I started the process of getting Crissy's police reports, records, images, videos, of her & Dawn's murder & the subsequent trial of Sam Strange. It brought so many feelings imagining the brutality that lies inside those folders. My past is this door that I walked through many years ago & I struggle to understand if I am ready to open it up again. I think when people saw me as a 13-year-old who just found out her sister was murdered, they understood the shellshock I was in. My pain was handwritten on my face, I'm sure of it. Oddly or thankfully, I am missing huge chunks of time from my memories. Things I absolutely should remember but can't. Certainly, they saw my suffering at 13 years old, but did anyone look ahead & see the suffering of 43-year-old me? The reverberation of trauma throughout decades continues to buzz in my bones.
I've overcome a lot & I don’t sell myself short on that. I fought for my own happiness so fucking hard & I fight with white knuckles & deep breaths even today. I found forgiveness & not just, “yea, yea I forgive you”. But deep, penetrating, pulling from the deepest parts of my soul type of forgiveness. The kind you never thought you could find, nor did you ever want to. Remembering the poem, I wrote in the throes of rage..."stab him in the face & throw him in the fire..." I wanted revenge so badly, I would punch rocks until my hands bled, somehow, throughout all my pain, wanting even more pain. I have recovered, evolved, found peace & sometimes even say, "yea I got through that." Yet some days, I'll be driving & just that one song hits you, in a part of your soul that you can’t seem to pinpoint, but I think it’s near your solar plexus. And you sing & you cry & you just feel goddamn, fucking, everything. And I realize just how damaged I really am.
The first time I heard Rage Against the Machine, a CD I borrowed from my friend Bryan Kemp-Hesterman, I damn near lost my 14-year-old mind. Scream singing in my room "Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me" while feeling my own rage. I didn't understand all the political messaging, but I didn't care. I finally had music that matched my state, especially since the "hardest" song I had ever heard was probably "Smells Like Teen Spirit". High school was rough. My very Mexican sister was murdered in a small white town & I had to start freshman year a few weeks later. Sitting in that class while one of the first announcements over the PA was about Crissy & Dawn being murdered. I had a bunch of seniors staring at me while I quietly sobbed in my seat.
It wasn't like the town surrounded us with love & support. I was constantly retraumatized. I heard around town, more than once, folks in support of the man who was accused of beating my sister to death. They planted trees at my high school in their honor. They were dug up & stolen a few weeks later. I had people telling me my sister was tortured as part of a satanic ritual. That her head was cut off. One time, as we were walking for the "planting of the trees" ceremony, a boy came up to me & just kept saying over & over again, "tell me about your sister, tell me about your sister". I had friends who weren't allowed to stay at my house because they blamed my parents for Crissy's death. The summer after her murder, I was sitting on the bench waiting for someone to pick me up from summer school & my best friend's mom suddenly out of nowhere sat next to me. She looked me in the eye & said, "You are just too sad for my daughter, I don't want her to be friends with you anymore..." And that was that.
If I ever mentioned my sister in any sort of writing for school, I was sent to the counseling office. I think people walked on eggshells around me constantly & I felt weak as fuck. Cuz I was...utterly brittle, angry & sad, suffering from survivor's guilt, constantly thinking, "the wrong sister died". There were people who genuinely cared about me, looked out for me, loved me & did their best to be whatever it was I needed. One of Crissy's old teachers ended up as the Vice Principal & she personally prevented me from being expelled a couple times. I guess sneaking downstairs at 5am & filling a plastic water bottle with whatever liquor was there, mixing brandy, vodka, bourbon & whatever I could get my hands on, so my parents wouldn't notice the shortage & yes, stupidly adding water & seeing the tell tail you're busted "swirls’ in the liquid & drinking on the way to school on the bus at 7am wasn't the smartest decision. I constantly put myself in danger cuz I wanted to die, while also cursing the universe because I genuinely believed I was invincible. No way would two daughters die within the same family, right? I wished otherwise.
I hate weakness. It's one of my many "toxic traits''. I don't like it in others & I don't like it in myself. I have a few guesses as to why I want to pounce on someone's weakness like a lion to a gazelle. Maybe because I was viewed as weak for so long. I have a lot to prove. And I am strong, really fucking strong. I do things that scare me, even though my stomach feels like it’s being grabbed & twisted. I was cleaning my kitchen today & just realized I own all these appliances. I live in a house, granted that Keegan bought, but most everything in the home I bought with my own money. Not that money is any indicator of anything, it's more this symbol that I didn't give up. I'm alive, I have deep roots planted here that have intertwined with so many people. I have an amazing life, a loving & supportive husband- not that our marriage is perfect, just ask Keegan’s cousin Journey who spent several weeks with us about our relationship. But I have so much & I am grateful. And I'm still fighting like hell for that happiness. Every mile I run I wonder, what am I running away from or what am I running towards. Every minute doing yoga & meditation. Every thought of self-dialogue. With every word I write, I am fighting.
I am currently reading this book; one I chose at random from a used bookstore. I never read the plot before I buy or start a book. I look at the cover, see if it’s a bestseller & go in raw. The story is about a woman in her 40’s who is investigating her older sister’s murder, who had long dark hair & was killed in 1994. Her body was dumped at an abandoned place that is now a popular teenage hang out. She has doubts that the man accused was her killer & she’s sure there was some police cover up. She ends up almost getting murdered herself during this conquest. But she finds the truth. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for or what I’ll find. I just know that I suddenly have this intense need to get my hands on those files. That there is something drawing me to them. An incessant urgency. And I know me. I know I won’t stop until I get every single page of them.
You don’t ever fully get over trauma, I don’t think. You manage it. You push it away. You allow it to envelope you. You find ways to continue on. To fight the darkness. To run towards the light. Sad thing is, there are so many others who were destroyed by this. I’m just one person in this long line of devastation, waiting my turn to feel it, to heal it & to know…I’m okay.