The shooter refused to accept a guilty plea. 48 wounded survivors and the families of seven who were killed will begin to relive their nightmare again.
Time heals all wounds..... but not these wounds.
We, in Tucson, avoided a trial by accepting a (multiple) life in prison sentence instead of pursuing the death penalty. If I couldn't do it myself, it seemed too easy to let the state take care of it. Life in an 8x10 box forever feels worse to me, anyway.
But my friends who were there are now beginning to reopen the wounds. They will be called upon to testify about what they saw and felt that day. Just knowing that they will have to face the shooter, who was staring them down in preliminary hearings, must be terrifying or horrifying or some other ing.
I'm so glad we didn't have to go through that.
We were able to make victims' statements, and that let me vent my spleen - at the shooter, his parents, his school, and the law. It was gratifying.
It gave me no closure. Nothing ever will. It's an open wound that lives in a box buried in the corner of my psyche.
Unlike my Highland Park friends, I can open and shut it on my own, without the judicial system forcing me to break the lock. I'm spending some time right now holding my screaming head together,
Send some love their way.
You make such good use of your experience - and your spleen! 💜
ReplyDeleteThank you! It's the only way to get through the days.
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