Every 15 Minutes, 2007

The following is the letter I wrote for Rachel's "memorial" when she asked us to participate in the Every 15 Minutes program the year she graduated, 2007. I remembered writing it, but I forgot what I wrote and where I put the letter after it was sent back to us by the director of the program in our area that year, April Hines. I found the letter recently as I was rummaging through a suitcase that contains many of my old papers and writings.

The event was heartrendingly real, emotionally speaking, even though we knew our daughter would be returned to us, safe and sound, at the end. We barely got through it, and were only willing because Rachel was passionate about participating. Jill and I had already been through so much: As a teenager, Jill had been hit by a drunk driver and her two best friends riding with her, Paige Roark and Theresa Motta, were killed; my best friend, Erik Kolar, died from Leukemia when I was 23 and my own sister, Vanessa Alexis Elliott, was killed in a non-alchohol related single-car accident while she was living with me and Jill and our children. Death and tragedy were already too real for us. The things you do for love...

Rachel ~

We are old enough to know the worst things can happen. We always hoped and prayed it would never happen to us. But here we are…

Because of the tragedies of the past, we always knew we needed to love you now. If we were taken from you suddenly, we didn’t want to leave you wondering how much we cherished you, how truly special and beautiful a young lady we knew you to be, how very proud we are of your accomplishments and your character. But, now, it is you who are gone, and we are left to wonder… Did you know? Did we make the most of those precious, fleeting moments God granted us to walk this earth with you?

Rachel, we have been so blessed to be your parents. You could not, and you will never know the joy you brought us, just being you, just being our little girl. 

We promise you we will not allow the bitterness of this senseless accident poison our memories of you. This will have to be God’s work. Your future was so bright in our eyes, and you were so ready for it. We don’t understand how anyone, drunk or sober, could deprive you of it. Once again, we will have to trust in the wisdom and goodness of God. His promise that everything works together for good and our conviction that you are in a better place are our only consolations now. With His help, that is enough.

We love you, Rachel. If only we could say it to your face.

Mom & Dad

Sand Sculptures

Jill and I spoke at a recent Every 15 Minutes program for Biggs High School. Well, really, Jill spoke, and I sat and tried to hold myself together.

The kids who participated in the program are the good kids. Good kids aren’t the problem. It was obvious we were preaching to the choir. 

Rachel was one of the good kids. She wouldn’t drink and drive, and she wouldn’t let her friends.

Still: she was killed by a drunk driver. 

I’ve been over it thousands of times in my mind. There was nothing Rachel could do to prevent it. She did all she could do. There was nothing I could do to save her. That night Rachel’s life was in Elva Diaz’ hands… Only Elva didn’t know it. I’m not really calloused enough to claim she wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have acted differently if she had known. Alcohol made her stupid and careless.

What message from Rachel’s story could we relay to a group of good kids that aren’t part of the problem? We have no assurances. We can make no promises. We were at a loss for words. 

You can prevent yourself from killing yourself or someone else by driving while intoxicated, which is sufficient reason. But there is nothing you can do to prevent a drunk driver from killing you. I’m not saying there aren’t things that can decrease the likelihood. You can stay off the road. You can stay home. But people have been killed in crosswalks, on the sidewalk, people have been killed by drunk drivers while they were sitting in their living rooms.

You can pray for protection. 

But we tried that too, and it didn’t work.

We could tell from their questions that most of the Biggs High School kids are Christians. We confessed to them our faith and our confusion, our anger and our sadness. They came up afterwards to console and encourage us. It was sweet and compassionate - a decent, human thing to do.

When Darryl Spessard shared the story of how the life of his precious daughter, Andrea, had been taken by a drunk driver with Rachel’s High School during the Every 15 Minutes event at Orland High School her Senior year, Rachel had reached out to him with compassion and sympathy. The very student that played the part that Rachel had played - the victim who dies at the hospital - came to comfort us as Rachel had done. 

Rachel was that exactly that kid. There he was, and Rachel was gone. I couldn’t help wonder what would happen to him...

We were asked what lessons we had learned. The assumption underlying the question is that there is some meaning, some greater purpose to Rachel’s death. 

What sprang to mind was Anne Lammott’s words from her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: “Any snappy explanation for suffering you come up with will be horseshit.” But that’s not what I said. 

I said something like, “I don’t want to leave the impression that everything that has emerged from Rachel’s death has been bad. We have learned some really important lessons, we have experienced some really good things, met some really wonderful people we may have not have otherwise. In many ways, we are better people than we might have been. But all these things have come at too terrible a price. We’d rather have Rachel.”

My answer was honest enough, I thought, but not too honest.

