This post is painfully authentic. It’s an unvarnished look at how this bereaved mother feels since justice was once again denied my children. It’s peripherally about my faith, but blatantly reveals my humanity. So, if you can’t handle the truth and the inability to fix the unfixable, it’s best if you walk away right now. Otherwise, pull up a chair and virtually hold my hand as I walk you through the hard stuff.
It’s been a bit of a crappy week. For every minute that my mind has not been fully engaged in fiction or shut down by sleep it has cycled and recycled through the events that took place in the courtroom Monday.
There have been moments when I’ve felt like a heavy weight has been lifted from me. I can finally completely turn away from the man-child who killed my daughters. Every obligation I had has been satisfied. (I should clarify that I don’t refer to Troy Robins as a man-child to speak of him in a derogatory fashion but rather as an acknowledgement of who I see him to be). A grown adult who has not put away childish thinking and behavior. I can’t even hate him; instead I pity him. Regardless, I really don’t want to talk about him. I like to think he’s beneath my consideration. I know that’s not very Christ like, but I don’t feel terribly charitable towards him. If I wanted heaping hot coals to take up residence on his head, I’d pray for him. I can barely pray for myself – for David and Gracen. So praying for him, my enemy in the eyes of many, is not something I invest my time in.
I didn’t get much of an opportunity to enjoy the freedom that resulted when my obligation for the safety of others was satisfied. No, it took no time at all for the fury over the complete lack of justice to rear its ugly head. I keep swallowing the rage because there is no satisfying or acceptable way to vent it. Voicing it and writing about it are the best I can do but neither dissipates the feelings. So I expend what energy I have left vacillating between the shocking feelings of absolute horror and doing my best to exercise self-control to contain the rage.
But worst of all is the self-condemnation I feel for not trying to speak up in court. The rage I’ve felt has always been directed toward others but it is so much harder to know I forfeited the very last opportunity to see justice served by failing to speak up. I feel as if I fumbled the ball a step from the end zone.
After taking so many steps to see that justice would finally be served why didn’t I stand up and ask if I could address the court? The worst that could have happened is the denial of my request. So now, I am as enraged at myself as I’ve been at all the others.
Today, I really need a heavy duty helmet because I just want to beat my head against a wall.
Repeatedly.
Unendingly.
Again and again and again.
I fear that I will torture myself with that one failure forevermore.
This is pure torment.
Satan got the victory again and I handed it to him.
That kills me!
Please just shoot me now!
A good friend commented yesterday that she couldn’t imagine what that drive home after court was like for me. I fought tears for much of the ride and especially when I passed the accident site where two crosses stand defiantly proclaiming that Bethany and Katie’s lives were valuable, not disposable, as the courts have implied by their failure to uphold the law. As I drove by those crosses Monday morning I was assualted by the fierce longing to no longer be a part of this world – again. Believe me I’ve been there before.
I’m not suicidal, but there is this very, very common feeling that is rarely spoken of even in the loss community. Many among us long for death. It is an allconsuming desperate desire to escape, to just stop everything. To fall asleep and never wake up again. Suicide by neglect, if you will. There’s no desire to eat, to sleep, to shower or even crawl out of your bed ever again.
In the movie Forrest Gump, Jenny prayed that God would allow her to fly away from her abusive father. And after Jenny’s death Forrest laced up his sneakers and just started running. Both characters displayed a desperate desire to escape the reality of their lives. Neither had a specific destination in mind – they just wanted to be anywhere other than the place they were currently at. I know that feeling in various forms from itching restlessness to deep, dark, unfathomable emptiness. Monday, on that drive home, I revisited that deep, dark, place where I have already spent far too much time in the last three plus years. And later in the week that itching restlessness reappeared driven by the unforgivable dropping of the ball.
I have brand new forgiveness issues to confront. With the Judge who cavalierly suggested dismissing the charge. To the prosecutor for failing to respond to either of the two emails I sent asking what I could expect in court so that I could avoid being blindsided by the unexpected. And of course, the person who made the final decision to dismiss the charge.
I could simply bow my head in obedience and by route request forgiveness for the parts each individual played in this miscarriage of justice but I know it’s not really that simple. All of scripture tells me that God is more interested in the motivations of my heart than obedience. Every parent knows that defiant obedience cultivates resentment. I’m going to need supernatural help to allow me to grant forgiveness from a heart that pleases the Lord and oh, how I wish I did not have to retrace those steps.
But far more difficult than forgiving those who contributed to this miscarriage of justice, is the ability to forgive myself for dropping the ball just short of the goal line. All that effort, all the hours spent over the last three years, lost in one single moment in time.
There will be no wings to help me fly away from that reality. No road long enough to flee from my own failure. And there’s not enough chocolate in the world to sustain a sugar induced coma that will grant me escape from the fact that I could have asked one simple question that might or might not have made a difference. Just the chance that one question might have mattered – I can’t get over that. It’s a steel reinforced cage of self-condemnation because it doesn’t really matter if God, Himself doesn’t condemn me. I am too disappointed with myself for failing in the one thing that I could still do for my girls – for my immediate family.
I’m not sure there is enough supernatural power in the world to grant me peace for this one misstep not because God isn’t powerful enough but because I don’t think I really want to forgive myself. This thing feels like the unpardonable sin of motherhood. I miss my girls but now I feel utterly unworthy of them. And no number of comments to the contrary will allay my guilt. So, yeah, I pretty much meant it when I said just shoot me now. If not for Gracen . . . well, let’s not go there.
Boxx Banter 