What Gets Left Behind: Abuse Survivors Share their Stories Through Art

When her boyfriend could not make a long-standing ultrasound appointment, he insisted that she reschedule. Maldonado decided to take a risk and go on her own. That afternoon, she learned that she was having twins. Until that point, Maldonado had forgone the typical amount pre-natal care because of her boyfriend's rigid chaperone rules. Thrilled at the news of twins—one boy, one girl—she had the nurse print out two copies of her sonograms, each of which exclaimed, "Hi dad!"

That night, she prepared a special dinner to surprise her boyfriend after he returned from work. But when he learned that she had gone to the appointment on her own, he brutally beat her. "I was crumpled up, bleeding in the driveway, when the neighbors called the cops."

Maldonado was hospitalized. The blows doled out by her boyfriend caused so much trauma that she lost both of her babies.

"And I still didn't leave him," Maldonado says. "At the time I was convinced that it was my fault. That I messed up by going to the appointment on my own. I didn't follow his wishes."

She spent a month in the hospital recuperating. A few months after the horrific event, she pulled together enough money and strength to leave. "I did it gradually," Maldonado says. "Bit by bit, I figured out what services I would need, where I could go, how I could make sure my kids would be safe." One afternoon, Maldando took her two daughters, her purse, and a small bag filled with her children's clothing and left.

She spent the next year living in a woman's shelter where she slowly rebuilt her life. While in the shelter, Maldonado and her daughters participated in art workshops created by the non-profit A Window Between Worlds. It was through crafts and art projects that she finally found the words to talk her daughters about the violence they'd witnessed. "I'm from a Hispanic family and a lot times we just don't talk about these sort of things—we just try to move on," she says.

Maldonado didn't know if her 11-year-old daughter, Destiny, was aware of the miscarriage or why it happened. Then Destiny presented her mother with an art piece containing two dolls, bundled up in pink and blue blankets. "We found the words. We had a very honest and very real conversation about what happened to our lives during that time."

Maldonado is now an educator at a continuation school for teenage mothers. Her daughters are grown and healthy. She credits her time in the shelter and the art projects she created with her children as vital to her ongoing recovery.

The following images are art projects created by Maldonado, along with other women and children who survived domestic abuse and sexual violence. Through suitcases, passports, and moving boxes, these women and children have told their "traveling stories." These crafted items represent the things they are both taking and leaving behind.