I hate it, beginning a blog post – or any kind of statement – with a lie. It’s a lie because I am mourning, even as I find the term inadequate to describe the feelings experienced by those of us who loved a remarkable young woman whose life was recently and unexpectedly cut short.

Wednesday (1/30) morning, just before 7 am. The bright, sliver-moon’s optimism, portending the sunny/crisp winter day to come, taunted me with its optimism. A mere two days earlier I would have celebrated such a sight; instead, I felt resentful, then foolish, to recognize my emotions (It’s just a moon; it doesn’t know, or care about, your pain).  As all emotions have done in the past week, everything quickly faded to numb. It was 26˚ outside, but that’s not what chilled me.

 

 

 

When you answer the phone call and hear the voice of your dearly loved friend – her tone at once agitated and lifeless – you realized that the nightmare into which you are about to descend is no dream.

In the days and weeks right after a murder the victim’s family is often in a state of shock, feeling numb, sometimes unable to cry. The murder of a loved one seems almost impossible to comprehend. Life feels unreal, like a dream. Survivors may need to go over the details of the crime again and again, discussing them endlessly, as though trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle, struggling to make sense of it all. They tell themselves, “This can’t be true.”
(“A Grief Like No Other,” The Atlantic, September 1997

Dateline: Monday, 1/28/19, 10:05 am. As I was reaching to turn off my cellphone for yoga class, I received a call, which I answered. It was my friend, LPH. She and her husband DH had been visited that morning by local  [1]  police, and a police chaplain. Those public servants were carrying a devastating message from police in Salt Lake City, where LPH’s and DH’s 27 year old daughter, SEH, was in her first year of medical residency:

At approximately 8:30 the previous evening SEH had been shot and killed by her boyfriend,  [2]  who then took his own life.

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domestic
adjective

Definition of domestic

1a : living near or about human habitations (“domestic vermin”)

b : tame, domesticated (“the domestic cat”)

2 : of, relating to, or originating within a country and especially one’s own country (“domestic politics, “domestic wines,” “domestic manufacturing,” “all debts foreign and domestic”)

3 : of or relating to the household or the family (“domestic chores,” “domestic happiness”)

4 : devoted to home duties and pleasures (“leading a quietly domestic life”)

5 : indigenous (“a domestic species”)

 

In the news reports  [3] I read the familiar phrases, such as “domestic violence” and “domestic-related” homicide.   I understand the etiology of those terms, as per domestic’s definitions and usages.  Still, I fucking hate them.

 

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SEH will be remembered as an extraordinarily engaged and competent and empathetic person at UC-SF.
She really stood out for her commitment to taking care of patients from the time they were born until the time they died. And she was so excited about going to (the University of) Utah. She thought the program there was exactly the type of family medicine program that was going to launch her career to help her be the type of doctor she really wanted to be.
SEH had an easygoing way about her and instantly connected with everyone regardless of where they came from or who they know or what they were there for. And that was true not only for her patients but for her friends.
(The vice dean of education at the UC-San Francisco’s School of Medicine, where SEH received her M.D.., as quoted in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune)

 

Today, University of Utah mourns the tragic loss of one of our bright young family medicine residents, SEH, MD.
Dr. SEH was a first-year resident who was focusing on continuing her studies in Family & Preventive Medicine.
Dr. SEH came to University of Utah Health from UC San Francisco to continue her passion of providing care to women and children in underserved communities. …Her adventurous spirit and love of learning will be missed by all those who knew her….. Dr. SEH always did a great job of connecting with her patients and understanding where they were coming from. She treated the whole person, and patients were always appreciative of her approach….
 SEH made it a priority to stay in touch with her family, constantly talking about them and always mentioning her love of family. At the same time, she was excited about the opportunities Utah offered to her, particularly the ability to spend time doing all the outdoor activities she loved so much. SEH was friendly, fantastic, and hardworking. She always gave everything her all.”
(statement from the University of Utah, as per a  KUTVchannel 2 report)

 

As a mutual friend said, ” It’s devastating that someone…could extinguish a light as bright as hers.”

