck to paycheck, since Bill's salary in the Army had been mediocre at best and his disability payments barely cover essentials, and since even though there are some government programs that can help people in our situation there is lots of red tape to go through and services are far from ideal, our life is devoid of luxuries and often devoid of joy. I do some part time seamstress work at home in the few minutes each day that I'm not dealing with Bill's, Bridgette's, or my parents' issues, but that work brings in little extra money. I really only continue to pursue it because it provides a short time of calm in my otherwise frenzied life devoted to helping other people.
The upshot of all of the above is that in 2022 I was struggling under the weight of life's burdens. I had no time for myself, and little joy except when Bridgette was in a calm period. I did have emotional satisfaction since I felt, and was told by those in a position to know, that I was doing a good job in taking care of a hyperactive child, a severely physically and emotionally handicapped husband, and compromised parents, with no economic safety net.
One thing that was a positive was that I was physically stronger than at any other time in my life. I didn't need to go to a gym to get strong because taking care of the people I did, as well as our small house, required significant physical strength. I didn't really recognize it until several people at the VA hospital and other facilities where I often take Bill, teachers at the specialized school where I take Bridgette a few hours most days, and even my parents neighbors, said "Wow, Evelyn, you're really ripped."
Despite my normally happy demeanor the stress of everything happening in my life started to take a real toll on me in the middle of 2022. Then something happened that started me on another path.
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I was in the local branch of a national grocery store chain using my EBT government assistance funds to purchase food for the week in the short time that I had available before I had to pick Bridgette up from her specialized school and Bill from the VA hospital when there was a ruckus just as I checked out. I heard a loud noise and then saw a guy with a gun in one hand and holding a cloth bag like you sometimes see in banks in his other hand running toward me. I should have realized that he was just trying to escape out the main exit which was behind me and not actually running at me, but I panicked and thought that for some reason he was coming after me.
My instinct was to push my grocery cart into him to ward him off, so that's what I did -- with all of my might. Apparently I was stronger than I thought because the force of my cart hitting him in the legs as he ran by knocked him flying into the air. It looked almost like in slow motion he went airborne, twisted in the air, and landed against a store front windowsill on his head.
Maybe it's because when I occasionally get to watch TV I tune in to cop shows when the miscreant was moaning on the tile floor with his gun lying only about a foot from him I kicked it a good fifteen feet away. When he started to groggily get up I took a can of tomato sauce from my now turned-over cart and hit him on the head with it, knocking him out.
Chaos ensued. Many people were running away, some employees were coming to the area, some sort of noise-making device was wailing in the store, and within seconds remote sirens outside the store could be heard. The cops and EMTs arrived quickly and they and store employees started to sort out the chaos.
With my cart overturned my groceries were scattered about, many now unusable, and I knew that there was no way to pay to replace them. That, and stress from knowing that I'd be late to pick up Bill and Bridgette, got the best of me, and for the first time in years -- I'm not one to engage in self-pity -- I started to cry.
Several people, including the cashier I had just purchased my groceries from, came to me, got out a folding chair, and remote from the unconscious miscreant had me sit down. At the time I didn't know who all the people were, but one man in particular was very helpful and when I told him about my need to pick up Bridgette and Bill he sprang into action.
Minutes after my tearful tale to the helpful guy a police detective talked to me and took down the information about who Bridgette was, where she was, and what needed to be done. She promised to take care of the matter.
After I talked to the police detective the helpful man arrived with a couple of store employees who had apparently already talked to the police. They got the information about Bill, and they were dispatched to either pick him up or make sure that he could comfortably stay at the VA facility until I could get to him.
While I sat there on the chair many people came up to and talked to me; I don't remember who all of them were, but most remarked on my bravery in handling the miscreant, even though I did what I did out of fear, not bravery.
Among the things I learned from the people I talked to -- including the nice guy who came to see me on and off until everything was sorted out -- were:
--The miscreant had shot the cashier in the business office of the store when robbing it. Fortunately the cashier's wound wasn't serious and although he was taken to the hospital it was likely that he could be released the next day.
--The miscreant had a long rap sheet and had robbed ten other stores in the last month alone and had been the subject of an intense manhunt. He had been treated by paramedics at the scene and was now in police custody.
--Everything had been caught on the store's video cameras.