This I know: Life isn’t predictable or safe. Eventually, it will kill you.

I heard the mother of one of the victims killed by the bombing at the Boston Marathon say, “It’s such a waste.”

I know the feeling.

Since Rachel was killed I have been haunted by the fruitlessness of her life, the senselessness of her death - the tragedy, the waste of it. 

Her death was not only a waste of her life, but of mine. I don’t know if time is money - but it is life. I’m reading a book called, The Exquisite Risk, by Mark Nepo. He says, “...wealth is time, not money.” Time is the real, precious currency of our lives. 

I spent my time, my life loving Rachel, and now she is gone.

What do I have to show for it?

A sand sculpture erased by the tide. I kept the ocean to my back, forgot it was there. Perhaps I supposed this one so worthy and beautiful surely would be spared...

The question now with the tide coming in, is love a good investment?

I don’t like the way the way things turned out, but I’m still convinced time spent loving Rachel was not time wasted. I love her still. Grief is only love in distressing disguise.

I believe - and this is my belief - I’m not going to blow anyone up to prove its veracity: Time spent loving is life well spent. I believe love is never wasted.

The bargain of life and of love is death and loss. These are not unexpected contingencies. They do not and cannot present insurmountable obstacles to love. We do not cease to love because we know we will lose, anymore than we cease to live because we know we will die.

James Joyce said, “We have only this one short life in which to love.” 

The challenge of life is to find the courage to love in passing. To go, loving. To love and let go. There is no other way to love in this world. And no better way to spend whatever time we have left.

HOME ALONE - RABBIT HOLE

We are in the midst of the criminal trial. I can’t talk about that now, as much for discretion’s sake as because I am at a loss for words. We want to hear the truth and expect justice will inevitably result. But, somehow, it seems, the process is not that simple...

I want to step back a little. A few weeks. Jill was away for a few days, attending another of the many pre-trial hearings in southern California. I encouraged her to stay through the weekend with her father at the cabin in the mountains near Lake Arrowhead that he and his wife have recently remodeled. Janet, his wife, would be away for the weekend, visiting her daughters, and it would be an opportunity for the two of them to spend some time together. From the front deck of the cabin, they could watch mountain bluebirds flit among the branches of the pine trees that grow just out of reach and feed the tree-squirrels that come to beg for the peanuts kept handy for their frequent visits. Time with her Dad, a change of scenery, the beauty of the mountains and the fresh air - Time well spent is good for the soul.

So that left me home alone. What does a married man, whose children are grown or gone do under such circumstances? I don’t hunt or fish or bowl or play poker. I tried to catch up on some reading. I dared to attempt to write. I watched movies I thought Jill would appreciate missing. Jill is long-suffering in her tolerance of my film choices, but every saint has her limits.

I watched “Rabbit Hole”. The film is adapted from a play by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is about a couple, played by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhardt, who are grieving the death of their young son. Not exactly a feel-good movie. The disc had remained untouched for weeks in its Netflix envelope. I couldn’t find the right time to suggest to Jill that we watch it together. I knew that Mother’s Day wasn’t the right occasion...

The title of the film comes from a graphic novel that the young man who had the misfortune to unavoidably run over the little boy is creating. The premise of his graphic novel is that ours is only one of many possible articulations of the multiverse. Nicole Kidman’s character forges an unlikely friendship with the troubled young man, drawn to him out of the communion of their shared pain. She likes the beautiful idea that somewhere out there another version of herself is happy and her son is alive and well, though she doesn’t really believe it. It is another example of magical thinking. We all do it. Sometimes a little willing suspension of disbelief helps.

I was as inconsolable at times watching the film as the characters themselves. As painful as it was to watch - which is, no doubt, a testament to the authenticity of the writing and the skill of the actors - I found it to be ultimately encouraging. The bereaved parents do find a way to move tentatively and hopefully forward, individually and as a couple. We can’t imagine how they can possibly survive, and yet, somehow they manage. It forces us to marvel at the resilience of the human spirit and the power of love to persist in the face of seemingly overwhelming devastation.

The film is faithful to the real experience of grief. It doesn't exhaust the gamut of possible responses, but it does touch on the big issues and difficulties that grieving people deal with. It is honest enough not to offer cheap and unrealistic prescriptions.

There is no way to predict how the loss of a loved one will affect and reorder one's life and relationships. It is an emotional tsunami.

