Annual walk brings painful memories for Lynn woman

LYNN – For most the month of May serves as the harbinger to summer but for Betty Cooper it is also serves as a reminder, not that she needs one, that her daughter is dead.”It’s time for the HAWC Walk,” Cooper said Wednesday from her Eutaw Street home. “This will be my 10th year I think.”The annual 5K walk sponsored by Healing Abuse Working for Change (HAWC) is aimed at, among other things, raising awareness in regards to domestic violence. Cooper walks in honor of her daughter, Cheryl Senn.Senn died in Lynn, July 30, 1997 after her husband of 14 years and the father of her four young sons stabbed her 29 times. Cooper said the man was jealous because Senn, forever 29, had gone back to school, taking classes at Operation Bootstrap, an adult education center, with an eye on becoming a real estate agent.They say time heals all wounds but Cooper said the walk never gets any easier for her.”I’m still in therapy twice a week,” she said.The walk is five kilometers but Cooper admits she probably won’t make it much past one.”I have a hard time,” she said. “I feel like he’s stabbing me with every step.”While she may not walk far, Cooper said she still feels compelled to be there. HAWC provides support for individuals who experience domestic violence. It has a staff of 22 and about 50 steady volunteers who serve 23 cities and towns from Saugus to Cape Ann.Its mission is two-fold: to support the healing process of abuse and to change social norms and behaviors that perpetuate such violence.Cooper said no matter how tough it is for her she knows it is where she belongs and she is not alone. Her daughter’s spirit and sometimes her grandsons join her, Cooper said. The boys are now men, each far into their 20’s but Cooper said, like her, they still grieve for their mother. She is proud of how they have overcome a tragic childhood and turned into what she called well-mannered adults.It is those boys and her four other children along with her faith that help her to continue on, she said.”It’s still hard ? I just don’t want it to happen to anyone else,” she said.The HAWC Walk steps off May 4 at 12 p.m. from the Salem Common. Registration opens at 10:30 a.m. For more information or to register or pledge go to hawcdv.org/events/event/walk-for-hawc-2014/.