A wonderful family member died around four in the morning on New Years day. My father-in-law's nephew's eighteen year old daughter was shot by another college student, presumably on accident, as a party was winding down. My cousin, her daughter, they both were the happiest of people, able to lift a room up just by showing up. They are the type of people that always have a great story, a fun life-loving approach to the world, people that you want to be around and have in your life. The thought that this has happened, that such a bright, energetic, fun person is gone, that she won't get to add any more to this world is horrible.
I won't go into any details here, it's not the place for stuff like that. If I get around to telling, I'll come to you personally and tell you.
I have all these thoughts in my head, like how will the judge actually sentence this guy, the killer. I wonder how the town will react to everything as they hear and learn about it. I wonder if people will use the situation for political reasons. I wonder what my own views about gun laws and stuff like that will change. How does the saying go? Something like "it's always different until it happens to you"? I'm missing the actual wording of the saying, but it gets close to how I'm feeling right now.
This isn't the first time I've lost a family member. I've lived through one of my grandparents dying to old age and Alzheimer's and my mother having to travel across the whole country and Canada to take care of things. I've had to live with my wife losing her grandmother just a day after New Years to cancer. I had to live with a close friend in my high school band dying in a traffic accident.
But this, someone dying to another person's hands, this is new to me. I see so many people come together because of this, all of us heartbroken, some of the people that were actually there unable to speak because they are so distraught that all they can do is cry when they came to visit the family, and it tears me up. She had a big impact on a lot of people's lives, and that won't ever happen again. Ever.
And then I think about how I would feel if that were my mother, father, my wife's parents, any of my brothers and their families.
My wife.
I have to force my brain to think of anything else, do anything else, because if I let that thought stay, I break down. And it's just a thought. I can't handle the thought of this happening.
But my cousin, his wife, his two other kids, both boys, they have to deal with this right now. This impossible thing. It isn't a thought. It's now their lives. They have to deal with this unimaginable pain. There isn't any way we can take this pain away. It stays, it washes over all of us, them most of all, in ways we never thought could happen.
This changes lives.
Forever.
That's something that I hate most of all. Will my cousin no longer be the wonderful, happy, life loving man he always has been? Will I ever be able to joke around with them? Or will we just see each other and know that the brightest of us isn't around anymore?
And this is just my side of things. The kid that shot her, his family, they have their own level of pain and suffering to deal with. To know for the rest of your life that you took something that can never be replaced out of this world, how does that change a person? To know you've caused so much pain and suffering in the world for so many people, how does that eat away at you from the inside, out?
I don't know what else to say or do, so I'm just going to stop here.
No comments:
Post a Comment