I just want to sit and stare out at the world.
I want to be insulated and quiet.
But
I can’t find the insulation
Or the quiet.
Often times when I write, here, I do so without telling the back story. The reason for what I wrote. The prompt for why I wrote.
Today I am going to write a little differently.
Because sometimes what is behind the words is much more important.
A few days ago one of my children let me know that a child from our past had been murdered.
I had not seen this child, since she was a child. An older child, but a child, on the cusp of adulthood. She was in my life for more than a few years as friends to my stepchildren who lived with me.
Since that time she had grown into an adult and lived an adult life. I hadn’t seen her in, maybe, close to twenty years. I cannot reconcile that she was an adult, when I only knew a child. When I think of her, and that’s all I’ve done for three days now, I see her only as the child I knew.
Smiling. Innocent. Blonde hair. So very friendly and kind. I can’t picture her, in my mind, without that smile.
Now I know a little bit about the past 20 years. But, though I know it, I cannot imagine it. I can’t think about it. Because it doesn’t fit with the picture of that child in my mind. A grown up? A person I didn’t know.
I don’t want to be misleading. I hadn’t thought of her, or known what became of her, for years. The last time was when I heard her mother had passed away, and that was years ago to my recollection. My feelings right now are for that child I knew. I picture her ….then. And cannot integrate that child into the horror that befell the adult.
I think of her hanging out, going to school, driving around with my stepdaughters. I can see her in our home.
I cannot put an adult in the horror of that murder.
I put the child I knew in that horror.
And I find myself wanting, continually these last few days, to go back. When she was safe. When her sweet young face smiled, all the time.
I keep going back. Back. Back. Back. To that child.
I’m sure there are better ways to honor her, or pay homage to her than this fumbling of words when I don’t really know what to say or how to say it.
But I want to say something.
I want her to know, she is thought of, fondly. And sadly.
I would want her to know that these days as I am thinking about her-I am thinking of the child that was alive and well in our lives. That her smile is a kind and pleasant memory.
I can’t find any insulation from this. And I can’t find the quiet for my soul.
I might just sit here a while longer.
Thinking about her.
And look for peace.
