In The Aftermath of Murder

Maybe I’m a bit OCD, but I don’t like to have notifications lingering on my phone. So on Friday afternoon when I finally had a chance to look at my phone, I immediately opened Facebook to address the 12 notifications that were alerting me. After clearing the notifications, I absentmindedly began scrolling down my page. I liked a few pictures, skimmed past a few advertisements, and then stopped when I got to a post by my friend Sarah. Sarah had posted a tribute to her mother, whom I knew, and I was curious to know what occasion we were celebrating—a retirement, a major birthday, an award, something else? As I read the tribute and felt somewhat encouraged by the impact that an elementary music teacher and active church member and mom had made on the writer’s life, I suddenly found myself stunned into disbelief by the following words: “Mrs. Carol was murdered in her home last night.” For the next fifteen minutes, I sat in my elementary music classroom with my jaw dropped in shock.

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A few years ago, Sarah’s dad died suddenly from a heart attack. He was on his daily run when he crumpled onto the side walk and died. When I visited the house and funeral home in the days following that loss, the family was deeply saddened and shocked. But this?! Mrs. Carol hadn’t been sick, or didn’t have a major stroke or heart incident, and she hadn’t been in tragic accident—all of those things horrible in and of themselves. She had been murdered. Killed. On purpose. In her home. In the house where I had last seen her. In the house where I had spent countless hours in the early years of my adolescence before my family and I moved two hours away.

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My friendship with Sarah was actually a bi-product of my friendship with her older sister, Ellen. Ellen and I came to know each other through piano and band competitions, and we later spent a summer together at Summer Ventures in Math and Science and visited with one another a couple of times during college. I played my horn in Ellen’s wedding and visited her home in Charlotte after she had her first child. Over the years, as is too often the case with those we love, we lost touch, yet Ellen often comes to mind. She once wrote me a very silly song that I can still hear her singing: “Dee! I love you, Dee! I really do! I love you. De-ann-a!” When I look at those words and hear her voice, I can’t help but smile.

And Sarah. Well, Sarah, the younger sister who I imagine looked up to the older sister and her friends, once gave me a poem that endeared me to her forever: “To live you must be loved. To be loved you must love. To love you must know the Lord.” That poem hung in my room for years until it made it into a book of quotes that profoundly influenced my life. Sarah and I reconnected at her dad’s visitation. We have been friends on Facebook for the past four years. For whatever reason, her posts are ones that often come up on my newsfeed. I am glad. I like to see how she is changing the world.

I fell asleep thinking about Sarah and Ellen (and their brother Max) on both Friday and Saturday nights. I fell asleep trying to make sense of their mother’s horrific death. I fell asleep praying that unexplainable light surrounded her and somehow calmed her spirit and lifted her pain in the midst of unspeakable evil. I fell asleep knowing that every person who is senselessly murdered has a family left in the aftermath and I fell asleep with my heart breaking for their heartache and grief. I fell asleep angry yet full of love and prayers for peace.

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When I arrived at the visitation yesterday, I knew that I had nothing to say. What do you say? No amount of pastoral counseling or chaplaincy training prepares you for something like this. So I just hugged Sarah, and I held Ellen’s hand, and I stood in the family’s presence silently sending out light, love, strength, and peace as I watched grief finally settle upon the children after being strong for well over two hours of visitation.

Then I drove away sobbing. The dam that had been holding back the tears since that moment of disbelief on Friday afternoon had finally broken. And then I wrote. Haiku. Because I didn’t know—I don’t know—what else to do.

Two hours is nothing ~ The pain of this tragedy ~ Is overwhelming

I have no words. (Pause) ~ That’s okay. There are no words. ~ You have hugs and tears.

I don’t understand. ~ A life devoted to Love ~ Senselessly murdered

Assault on women. ~ Attack for sport. Turns him on. ~ Where did life go wrong?

Brother and sisters ~ Too soon without a mom. Gone. ~ Weeping arm in arm.

…….

Friends: Please keep Sarah, Ellen, Max and the rest of the family in your thoughts and prayers. Also pray for the neighbor who found Mrs. Carol’s body and everyone who will feel her absence so poignantly. Mrs. Carol was stabbed to death and her car stolen by a man who had broken parole and previously been convicted of assault on women. Pray whatever else you will, too. And then make it your commitment to Love in such a way that broken lives are transformed and healed. If Love is going to win, then we must make it so…We must follow in the footsteps of the One who has already made it so…