barbtries
barbtries's JournalI know a lot of DUers despise twitter,
but it is so good today, I have laughed and laughed. Comedy gold does not get old. I never knew how many songs were out there just waiting for the hashtag #hawlinass
but first, this:
https://twitter.com/cwg18/status/1550480945035329538
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1550296699578482689
https://twitter.com/crustyruffles/status/1550306483233062917
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1550295285246660609
https://twitter.com/The_Mal_Gallery/status/1550297512506003456
https://twitter.com/The_Mal_Gallery/status/1550292500035895298
many more.
Another year, another milestone.
I posted one year ago today about the 20th anniversary of my daughter Bekah's death. It's come around again. 21 years ago today. Her world came to a crashing halt and her loved ones have been picking up the pieces ever since. This year is a hard anniversary. In another 13 days we will have been without her as long as we had her. I've been trying to work out with my counselor why this is so difficult for me.
It has to do with the enduring nature of grief, and I believe, the complicated nature of the grief associated with the loss of a child, further complicated by the violent nature of the loss and the denial of justice for her death.
Part of what complicates this grief is that I have to grieve not only for myself, but for my girl. She should be alive. I try to live FOR her, but I am mad FOR her too. There's no stopping the speculation on what her life would be today, if it hadn't been wiped out in a split second 21 years ago today. Children, a career...she was on the precipice of fulfilling all that her adult life promised.
And I miss her, so so much.
So yesterday my counselor asked me if I was a Marvel fan (I'm not), but then he quoted a line from one of the movies: "What is grief, if not love persevering?" I like that. Heaven knows I will never stop loving Bekah, so I suppose it does make sense that I will never stop grieving her loss. I just need to accept I guess, that July will never, ever be the same.
https://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/hit-and-run-suspect-captured/
I'm watching a hearing for Cruz the Parkland shooter.
They're examining a doctor and going through his social media, web searches etc. This guy had hate for everyone and everything, especially Black people. He was interested in child porn. His defense has him sitting there in a checkered shirt and sweater vest looking like an All American kid.
You really have to wonder how the guns get into the hands of people who are screaming out warnings. I'm reading today that the Highland Park shooter had threatened to kill his own family a few years ago, then his father helped him acquire the weapons that he used to commit mass murder. WTF
This witness did a review and came up with a shitload of personality and other disorders in Cruz. However he is/was not psychotic though he tried to make up an imaginary bad guy who told him to commit his bad acts. Nothing according to this doctor would indicate that a mental health defense would be effective. He knew what he was doing. He's an All American kid I guess. A murderous maladjusted hater.
These people have always been among us. It's only in the past, i don't know, 20 years or so? that the gun lobby in concert with republicans and the NRA have given them the ability to commit mass murder. Our country is really sick. It's like among developed countries, we are that kid.
It's already starting.
It's July. On 06Jul1980, my beautiful daughter was born. On 19Jul2001, she was killed. This is the year when I will have been without her as long as I had her, and it's turning me into a blubbering pile of goo.
I had counseling today and cried and cried. My counselor told me about a memorial garden in Raleigh and I arranged for a brick to be placed in her name. Cried and cried to the advocate I spoke to. She was great.
July has never been a good month for me mentally and psychologically since Bekah died. It consumes too much of my thoughts and overtakes my feelings. I guess I would say it's just the murder month and it always will be. No matter how strongly I believe that Bekah is with me and that I will see her when I die. No matter how much time has passed since the crime.
We go back to the beginning of the grief, and I must do now what I worked so, so hard to do then: lean into it. Here's a poem I wrote then, it's maybe my favorite of all the many poems I wrote then.
today’s paean to why
There's like a why ocean,
from which waves of why
either tease or soak
my grief-addled mind.
During why's high tide,
nearly drowned in why,
The world abounds with why
All I hear is the sound of why
If it tells me it will have to kill me
When why recedes it is still a mystery
Still cannot know it
while I must respect its immense power over me
Riptides of why swamp me regularly
when I'm rolled crazily around in why,
Powerless to dive away from why
Useless to try dominating why.
On the island why I stop to see
How perseverance can still abide in me
On the mainland why I walk the beach
Hope defying why, the why of life
Is easy to see
By my side or inside of me,
Your spirit your love accompanies
With the energy of a wave
that embodies a natural eternity.
https://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/hit-and-run-suspect-captured/
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: CA
Home country: USA
Current location: NC
Member since: Wed Aug 17, 2005, 02:29 AM
Number of posts: 28,787
