Nevermore
For some reason, I’m wide awake this morning.
Ok… maybe not just any reason… Today is the 8 month anniversary of Corey’s attack.
Up to that day, I hadn’t lived a storied life. I mean I could tell you some stories, but they weren’t all very pretty. But I was content with where life had led me. I had my three children, Bob, and a career of over 25 years in Social Work. I’d just published my first book and was working on a second. I was teaching people I loved with coworkers I loved, and was consulting. I’d been in a car wreck earlier that year that made me understand the importance of health insurance, so I’d just accepted a full time job.
And then I was thrown into Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” of 1845.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door –
Only this, and nothing more.'”
It was Justin knocking on my bedroom door at 2:00 am. And suddenly I was thrust into a nightmare.
Would I ever have my life I’d grown to understand and love again?
“Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'”
I am currently not in Social work. I can’t work with people right now. I don’t feel like I can give of myself the way I used to. I’m not teaching for the same reason. I took the job I’d accepted, its in data analysis, so I don’t have to talk to too many people… and those I do talk to know what’s happened and know me well enough to know when I need space.
Bob gets frustrated sometimes because there are days I don’t speak. I don’t do this intentionally… I just look up one day and Bob is staring at me like “Did you hear what I just said?”.
It’s slowly getting better. It just takes time.
But at the same time I am healing, I am becoming more and more aware that my son’s murder is still unsolved.
We are in the beginning processes of creating a foundation in Corey’s name. The vision of the foundation will be to help the surviving families of murder victims navigate all of barriers immediately following the crime. Things such as the burial of their loved one (including financial support), media, and how to interact with the police. We are in the process of selecting board members, and have quite a few in place.
My life will never be the same. Help me make that mean something.
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