by Monika Korra
I read a letter that I had prepared. I let him know that I was there to check up on him, to see how he was progressing with his promise to me that he would change. I also let him know that I would continue to check up on him, that I wanted to be certain that when he was eligible for parole in 2022, he would be ready to live a new and better life.
When I finished, he seemed relieved.
Throughout my previous contact with him, in person and in the preliminary questions he responded to, he never used the word “rape.” He always said or wrote something like “what I did to you.” That troubled me. It fit into the larger pattern of people not speaking out directly and honestly about the crime. I didn’t want people just to not be silent; that kind of whispering, not facing the issue head-on and with clear and precise language, was only going to make it more difficult to solve the problem of rape victims feeling like they are less than other people.
Words do have meanings and associations that convey messages we may or may not intend. I wanted us to be able to have a conversation about the subject that was as honest and as beneficial as it could possibly be. Sometimes we need to acknowledge the ugly truth. I was so tired of hearing and using all the filters we have in our language. Rape is rape—it’s a cruel, horrifying, and disgusting act. The words we use to talk about it should shock us, should shake us up a bit. That’s the only way that I can see people taking the issue as seriously as it needs to be taken.
From the very first speech I did after deciding to come forward, I had in my mind the idea of killing the silence. I knew that was a violent word, but it best described what I wanted to do. Ending it wasn’t enough. It was going to take something more drastic than that, something that had more finality then merely ending. We had to be more active than passive. I also knew the word “killing” might trouble some people, but that was okay. Some people needed to have their attention grabbed, to see that this was so serious to me that merely tapping someone politely on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, but have you ever thought about the effects that sexual crimes have on this society?” wasn’t going to be enough. We’d tried subtlety and indirection. There was nothing subtle about rape.
For that reason, I continued to press Luis Zuniga throughout the remainder of our conversation. That started with getting him to look at me. His translator was his link to me, but he wasn’t me. At several points I asked Luis to look at me, and each time he did. I finally wore him down enough that he was no longer looking at the translator when I was speaking. When I felt like his answers weren’t as direct as I wanted, I’d ask him again, stressing that he needed to be honest with me. He squirmed a few times with impatience and frustration. I didn’t need an interpreter to help me discern what his sighs, slight head shakes, and eye rolling meant.
Each time I asked him what he had done to me, a look of confusion took over his face. He’d glance at the interpreter, but I suspected he knew what I was getting at by asking him what seemed obvious. It was really important to me that he use the word “rape,” that he acknowledge that he did something more specific than harm me or hurt me. He hadn’t backed his car over my bicycle and damaged it. Finally, he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, and then rested them facing upward as if offering a prayer and said, “When we,” his hands twitched and he sighed, “when I raped you.” I didn’t need to hear the end of the sentence. I’d gotten the acknowledgment I’d come for.
I didn’t want to rub Luis’s nose in his crime, but I did want him to fully acknowledge what the starting point of his change was—he was a convicted rapist.
I also saw more clearly that what I wanted out of this mediation conference was a way to make clear to me, and later make clear to others, that it wasn’t enough for Luis to be in a place where he wouldn’t be able or willing to harm others. That’s important, absolutely, but for me that wasn’t enough. I was after that next step, like not just winning a race but setting your own personal record.
We need to not stop hurting one another, but also to start, and to continue, helping other people. That began with helping ourselves and knowing ourselves better, but it couldn’t end there, not for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I Am Monika Kørra
Meeting with Luis Zuniga was just one part of the larger direction I wanted my life to take. Seeing him made me realize how difficult the issue was, but it also made me determined to become more active in the sexual assault survivor community, to help kill silence by speaking out about my experiences and getting involved with efforts to help others heal. I can’t say I enjoyed meeting Luis Zuniga face-to-face, but I’d gotten through it and felt strong as a result. I understood more that I could take on this mission. After all, since my decision to go public, I’d been pleased that people had contacted me and I felt like I’d been helpful.
However, that felt like a passive approach—I was relying on them to come to me and not actively doing anything myself. I’d discussed this with Anette, and later with Nick. Just as was true throughout my experiences, I found myself a part of another team, with many people providing me with valuable resources. Nick was particularly helpful. He wasn’t one to let an idea languish in the incubation stage for very long. If you wanted to do something, then you got started doing it immediately.
He—and his family—helped me realize that I could make my desire to help a more formal proposition by creating a foundation. I once again found myself requiring help in navigating the American legal system. I had no idea what was involved in creating a not-for-profit foundation. I knew that I couldn’t just start asking people for money to establish some program, but finding out what I’d have to do to make sure the foundation was operating within the laws and guidelines was something I’d need help with.
Through Nick, I met a lawyer by the name of Pieter Tredoux. He let me know that in order for the Monika Kørra Foundation to become a formal 501(c)(3) nonprofit, I was going to need three things—time, money, and expertise. He was willing to provide me with his time and expertise and wouldn’t charge me for his efforts. Another lawyer, John A. Bonnet, eventually also volunteered his time and legal training, and he ultimately became one of our board members.