Those who have walked this road understand. We surprise and disappoint ourselves and others by our reactions and the often bewildering strategies we devise to survive. Some people get stuck. Some try to numb their pain with drugs or alcohol or sexual indulgence. Some withdraw and isolate themselves. Some look to find help in the company of those who have walked the road before them. Some surround themselves with mementos of their lost loved one's life, and some need to rid themselves of the unbearable reminders of what they have lost. Some couples are driven apart. Some become closer. Some embrace the comfort to be found in religious faith, others blame God.

In the film, Nicole Kidman’s character’s mother has also lost a child. The circumstances of the deaths are vastly disparate (one was a little boy hit by a car, the other a 30 year old man who overdosed). This is a source of some friction between the mother and daughter - but they learn to accept the fact that they do share the stark and inescapable fact of loss. I share a similar bond with my mother, though the circumstances of my sister’s and my daughter’s deaths are not so different: they both died in car wrecks when they were 18 years old.

The two women have a crucial and poignant exchange in the basement of the family home while they are storing the little boy’s belongings away to make it less complicated to sell the home:

Becca: "Does it ever go away? "

Nat: "No, I don't think it does. Not for me, it hasn't - has gone on for eleven years. But it changes though."

Becca: "How?"

Nat: "I don't know... the weight of it, I guess. At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you... you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is. 'Oh right, that...' Which could be awful - not all the time. It's kinda..."

[deep breath]

Nat: "not that you like it exactly, but it's what you've got instead of your son. So, you carry it around. And uh... it doesn't go away. Which is..."

Becca: "Which is what?"

Nat: "Fine, actually."

A year or so after Rachel was killed, Jill and I had dinner with a couple who had lost their own son in a motorcycle accident 10 years before. They were still alive. We couldn’t imagine ourselves in their place, 10 years down the road, without Rachel. We didn’t want to. In those days, our grief felt like a mountain had collapsed on us and we could not possibly dig ourselves out of the avalanche. If we could find the strength to dig, we didn’t even know which was was up. Our only hope, we thought, was rescue. We couldn’t help but ask the same question of our friends that Becca asked her mother: Does it get easier? Is there hope for us, down the road? Their answers were similar: “It never goes away. It does become more bearable. The emptiness you feel in Rachel’s absence is itself a presence that will never leave you. As improbable as that may sound to you now, it is strangely comforting.”

The End of the Road

Today is June 18, 2011. Tomorrow is Father’s Day. Jill and I started the day out right, in our hot-tub, drinking our morning coffee. Afterwards, we had a quiet breakfast, reading the news, and then began to tackle the endless list of chores and minor projects to be done around the house. As we do so often, we turned on the radio and listened to NPR as we worked: we listened to This American Life, and a locally produced acoustic music program called Harmony Ridge. Both shows were appropriately topical, featuring stories and music that revealed and celebrated Fatherhood. I often moved about the backyard in a blur of tears.

Last night I dreamt of the house we lived in when we brought Rachel home from the hospital. Everything was different in my dream, as it would be in real life if we had the opportunity and heart to revisit it. The house was vacant, and as we walked around trying to decide whether or not to replace the carpet, I told Jill that I hand’t realized how much I loved our lives there - I wished I had known well enough to cherish it.

I acknowledge that some of what I feel is nostalgia and not pure grief. Rachel, even if she had not been taken away from us by a drunk driver, would be on her own, living her own life, and not with us. But, in my defense (not that I need to defend myself), I did my best to let go of Rachel when the time came, though my heart was not really in it. Selfishly, I wanted to forbid her to move to southern California to pursue her dream of becoming a forensic scientist. Sometimes, I wish I had been a selfish, overbearing father and pressured and manipulated her into staying close to home. If I had, she would probably still be alive. Does that make it right? It’s difficult in cases like this to separate the intent from the outcome. I think I could live with being a lousy father. I find it hard to live without Rachel, though, somehow, I must.

There is a poem by Ellen Bass that I read a few months after Rachel was killed. It is called “After Our Daughter’s Wedding.” The title is enough to bring me to tears. It describes a mother sitting on a lakeshore after her daughter’s wedding reception, weeping. Her partner asks her, “Do you feel like you’ve given her away?” No, she explains in the rest of the poem, she is weeping from relief that her daughter has survived to see this day, in spite of everything that can and so often does happen. She compares the perils of childhood to that of baby sea-turtle hatchlings hobbling across the beach, exposed under the moonlight - an image that reminds me of a harrowing scene from “Suddenly Last Summer,” where the vision of baby turtles being devoured on the beach by hungry gulls displaces the memory of the violent death of a young woman’s cousin. That movie horrified me, and the image from Ellen Bass’s poem resonates with every parent. As parents, our most basic, instinctual imperative is for us to deliver our children safely into adulthood. Sweet life. Survival. Every year I empathize with the worried birds that guard the yard as their fledgling offspring fresh from the nest test their wings...