 

*   *   *

During the past twenty-five years hundreds of articles in psychiatric journals have examined the homicidal mind. Fewer than a dozen have explored how a homicide affects the victim’s family.

The survivors of murder victims…even the counselors who work with survivors…what they have learned contradicts the way the rest of us would like to view the world. We want to maintain an illusion of safety…we want to believe that the children of good parents will never be harmed.

The grief caused by murder does not follow a predictable course. It does not neatly unfold in stages. When a person dies after a long illness, the family has time to prepare emotionally for the death, to feel an anticipatory grief. When someone is murdered, the death usually comes without warning…. 

In the days and weeks right after a murder the victim’s family is often in a state of shock, feeling numb, sometimes unable to cry. The murder of a loved one seems almost impossible to comprehend. Life feels unreal, like a dream. Survivors may need to go over the details of the crime…discussing them endlessly, as though trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle, struggling to make sense of it all. They tell themselves, “This can’t be true.”

(excerpts from “A Grief Like No Other,” Eric Schlosser, The Atlantic) 

“A Grief Like No Other” is a long article, weaving several strands into the larger garment covering the topic of the emotional journeys of families of murder victims. These strands include a “history of murder” (a relatively brief – considering the subject – tour of the history of adjudicating murder, and how societies’ treatments of such went from clan/tribal retribution to modern criminal justice systems) and the exploitation of murder by the entertainment industry, interspersed with sketches of the families who attend the support group POMC (Parents of Murdered Children), and a detailed recount of the aftermath experienced by one murder victim’s family.

These strands are interesting on their own, but that’s not why I am recommending that you read this article,  [4]  which was recommended to me via a network of friends…which provides a convenient segue as to my recommendation.  As the article states, A murder is an unnatural death; no ordinary rules apply. Thus, we who love our friends who have lost their loved one via murder need to be reminded, now and in the times to come, of the differences inherent in loss for those who have experienced the unspeakable.

Skim/skip the afore-mentioned “strand” parts of the article if you like, but please, read carefully – and, I would recommend,  [5]  often (to the point of setting whatever calendar reminders you use to do so in a regular basis) – the parts of the article which deal with the unique trauma and adjustments experienced by parents of murdered children.  It will not be the feel-good read of your week; still, nothing in your discomfort will compare to that experienced by the family, and the article may come close in helping you to understand what your friends are and will be going through.

 

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Instructions

When I have moved beyond you in the adventure of life,
Gather in some pleasant place and there remember me
With spoken words, old and new.
Let a tear if you will, but let a smile come quickly
For I have loved the laughter of life.
Do not linger too long with your solemnities.
Go eat and talk, and when you can;
Follow a woodland trail, climb a high mountain,
Walk along the wild seashore,
Chew the thoughts of some book
Which challenges your soul.
Use your hands some bright day
To make a thing of beauty
Or to lift someone’s heavy load.
Though you mention not my name,
Though no thought of me crosses your mind,
I shall be with you,
For these have been the realities of my life for me.
And when you face some crisis with anguish.
When you walk alone with courage,
When you choose your path of right,
I shall be very close to you.
I have followed the valleys,
I have climbed the heights of life.

(poem by Arnold Crompton, Humanist educator)

*   *   *

 

 

May you love ’em while you got ’em;
May we all be each other’s “keepers;”
May you be awed and humbled by the wonder and ultimate transience of our lives;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

 

[1] They live in the Bay Area.

[2] Whose name shall never, ever, be mentioned in this space.

[3] Which I searched for online. The story was picked up nationwide as a blurb, from the local (Utah) newspapers and TV news to The Washington Times and, holy crap, even People magazine online.

[4] Which was recommended to me, via friends MM and SM, who are also members of that (now) sad company of those who know and love SEH’s family.

[5] Because, as the article states, in such “unnatural” deaths, the ordinary rules do not apply. Even if we are not conscious of it, we all have some idea of how to do “ordinary” grieving. This is not to diminish our “ordinary” losses which can seem extraordinarily difficult at the time – e.g., the deaths of my elderly parents. Rather, the loss of a child by homicidal violence is (psychologically and physically proven to be) a very, very, different ordeal for the family, and most of us have no experience with that reality.