Before we could get that tax-exempt status, we had to demonstrate that we were doing things within the community to realize our mission. As a result, with the help of Kelly and others, I got put in touch with Courtney Underwood. Like me, Courtney had graduated from SMU; she was also a rape victim, in her case, at age fifteen, more than a decade before I met her. Courtney became active in rape awareness after taking years to reveal even to her family what had happened to her. The year I was sexually assaulted, 2009, she was already active in trying to overcome a problem that I didn’t even realize existed. In Dallas County at that time, Parkland Hospital was the only hospital in the entire city that kept on hand rape kits—the means to collect evidence admissible in court. That meant that if a raped individual went to another hospital for treatment, he or she would then have to go to Parkland in order to be examined again and have the “official” rape kit used. I had been taken directly to that hospital because the police who found me that night knew to do so, but I don’t know if I would have had the strength or the patience to travel to another hospital, do all that waiting, fill out all that paperwork, and endure another round of questions and physical handling. But evidence collected anywhere other than Parkland couldn’t be used at trial. Courtney was trying to right that wrong. She didn’t believe that there should be any more obstacles placed in the path of a rape victim that might prevent him or her from reporting the crime and getting the perpetrator arrested and convicted.
By the time I met her in 2011, she’d managed to get one additional hospital, Presbyterian, certified as a rape kit exam center. She created a program called SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner), which trains nurses to do the exams of sexual assault victims. That was part of a $2 million grant Courtney was instrumental in securing to upgrade Presbyterian’s treatment
programs for sexually assaulted individuals. I was amazed at what she was doing and how committed she was. She was invaluable in educating me about the various issues surrounding sexual assault. I knew that in some ways my goals were more modest than hers. I wanted to end the silence that victims endured. I wanted to share my story in hopes that others would be more willing and able to come forward to share their experiences and to report the crime to the proper authorities.
Maybe this was a way in which my obsession with times and numbers was a good thing. I wanted to reduce these two horrifying statistics: Nationally, 60 percent of rapes go unreported; 97 percent of rapists never spend a day in jail. I was both troubled and grateful to learn those two facts. I knew how lucky I was that the men who’d assaulted me were arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated, but I didn’t realize until later just how rare that was. Initially, my main focus was on getting out and doing public speaking engagements. That seemed a modest and attainable goal. I remembered how moved I was by the Take Back the Night presentation I attended, and I hoped that I could have an impact on people by sharing my story in the same way. I knew that the problem on college campuses was likely as bad as, if not worse than, it was outside them. I knew that I could relate well to women my age and younger, and that was my original focus.
Developing a mission statement, creating a website, the mechanics of creating a presence and a vision, took a lot of time and effort. We eventually settled on this as our statement: “Our mission is to kill the silence surrounding rape and abuse in society and to assist survivors and others impacted by any kind of violence, loss, or other traumatic event in the prevention of prolonged suffering and potential disorders, and in completely healing, through education, exercise, and other tools.” What was easiest was selecting a board of directors to serve with me. I’d first shared the idea of formally doing something to help others with Anette, and she’d been an enthusiastic supporter from the beginning. She was also a dedicated teacher of children and had done volunteer work with HIV/AIDS patients in South Africa through AIDS Heaven, along with other volunteer work with the Red Cross and Adults for Children. She is currently writing her master’s thesis on trauma, lingering physical symptoms, and recovery. Her husband, Jonas, was also trained as a teacher, and when I was at home, one of the things I loved to do was to go to his family’s farm. There, he and his parents and siblings hosted children who had been taken in by Child Protective Services in Norway. Seeing those kids whose troubled lives had them at risk come alive and enjoy themselves on the farm was always a highlight of my visits home. Anette and Jonas were very dedicated to being of service, and the three of us would make a great team.
We got under way working under the umbrella of the Communities Foundation of Dallas. By being associated with them, we could continue our work toward getting our tax-exempt status and enjoy utilizing some of the resources they provided. The logistics of launching the foundation were much more complicated than I’d expected, and it took a long time before we were able to actually get started with any of the work I was hoping we could do. I was using my newfound powers to take it slow, to be patient, and to let the systems do their work, but I was still eager to hit the ground running and do all kinds of innovative and exciting things to help raise awareness. I was anxious to get started, but Nick kept reminding me that we were taking all the right steps, and that in due time we’d see a big payoff.