I think I could be happy knowing Rachel was “Somewhere Out There,” even if I was denied ever seeing her again. And, to be honest, sometimes I have to pretend that is the case just to be able to survive another day. Just knowing that she is beautifully alive would be enough. I know, we always want what we can’t have...

This American Life featured stories of predictably distant fathers, fathers who could never find the words to say, “I love you.” Of course, it made me consider the kind of father I have been to my children. Clearly I wasted precious time on things that seemed so urgent to me then but, in hindsight, were not of primary importance: Making a living, paying the bills, a clean house, home improvement projects... In the end, love is all that matters. Recently Jill and I watched an episode of MadMen. Don Draper, a newly divorced father of two, seeks advice about his young daughter who is behaving strangely. He is justifiably worried about her. His female friend advises him that as long as his daughter is convinced that he loves her, she will be fine. I hope that is true. I know that love doesn’t make everything ok. But when all else fails, maybe it really is all we need. I hope Rachel was the remarkably confident, amazingly capable young woman she was in part, at least, because she could take her parents’ love for granted.

Thursday, June 23 will be Rachel’s 22 birthday. We have been getting graduation, wedding, and birth announcements from her friends. We are happy for them. We truly are. As much as we can be. Rachel should be here, passing these milestones, and we should be sharing her joy. Instead, we will be driving together as a family - me, Jill, and Erik - to be present at the criminal trial of the woman who killed Rachel. It appears that opening arguments will begin on Rachel’s birthday. Rather than holding our breaths while our daughter makes wishes for a happy future, we will be staring at the back of the head of the woman who killed her, as she tries to evade a reckoning for her crimes. We do not know if this is some kind of cruel joke, an auspicious sign, or maybe, just another one of life’s befuddling little ironies.

It has been a long road, and, I must say, quite a wild and horrible ride. Since February 21, 2008 we have known someday we would arrive at this destination: the criminal trial. It isn’t where we wanted or chose to go. For going on four years, the course of our lives has largely been determined by Elva Diaz - her choices and her actions. We look forward to putting this in our rear view mirror, and breaking the constraint Elva Diaz has on the course of our present life - though she has forever altered its shape and quality. We know that the end of the trial is not the end of the road. The road continues, and we must go on...

AMUSEMENT

We finally took down the Christmas lights today. We were the last on our block. It’s not that our Christmas spirit is indomitable: we barely managed the effort to put them up in the first place. In fact, the Christmas lights and the wreath we bought from the Sober Grad Committee and hung outside the front door were all the show of enthusiasm for the holiday we could muster this year. For the first time in our marriage, we didn’t buy and decorate a Christmas tree. We simply could not do it. On Christmas Day, we escaped to the movies and saw True Grit. Movies are amusement: literally speaking, a diversion that causes you not to think.

The reason the lights stayed up until nearly the end of January is that we simply couldn’t find the energy to take them down. It was just easier to keep them burning night after night and let the neighbors believe we just couldn’t let go of the magic of the holidays.

Christmas is just one day out of the year, but it highlights and typifies the hideous transformation of our lives since Rachel was killed by a drunk driver.

It has always been my intention to articulate here the far-reaching consequences of one bad decision. The qualitative change of the character of Christmas for us is just one of the consequences. They are new every morning. The other night Jill and I sat on the couch and watched the season premier of American Idol. I fought back tears as I watched a 16 year old girl dedicate her performance to her loving father. I can’t even watch an inane T.V. program. Rachel was a beautiful singer, but her voice has forever been silenced...

Last weekend Jill and I went to the wedding of one of Rachel’s best friends from high school. Nearly three years have passed now since Rachel was killed. It’s that time: all of the young people she grew up with are graduating from college, getting married, making their own lives. What would Rachel be doing now? I got to watch the father of the bride walk his beautiful daughter down the aisle and trust her to the care of the man she loves and to whom she vows to devote the rest of her life. I can’t help but anticipate what comes next: children, grandchildren I will never know.

These are the brutal realities we must face day after day. We have to live with the realization that there will be no happy ending to our story. Rachel is not coming back. While we are conscious that we still have much (though much less) to be grateful for, we can’t escape that fact. As David said of his first son born to him by Bathsheba, “He cannot come to me, but I must go to him.” We can look forward to joining Rachel in death. Sadly, that is our fondest hope.

