HomeTown Tragedy

WARNING: This is a no-edit zone...

Yesterday, a man was murdered.

He was a deputy sheriff--the first from our town to be shot and killed while on duty.

A man, it appears, had been placed in a mental facility for involuntary evaluation. He escaped. How? I’m not sure, and I’ll leave that to those who are to respond to; I’m trying my best to resist the natural inclination of wanting someone to blame.

After killing the deputy, the shooter was shot and killed. But the deputy, who left his wife and two young daughters yesterday morning to go to work, just as he’d done so many other mornings, is still dead. And it’s on him and his family that my thoughts are focused.

It’s a senseless tragedy. Like so many. Senseless, tragic, yet very real people suffer the consequences. In this case, harsh ones. Unearned ones. Life-altering ones.

This deputy was young--only thirty-three. His wife, also young, is now a widow. Their two daughters face an entire lifetime without their father.

I can’t help but to think back through my life at the profound impact my father had on me, on shaping my thoughts and opinions and values. How often we shared long, powerful conversations on every topic under the sun. We talked life, death and universe. We talked people, and understanding them. We talked challenges and overcoming them. We talked and talked and talked.

He led by example. He loved many things and through our chats, I came to know what he did and did not tolerate and why. What he respected and admired, and what he considered callous and cruel. I learned about forgiveness and compassion, looking outward and within. He greatly influenced my view of the world, my view of myself and those around me. As I write this, I experience again that special bond between father and daughter that is too complex to be described with mere words.

And I think of his girls and the bond they won’t have the opportunity to develop with their father. Of this young mother, who now will have to assume all roles for herself and her young children. Every responsibility she now faces on her own. I think of the challenges and joys she won’t share with the one mortal man who most loved her, who loved those children as much as she does. The special moments they won’t share. The life that they were building is gone, forever, and neither she nor her girls nor this man can ever get it back.

I think of them and this senseless tragedy and I weep.

He was a Christian; his eternal future is free from trials and tribulations and pain. There’s solace in that. Though I’m sure as certain given a choice he would have waited to live his eternal life and first lived this mortal one with his family.

His family. In so much pain. Grief is merciless, mourning so indescribably horrific.

Though many surely try and would if they could, no mere mortal can ease that kind of suffering. The best any of us can do is to do what we can to look after his family, and to seek higher authority on their behalf, turning to He who can comfort and heal their shattered lives and broken hearts.

Today, I pray for them, for that comfort and healing, and for peace that I know right now seems so far away. Oh, to be able to grasp it and give it to them! I can’t, but I’m so thankful I know He can, and that as surely as I am, He holds them in the palm of His hand.

And then there is the shooter’s poor family. More pain and suffering. More tumultuous emotions ripping them apart. They too are hurting, regretting, grieving. They too need comfort and healing, and I’m grateful to know that they too are in His hands.

If you’re of a mind to pray, please remember these folks.

Blessings,

Vicki

Tags:author, novelist, writer, books, tragedy, murder, orphan, widow, officer, cop, police

THE STRUGGLE

Sometimes I wish I weren’t on this spiritual journey. I wish I could just react emotionally to things going on around me and not seek a deeper understanding of those events, a more compassionate and a grander scope than being a simple human being allows me.

Today is one of those days, and that wish came as the result of something that had nothing to do with me but with a broadcast on the news.

It appears that a couple was locked in a fierce and bitter custody battle for their children. The father, who suffers a bipolar disorder, wanted the kids. The mother sought a protective custody order preventing the children’s visitation with the father--not because of his disorder but because he’d been involuntary committed, had talked of attempting suicide and made threats against the wife of “hurting” her in a way that would hurt her most.

I’m paraphrasing here, but that’s the upshot. A judge denied the request, and the father was allowed visitation--not controlled or supervised visitation, just visitation--and so what happens? The father drowns the kids in the bathtub. That ends the custody dispute decisively, now doesn’t it?

The mother depended on the justice system, and it failed her.
The children depended on the justice system and the mother, and both failed her. The father, of course, failed them in the worst imaginable way.
The father . . .well, who knows what was on his mind, but something failed or he wouldn’t have committed multiple murders.