—
AS TIME HAS passed and the Monika Kørra Foundation has allowed me to spread this message of hope, healing, and accountability, I’ve managed to do what it took me many years of running and training, succeeding and failing, to accomplish. I’m not obsessed with my mission to kill the silence and to speak out to help others. It fits into the larger context of my life. When I speak, I try to set an example for the people in the room, whether they are other survivors or not. I make it clear that yes, I was raped, but I’m not a victim of rape. It doesn’t define me. It’s just another fact about my life, along with other facts, like that I’m blond. I’m also blue-eyed and a lifelong athlete. I’m Norwegian. I’m optimistic and I’m driven. I continue to run. I’ve dated other men. I’ve become an aunt. I’ve found a new direction in which to utilize my education as a yoga instructor, and I coach young athletes in running and skiing, and make public speaking appearances raising awareness about sexual violence.
I want to give others, especially young people, the shield I was given by being an athlete growing up. It gives you a kind of defense to help you meet head-on the challenges being sent your way in life. Physical and mental well-being and toughness can take you through the greatest challenges—and these are gained, learned, through sports. I’ve realized that sports provided a balance, a harmony, flexibility, breathing techniques, and a consciousness of my body, a heightened awareness of self—and that these tools were very powerful in my recovery. They helped me find the strength to survive those awful early days, to push through the difficult months, and then to find the words to fight for the changes that I want to see in the world.
For a long time, I worked to reject the notion that I was raped and tried to put the experience behind me. That wouldn’t have killed the silence. In order to best do that, I had to integrate that part of my reality into a whole outlook on life and a completeness of being that had for so long escaped me.
A few months after I first spoke out, I was back in Dallas at the grocery store, the same one where I’d struggled with the idea of a clerk being so friendly and offering to help me out with my groceries. That notion had seemed so foreign to me when I first came to the U.S. Now, as I stood in the produce aisle, standing on tiptoes to reach to the top of a mountain of avocados, I saw a hand extend beyond mine.
“Is this the one?” a voice behind me said, offering an avocado to me.
I turned to thank the woman. I could tell by the bracelets that ringed the arm that it was a woman’s hand that offered up the fruit to me.
“I have a hard time telling which ones are ripe.”
“Me, too.” She smiled, and then her brows narrowed.
“You’re Monika Kørra, aren’t you? You run for SMU?”
I nodded and said, “Yes. I’m Monika.”
She took a step back and said, “I just have to let you know how appreciative I am of what you’ve done for women, for people really. Your speaking out is going to make a huge difference for lots of people. Thank you, Monika.”
With that she shook my hand and walked back to her cart. “You take care,” she said.
“You, too.”
I stood there smiling. I had no idea if the avocado I held in my hand was any good, but I was certain of one fact. I was Monika Kørra, and more and more people were going to learn that same, simple, but incredibly gratifying truth about me.
Afterword
November 2013, Løten, Norway
“Leave it be,” my mother said. “It will catch again on its own.”
I smiled and watched the sparks and fragrant smoke climb into the night sky. My father took his stick and poked at the small blaze in the fire pit, trying his best to return it to its roaring state.
“I’m doing it for the little one.” He poked the glowing end of the stick toward me. “She’s no longer used to such cold.”
I lifted my chin and nose out of the collar of my jacket and shook my head. “That’s not true.” I paused for a second and looked over at Anette and Jonas, who both playfully sneered at me. Anette was ready to give birth any day, and I had to smile as her tongue protruded from her full and flush face. I had heard people say that pregnant women have their own kind of beauty, and I had to agree it was true.
I sat up straighter. “But I do appreciate your efforts, Papa.”
I inched my chair closer to the fire.
“Is that better? Are you happy now?” he asked.
Was I happy? I thought about my father’s question. In Norway we use an expression that I think best explains what that means to a Norwegian. The single word is “Hv
erdagslykke,” but it conveys more than you might imagine.
It means “everyday happiness.” In Norway that is the way we live; we are very good at being in the moment and seeing what we’re doing on a daily basis as the truest form of happiness. We know how to enjoy and appreciate the little things in life—which truly are the big things. We don’t always search for more. We take great pleasure in having a calm mind, in focusing on the beauty of the life we have, the people we love, and the environment surrounding us.
Of course, I can’t say that everyone here is at peace, but generally people are happy—even though they’re not millionaires or business owners. I think life is challenging in that way; it is easy to lose track of what’s most important; it’s easy to always want more. We talk about doing something to our heart’s content, and our hearts can be content, but our minds, our minds, well, that’s where we get into trouble. Sometimes it is best to keep things simple.
That’s not always possible, and my dad’s question wasn’t just about the fire or about the rape; it was more complicated than that. Only months before, I was still living in Dallas, racing to launch my foundation and to obtain tax-exempt status, hustling to hold fundraisers, and racing between speaking engagements, all good things and all in an effort to be successful at my latest passion: spreading the word about rape and hoping to kill the silence. Yet, it was not enough. I was not happy. Truth was, I was lonely but was too busy to realize it. Kristine had been in Dallas for one year after graduating, but now she was gone. Silje? Gone. The rest of my teammates and friends? Gone and involved in their own lives and their own careers.