I haven’t written anything about the court proceedings, yet. Let’s just say they are going as expected. Elva is playing every card to keep herself out of prison for as long as possible, and her defense is playing right along. She has been in custody in county jail (not prison) since July (six months! - which, of course, will be credited to her as time served), and we still haven’t even had a Preliminary Hearing, let alone begin a trial. Our next court appearance is January 28, which occurs right between my Mom and Dad’s 50^th wedding anniversary, and my Mom’s birthday. I get to miss them both to be with Elva Diaz in court. And I get to miss work and buy a plane ticket to pay for the privilege.

PUTTING HER AHEAD OF US

Many people wonder at our courage and strength. I understand that they simply don’t understand. I know, because I used to feel the same way: How could anyone survive the death of a child? It is inconceivable. And, the fact is, we really don’t want to conceive of it. We don’t want to entertain the idea that it could happen to us. The fact that God only chooses certain people for such a trial is a sure sign of their extraordinary character...Isn’t it?

That’s not the way it works. I can’t conceive of any more loss than what I have already suffered: best friend, grandparents, sister, daughter...I know, however, if I don’t die first, other losses will mark my pilgrimage through this valley in the shadow of death. Loss is one of the naked facts we must learn to reckon with and, finally, accept. We are all losers. Jesus tried to teach us: we only gain life by losing it, letting go. We only keep the treasure we give away. It all slips through our fingers eventually; why not let it go, give it up, give it away? We spend so much of our lives trying to cling to what we cannot hold. Our time would be better spent in other more worthwhile pursuits: loving, for one.

This is what I have learned: We endure what we must. I don’t know how the starving AIDS orphans endure their plight. They do it because they must. I have survived the loss of Rachel so far not because I am strong or courageous or virtuous or special, but, simply, because I have no other real option. And that is the way we learn all the hard lessons of life - Not because we choose, but because, at last, we must reconcile ourselves to the given facts of our lives. So much for victorious living. It is much more like surrender, more like defeat. I would not have chosen this path; it is not what I had planned for my life, or my daughter’s. A daughter should steward the memory of her parents, not the other way around. Everything is out of order now…

But look at Christ...His dark agony, his apparent defeat in death on the cross, turned out to be the victory he sought and on which all our hopes depend. He overcame by submitting to his defeat, by suffering and dying. It doesn’t make any sense, but it does give us hope.

In the end, God’s promises are our only hope. A desperate, drowning person will grasp at anything, I know. But on my best days, I truly believe. Some would counsel us simply to put this whole horrendous mess behind us; forget about it and move on. We can’t do that. We live in the present, and Rachel’s life and death has changed the whole landscape of our present lives. Even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Rachel, our hearts insist, is more than a memory. The only thing that keeps us moving forward instead of dwelling in the past now, is the awareness that it is only in the future that all our hope is realized. We will never find Rachel in the past. We can’t put her behind us. We must put her ahead of us. That is what keeps us going. She cannot come to us, but we shall go to her.

Ambushed

One of the terms tossed around in grief circles is “ambushed.” (Grief Circles: The club where every member is enlisted against their will)It is used in reference to an unexpected painful reminder of what has been lost. Jill experiences it often when she is out shopping: she sees a mother and daughter out shopping together, maybe even arguing, and she is reminded of Rachel and the fellowship she will never experience with her again in this life. It is difficult, and embarrassing, when you burst into tears in the middle of a department store, or a bank.There are so many losses to grieve...

It happens frequently, and it cannot be avoided. You can't prepare yourself. The other morning I was watching the news as I was putting away the dishes, getting ready for work. A commercial came on - I honestly don’t know what it was advertising - but a father and a daughter are having coffee together. The father remarks that his daughter got home awfully late the night before. She gently reminds him that she is “not 16 anymore.” “Still...” the father answers. The daughter appeases him by saying that he’s not going to have to worry about how late she stays out anymore. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” the father asks. She shows him her engagement ring. They hug and the father tells his daughter that her fiance is a lucky man. As he goes back to his coffee, he drops the bomb: “That’s what I told him last week when we talked!...”

This sweet little snapshot played out in front of me, and I found myself weeping as I continued putting away the dishes. What can you do, but cry and carry on?...

I never had any doubt about Rachel Getting Married. I both anticipated and dreaded the day I would walk her down the aisle and hand her over to another man. When Rachel was only a couple of years old, Jill and I watched “Father of the Bride.” I cried in anticipation of the day I would play second fiddle to another man in my precious little girl's life. I cried the morning of her 17th Birthday, too, just knowing that day was becoming a reality: she was slipping out of my hands...It is no consolation that I don’t have to worry about that anymore...

