Picking up the Pieces...Part 8

7 Months ago on the SAME DAY…  The headlines THIS morning, were filled with the same horror!  A young man went out into the world, and destroyed the lives of so many!  The same truths could be said about William Gary Simpson, as are said about James Eagen Holmes…  Both “came from a well-tended homes, where neighbors recall him as a clean-cut, studious young man... Tall and dark-haired…”

Both, related to fictional characters in the same way.  Holmes “reached a point where he painted his hair red, called himself ‘The Joker’ ”…  Gary had too, referred to himself as a character from a story, but it was Halloween – and the mask he wore that night in 2010, is the one he brought with him when HE came to kill us in 2011…

It can be said that both “Had a backpack… and seemed like a real intelligent guy… he was one of the college students"…  After both murders, people who knew both these men could say, “the hair stood up on my back…  I know this guy."  Neither showed any sign “of distress or violence.”  There are many people still, from the area Gary grew up in – even teachers, from the Serrano High School where he graduated, that cannot accept Gary has done this…

Both have committed atrocities that are too insufferable to be true!  Both are equally guilty of committing MURDER!  Both appeared to be ‘just a normal guy’ until they staged their rampages!  Both “PLANNED” to execute many people, for a very long time…

It’s hard to explain to the outside world, the scope of what happened here in our home that morning…  People can only see that a “death” has occurred, and expect for us merely to “grieve”. 

But that’s not what happened…  It was “MURDER”, and experiencing and living beyond the TRAUMA, does not allow us to simply grieve… How is it, Gary could plan for so long, to do such a thing, to so many of us?!  AND NONE OF US SAW THIS IN HIM!  To be the people we once were – good, loving, kind, moral, and decent…  To have known Gary for so long, some of the children being so close to him in the 10+ years we’ve known him, to be left asking ourselves – HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS IN HIM?

We have done battle within our worst nightmare, and lost!  We look back in retrospect, examining everything, looking for something we missed, trying to figure out how we could have failed to see what he was – the wolf in sheep’s clothing...  And trying to live with the ultimate guilt that no matter what - it’s our fault, for we invited that demon into our house – across the threshold!

Those on the outside cannot look inside the horror that took place for us that morning.  It messes up their sense of ‘healing’ and ‘recovery’, their hope for us…  We have had no choice, but to shut everyone out – including friends and family, because they are incapable of seeing the “changes” that have occurred inside.  They can only look in at it as ‘grief and depression’…  And they charge in, invading our sanctuary, thinking they are rescuing us, when really – they shatter what little we have left!  We exist in a constant state of POST TRAUMATIC STRESS!  We cannot step up to their expectations for us, and after the turmoil this causes for everyone inside, we find ourselves coping, alone!

Life – is an unusual form of torture, for us!  We are the victims of something so heinously rare…  Even within the murder victims groups, the crime against us stands alone!  For so many have lost their loved ones to murder, yet so few have witnessed it! 

The effects have changed everything!  I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate universe, where some of the people and things ‘look’ the same, but do not ‘act’ as I have known them to be…  Some are slightly off, others are completely different!  We are all gathered together here, in our home.  Each one, unable to cope in the outside.  Each person, with his own unique thoughts and feelings, and ways of coping on the inside.  No two are the same.  And to be so wrapped up in your own particular place, it leaves us unable to connect…  Like a house full of bouncing balls, all bouncing out of sync, colliding and bouncing off each other.

Each one of us, awakes each day, to be assaulted by Saskia’s murder again…  Each one of us, must fight our way through the terror each night, as we search for the inevitable, unrestfull sleep…  Each one of us touches too much pain each day as we continue on without Saskia now, everything a constant reminder – not only, that she is GONE - but how she left this life!

Paul, cannot look at a picture of Saskia.  It causes him immense pain, and brings him to tears…  He wants to put her pictures in her room, and shut the door, in the hopes to forget, for a brief moment, what’s happened…  He attempts to escape by absorbing himself with work, or video games, but this does not work – there is no escape from what’s happened!

I, on the other hand, NEED to ‘see’ Saskia.  She is not here, and there are moments when I panic, I need to just look at her – alive and unblemished!  I need to look upon her face wherever I am, whatever I am doing, so I can push away the bloody and broken image of her in the morgue, the sound of her screams in my head! I will not go on without her! Saskia is an integral piece of me, and I cannot go on, without her! If I must live, and though it will be most difficult, I will find the way to bring her with me each and every day that I am forced to live in this existence, BECAUSE I WILL NOT LET GO! I am truly incapable of doing that!  She is the heart, that beats inside this body... To rip it out, put it in a box, and try to forget about it? That's how ludicrous the idea of me without Saskia truly is.