What I expect will happen now is the father will plead insanity for the children’s murders--and likely will spend the rest of his days in a mental hospital, where he might or might not belong. I say this because I have a dear friend who is bipolar and never in a million years would he harm a flea, much less someone he loves. He’d be more apt to suffer himself than to harm anyone else--and that includes simply hurting someone else’s feelings.

The father, in this case, wanted to hurt the mother in a way that hurt her most--and he has.
The mother in me is appalled at the father and with the judge. If that judge wanted to grant the dad visitation rights, fine. But for heaven’s sake require them to be supervised, controlled. It isn’t just a matter of the father’s rights. There’s an obligation to protect the children, and granting unsupervised visitation with someone known to be unstable just doesn’t make sense to me. Custody isn’t about the parents; it’s about the kids--or it was...

I imagine the mother, and my heart bleeds for her. She tried to do things legally, to follow the law and protect her kids. It didn’t, she didn’t, and I expect she’ll feel she failed them for the rest of her life. She’ll be full of self-recrimination, guilt, asking herself over and over why she hadn’t just ignored the judge and fled with her kids. She’d have been a fugitive, but her kids would be alive. On the run, but they’d be living and breathing. Considering what’s happened, how could she not feel that way? And isn’t this a wicked burden she’ll carry now? An unfair and wicked burden...

I imagine the father, and I wonder if his talk of suicide was genuine or stage setting--so that when he did what would most hurt his wife in this bitter battle, he would get a mental hospital and not the needle. I wonder if the behavior that had him involuntarily committed was genuine or if it too was part of a premeditated plan. Heaven knows there are people so twisted and evil that they would do these things--and have done them for reasons such as this. Not because they wanted the kids. Because they wanted their way. Because they wanted to win the bitter battle. Is that the case in this situation? I have no idea. But I do wonder.

Bipolar disorder is wicked. It can cause horrific complications and requires close medical monitoring. Was it a factor in this situation? I don’t know.

What I do know is that the kids are dead. That can’t be undone. The mother is devastated and desolate, no doubt inconsolable and her trust in the justice system has to be shattered. What of her faith? Is it shattered, too? If it is, then what will sustain her? How in the world will she ever survive this tragedy without faith?

And the judge. On hearing that the father killed the kids... I expect the judge will be haunted by the decision made the rest of his days. Haunted in ways we can only imagine. What of his faith? In himself, in his system, in God? What is the impact on those fronts? How will he live with what’s happened?

The father. After the fact, what is he thinking? Is he filled with remorse, regret, or feeling vindicated and justified? Is he mourning or celebrating? He won. God help him.

For all those involved, I expect it’s a time that will try their souls--and those of many others. Grandparents and parents--of the husband and wife--grandparents and aunts and uncles of the children. Those in their extended families, those involved in any way on any level, neighbors, friends, associates--rippling all the way through society to you and me.

Many react with a terse, “String him up. He killed the kids. Give him the needle and call it done.”

But when you’re a person of faith, nothing is that simple. There are other considerations--some we know about and many we don’t. Many are outside our scope of grasping and understanding.

Maybe that’s why God reserves the right to vengeance for Himself. Because only He knows every detail of every situation. Only He knows the truth that hides in a man’s heart.

There’s a part of me that wants that murdering father to pay dearly. His life ended seems too simple and easy; let him live, it says. Let him reap the full harvest of what he’s sown.

But there the part of me that says, you’re judging. That’s a cry for vengeance. And it’s not your call to make. There’s a part of me that says, the promise is the scales will be balanced. Debts owed will be paid. Tit for tat.

That part of me wonders how--for the kids. But then I remember my limited perspective, and God’s unlimited reach. I confess, I find comfort in that. I pray their mother will, too.

And whatever justice proves to be in this case, I’m glad to know that God is handling it. Because by my reaction to it, I’m not far enough along on my personal spiritual journey to decide spiritually without the human being in me exerting its opinion on the matter.

That human part of me is really struggling with this one because nothing will bring the kids back. The littlest of all are the biggest victims. And I’m human enough to confess that I can’t see a place of justice for them in this.

I’m sure it’s there. I’m sure God clearly sees it--and I have faith that He’s going to handle it.

But I have to say I’d like to see it.

And because that’s so, I guess I still have a long way to go on this path to perfection.

Blessings,

Vicki




Tags: justice, murder, custody, divorce, protection, child protection, character, spirituality, religion

In Memory