Sometimes the ambush seems particularly painful and mean spirited - almost personal. Jill and I had a difficult weekend recently: On the heels of the two year anniversary of Rachel’s death, and probably prompted by it, we had a cyclone of upsetting phone calls and developments. We look forward to the end of the workweek, but that Friday was a nightmare, and had us both at our wits' end. We awoke the next morning and tried to continue our routine, lingering in bed a little and then sitting together at the kitchen table to drink coffee and read. Jill went outside to get the newspaper and returned to the table ashen-faced and shaking. Elva’s picture was on the front page, along with an article about the continuing efforts to find and prosecute her. Not a good way to start the day. Though we appreciated the fact that the paper was reporting on this unfinished business, we had no idea the article was going to be published, and we just weren’t ready for it. Ambushed again.

After that shock, we tried to carry on with our plans for the day: rearranging some of the furniture in the house. I decided to put on some music to lighten the mood. I plugged my ipod into our stereo system and programmed it for shuffle. First, I have a confession to make: I currently have 28,614 songs on my playlist (I have the 164 gig ipod). I could listen 24 hours a day for 115 days before a song would be repeated. The second song into the shuffle that morning was “Part Of Your World” from Disney’s “Little Mermaid.” That was “Rachel’s song.” Ariel made a big impression on her as a little girl, and she grew up singing that song. I can hear her singing it in my mind’s ear. “Part Of Your World” was the song her good friends from Orland High sang at Rachel’s memorial service. We continued doing what we were doing in a fog of tears...But what are the odds? Can such a thing be purely coincidental. I don’t know. All I can say is that it doesn’t feel like it. And more than two years on, we still feel under siege...

THE SKY IS FALLING

Lately, I have been having dreams where I am weeping inconsolably. I don’t know if this is a result of taking anti-depressants - the subconscious mind finding an outlet for what the conscious mind blocks - or if it is simply the reality of Rachel’s loss to us finally settling into the deepest levels of my mind.

I have also had dreams of her being here but not here - back from the dead, but not realizing what has happened to her. In these dreams I try to hold her, try to find some way to keep from breaking the spell that will send her back, away from us.

Two years later, we are still struggling with this loss, as we will, no doubt, for the rest of our lives...

Recently, we visited a newly dedicated memorial to victims of violent crime at the new site of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. The names of all the recorded victims of violent crime in Riverside County are etched in black marble. Rachel’s name, sadly, is among them.

A plaque inscribed beside the wall states:

A VICTIM’S VOICE WILL BE HEARD

On this wall the names of victims appear.

Violent crime removed their voices from our community.

It is the commitment of the men and women of the

District Attorney’s Office of Riverside County

that a victim’s voice will be heard in our courts

so that justice will fall like mighty rain,

and the lives of our loved ones

will not have been in vain.

Above the entrance to the new facility is written in golden capital letters:

LET JUSTICE BE DONE THOUGH THE HEAVENS MAY FALL

As a family, we are honored that Rachel’s name appears among those written on this wall of remembrance of victims of violent crime. We appreciate that the crime that took her from us is acknowledged for what it is: an act of violence.

But this is not what we had hoped Rachel would be remembered for. She was and is for us so much more than a victim, a name among too many other names scratched upon the surface of a black wall. And the meaning and value of her life is not a matter to be decided in a court of justice.

For us, Rachel was too good, too beautiful, too alive to be just...gone. We still can’t get our minds around the hard, cruel fact of her enduring absence. And those who visit the memorial and read her name written there will never know the real and vibrant and beautiful human being, full of dreams and promise, that Rachel was. In my mind, water should perpetually pour over the memorial wall standing in the center of a black marble bottomed pool to represent the innumerable and unfathomable tears shed by those left to mourn those who have been lost...

What is left for us? Two years out and still waiting, “A VICTIM’S VOICE WILL BE HEARD” and “LET JUSTICE BE DONE THOUGH THE HEAVENS MAY FALL” ring hollow in our ears: The woman who killed our precious daughter so far has successfully eluded the consequences of her actions. Rachel’s voice has not been heard. No one has been able to speak for her, and no one has been made to answer. Justice has not been done, and I don’t know which will come first: a trial, or the sky falling...

Little Blue Pill

I read Joan Didion’s book, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which documents the first year of grief after her husband’s death (which happened while their daughter was fighting for her life in the hospital: when it rains it pours!).

I understood what she meant by “Magical Thinking”: the unarticulated expectation that things will return to “normal”, that the lost loved one will walk through the door...When I receive a text message, there is still a split instant before my mind engages and reality reasserts itself when I expect it will be from Rachel. Denial is a powerful thing, and I can’t just rationalize it away. It goes deeper than that; it is an emotional response, arising from a place not governed by the mind. As I read in a poem by Rumi today, “I need more grace than I thought.”