Ian, who is 20, is running towards his adult life.  Trying to escape from the horror of his life.  Unable to really face it right now…  For Saskia was Ian’s best friend, as well as his sister, for his entire life!  And Gary had been his friend for a very long time!  Ian can step into the house, to be with us all here in our pain, but then he needs to step away so he can regroup, and build up his emotional strength to return to us once more.  Because being here, on the inside, is hard.  It’s hard to see everyone he loves in so much intense pain, and feel so helpless to do anything about it…  It heightens his own personal pain of losing Saskia, and brings about such a rage inside of him, he must step away to quiet the beast.

Kessa, my 13 year old…  She has lost her entire family!  Her sister, murdered.  Her parents, emotionally destroyed.  Her brother, in college and running towards his own life…  Kessa has become sister of the murdered girl.  Her new friends, well, they all have family members that were murdered too!  The pressure of focusing on school – an impossible task, in the unbearable-ness of our life…  She covers her emotions by being ‘too happy’ in some moments, and obnoxious in others…  She expresses her pain through the music she listens to, each sad song, the story of her specific emotions, thoughts and feelings in the loss of her sister…  She fears the coming school year, not only for how much she has missed – but for the days that are inevitably coming too fast: Halloween (Saskia’s favorite holiday), Saskia’s birthday, December 20th – and the days that are forever destroyed for Kessa now, Christmas and New Years!

Mitch, also 20, is a more emotional child.  He too, feels disconnected from the outside. Losing Saskia has destroyed his passion for music – Mitch and Ian are both in the music program at RCC…  He has been unable to really leave us, and go on with his own life.  He feels responsible, to help, and be the caretaker in our time of need.  He feels that if he is not here to watch over us, something may happen…  Partly, that post-traumatic feeling that we may be attacked again and this time, he must be here to help.  And partly, no one else cares to see that mom and dad are so unstable, and on our worst days – well, he feels it’s his job to keep us from killing ourselves.

Amber, Saskia’s best friend, comes here almost every other weekend, to be in the only place she feels she belongs.  Not that she doesn’t love her family, not that her mother doesn’t understand, she is there for her.  But Amber too, needs to be here in our house of pain, where we all understand, because the outside world can’t.  Her other friends just want her to get over it, and go on already, BUT IT JUST DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.  Amber needs to be here with us, because she needs to be as close to Saskia as she can get – and we are all that is left of Saskia for Amber to cling to…  Amber is like me, in this respect: Saskia was a ‘piece’ of her, too.  How does one go on, missing such a huge piece of yourself? 

Richard, so far from home, in Germany.  He desperately needs the support of his family, but is too far to receive it.  The guilt, of not being home that night…  The guilt, of feeling he may have caused what happened because Gary hated him so for not being a “pure-blood black”, for taking Ian’s time and interest away from solely being focused on Gary – because Gary had a preternatural attraction to Ian…  Trying to live with the horror and pain so far away and alone…  We are all on facebook with him every day, to support him, it is the only way we can…

And these changes in us have altered everything – right down to the behavior of our pets!

I have owned Piper, a Pomeranian, for over 10 years…  Each day she sat in the purple chair, HER chair.  Most people have thought upon seeing her over the years that she was a stuffed animal.  For she didn’t move, didn’t bark.  It didn’t bother her when the children ran through the house, making noise.  She sat, a permanent fixture in her chair…  Now, she is always by my side.  She sits with us in the living room.  She plays and interacts, like a puppy.  She barks.  Kessa calls her ‘Piper Buttons’ – like the movie Benjamin Buttons, where the older Benjamin got, the younger he became…  This makes sense somehow, it would explain her behavior in this new reality.  Because in our old life - even as a puppy, she did nothing but sit quietly in her purple chair…

Archie, our puppy, has post-traumatic stress so badly I don’t know if he’ll ever really recover!  He has developed this bark, loud and high pitched, that is his ‘dog scream’!  This specific bark he now uses when the kids get too rowdy, and he fears someone may hurt his family…  When someone new comes to the front door…  If he hears children, over the fence playing and squealing, as this is a reminder of Saskia’s screams that morning…  If there is a loud noise, he jumps – literally jumps, as if it’s happening all over again…  And if one of us yells, he runs to hide under the bed, and shakes…  The ‘old’ Archie was such a relaxed, carefree puppy, who loved and accepted everyone – and only barked at the other ‘dogs’ in our neighborhood…

All of us are individually experiencing our own anger, rage, pain, guilt – and all of this is inside of a horror that is too unimaginable to touch!  And yet, we are all trapped there, inside that horror…  Running, falling, screaming – bouncing…Our entire eco system right now is so entirely fragile...

Like a house of cards, with the slightest breathe – we will all fall!