Anyway, Joan Didion researched the medical and psychological literature about grief as she grieved. One of the things she discovered is that even from the beginning of modern psychology, grief, though a natural and normal response to significant loss, has been categorized as a type of temporary insanity. Temporary is the operative word. But does anyone ever return to normal? We can’t. And that’s part of the problem...

Another thing she discovered is that there is indisputable scientific proof that extended periods of grief produce health problems and hasten death. Remember Old Dan and Little Ann from “Where the Red Fern Grows”?

Now I can tolerate a little more the initially offensive encouragements to “get over it.” The problem is, like the enjoinder to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps,” it is impossible. You can’t get over it; you must go through it, and the journey takes as long as it takes. We may find ourselves someday in a green and pleasant land, but it won’t be where we wanted to go...

I have been experiencing mystifying health problems lately, gastro-intestinal problems which I will not detail here (which, also, suspiciously coincided with the horror of the holidays). I feel sick all the time and have no energy. I am used to feeling sick...I just attributed it to the misery of depression. But when I found I couldn’t eat and couldn’t function I knew something was definitely wrong and I needed to seek medical attention. There is no definite diagnosis yet, but of course I am taking pills, which have given me some relief.

One of them is Zoloft, the anti-depressant. It’s depressing to admit I have to take an anti-depresant. Since the beginning of our ordeal, I have wanted to feel whatever I needed to feel, believing that is the only way to make progress towards...what do I call it? Health? Wholeness? Healing? I really don’t believe any of those things are on the horizon. I may learn to accommodate my new disability - as I have the little finger of my right hand which I cannot bend - but I am irremediably changed.

But I am trying it because my body needs a break from the effects of the stress of grief to have a chance to restore itself. Of course, I am trying some nutritional and diet remedies as well. I mean to be kinder to myself, as my dear friend Ray has wisely been advising me since the beginning. Next week I may even join Jill for a yoga class. We are trying to watch more romantic comedies now than tragic dramas...I hope something helps...

I don’t mean to complain. And I am not looking for sympathy. I merely want to state for the record that this too - the ruined health of surviving loved ones - is one of the consequences of DUI.

Another Blow On The Bruise

Elva Diaz, the drunk driver who killed Rachel made a choice to get behind the wheel of her automobile and drive herself home even though she was fully aware of the likely fatal consequences (that’s why the Riverside D.A.’s office has issued a warrant for her arrest for second degree murder). Finding another way home was too much of an inconvenience. In her judgment, the life and safety of a fellow human being simply wasn’t worth the trouble it would cost to ensure.

The difference between first and second degree murder is intent. Elva Diaz didn’t plan to murder Rachel, even though, for Rachel and for us, the result is the same. As deplorable as her crime is, it wasn’t personal. Until recently. Whether she intended to kill anybody the night she killed Rachel is a matter for the court to decide. But the fact is, the subsequent harm she has inflicted and continues to inflict has been done with sober intent.

I don’t believe in good or bad people. I believe in free will. I believe in good or bad choices. Everyone is capable of anything. It’s simply a matter of choice. We make our choices and, in turn, our choices make us. The character of our choices can become habitual and develop into a life-style. The bargain of free-will is that we are accountable for the choices we make.

As human beings we do our best to make the best of the mess we make of the world because of our bad decisions. Justice isn’t built into the system. If it were, Elva would be dead and not my daughter. Ms. Diaz’ choice to drink and drive would have resulted in the loss of her life, not Rachel’s. What Elva did she cannot undo. Her fatal decision the night of February 21, 2008 determined the course of the rest of her life, a course that still allows her a range of choices, good and bad.

Once we have made a bad decision, committed a crime even, we must ask ourselves: What now? The best choices remaining may not be pleasant or easy, but even then we have the fearful responsibility to choose for good or for evil.

http://news.aol.com/article/drunk-driver-reconciles-with-blind/666660?icid=main|main|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fdrunk-driver-reconciles-with-blind%2F666660

We don’t often get the chance to see what might have been. I found this article on the internet about a drunk driver who fled the scene of a crash that caused injury to another man. He was caught. When he sobered up and came to his senses he saw the error of his ways and, against his legal counsel, pled guilty to the charges brought against him and further pledged himself to make restitution for his crime. This man’s crimes are deplorable and worthy of punishment. But he has chosen the only path open to him to find redemption: admitting his wrong-doing and taking responsibility for his actions. His present choices will not change the past. However, he has chosen to set the course for the best possible future. Instead of choosing to continue to victimize his victim, this man has chosen to do the best he can do now to make amends.

I wish I could say the same for Elva Diaz, the woman who killed Rachel. I’m not interested in hearing about her alleged remorse. Her actions speak for themselves. At every step, Ms. Diaz has chosen her own self-interest without regard for the welfare or benefit of anyone else, including her own family. Rather than accept the consequences of her actions, she has chosen to skip bail and become a fugitive. Rather than dedicate her life attempting to redress the harm she has done, she chooses to continue to inflict pain on those who love Rachel. Rather than allowing us to begin to heal and put the dreadfulness of a criminal trial behind us, she ensures that the wound remains raw and open and delivers another blow on the bruise...

GETTING OVER IT

We are past the arbitrary but, perhaps, psychologically significant one year marker of Rachel’s death. A year of grief. It has been like climbing the Sierras from the central valley towards Nevada. Mountains beyond mountains. Sometimes we didn’t know if we could make it, or if we even wanted to, but we kept putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. We leaned on each other for support, carried each other along when we only wanted to lie down and sleep in the snow.

We are not “over” it, and we never will be. We have only made it over the most physically demanding part of the journey. 

We are sadder now than we have ever been. It is a deep, abiding sadness, that characterizes our lives. Though we don’t cry as much as we used to, we face a thousand reminders a day that we will never see our beautiful daughter again in this world. We want to touch the little beauty marks on her face; we want to smell her hair and kiss the top of her head; we want to hear her laugh. But that can never be. We don’t want to get out of bed and face the day. What is the point, now? Wake us up when it is over...

It is as if we have made it over the mountains only to be faced with a measureless expanse of desert stretching before us. We can never go back, but why go on through this wasteland? Is there a promised land just beyond the unreachable horizon? Is Rachel waiting for us over there?

Talitha, Kum!

This chapter in our lives began, as every day does, with our morning reading. The day we learned Rachel had been killed began with a reading from the book of Ezra. It is a passage I believe God had prepared especially for us to guide us on our journey:

“When the builders completed the foundation of the Lord’s Temple, the priests put on their robes and took their places to blow their trumpets. And the Levites, descendants of Asaph, clashed their cymbals to praise the Lord, just as king David had prescribed. With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord:

‘He is so good!

His faithful love for Israel endures forever!’

Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had been laid.

But many of he older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.”

It is an accurate depiction of our conflicting emotions - grieving for what we have lost, rejoicing for what Rachel has gained - the two mingled together in an indistinguishable cry.

But there is a reminder for us in that passage as well, a reminder that is a challenge for us to affirm the goodness and the faithful love of God through the worst circumstances of our lives. In moments of doubt and confusion, we have chosen to embrace the love and goodness of God. God is love. A drunken woman killed Rachel; that woman was not doing God’s will.

*

Jill and I are a little off in our Bible reading. We came to the passage for February 21st a few days ahead of schedule. I suspected there would be something significant for us there. We were not disappointed. The passage in our Bible that day was from Mark Chapter 5, the story of Jairus’ daughter.

Jairus, the leader of the local synagogue had a daughter who was gravely ill. He put aside whatever objections he may have had to Jesus’ teachings and His claim to be the Son of God, and begged Him to heal his daughter. Jesus agreed to go with Jairus to heal his daughter, but on the way He was delayed by the pressing crowd with their desperate needs, including a hopeless woman afflicted for twelve years with an incurable hemorrhage. She touches the hem of his robe and is healed instantly. A bleeding woman was considered unclean, and she was not to put herself in path of a holy man. To her surprise, when she confessed her presumption, Jesus reassured her: “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed.”

Delayed by this encounter, messengers inform Jairus that his daughter has died and that there is no point in troubling the teacher any further. I can imagine that moment. The last hope dashed. Jesus, though, is unfazed by the tragic news, and encourages Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just trust Me.” I don’t know how Jairus felt about those words, but they did continue on to Jairus’ house.

When they get there, the house is fully involved in grief. Jesus cracks the mourners up by telling them they are sadly mistaken: “The child isn’t dead; she is only asleep.”

He tells the scoffers to wait outside. He takes the grieving father and mother and three of his disciples into the little girl’s room. He takes her by the hand and commands her to arise. She does, and the parents are ecstatic. The family is whole again.

I can see how someone would see this as a slap in the face: The story of a daughter brought back to life while our daughter’s ashes sit in an urn on our bedroom dresser. I could look at it that way. But I believe there is a comforting message there for us, a message about faith and hope and love: “Your faith has made you well...Go in peace...Don’t be afraid. Just trust Me...The child isn’t dead; she is only asleep...Little girl, arise!” 

Our hope is resurrection. It is a living hope, the hope that gives us strength to go on living.

“If our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died...The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”