...knowing full well that when I hit the bed, (hopefully by 7:30 pm) I will be absolutely worn out. And I will get up earlier tomorrow to do the same thing.
Wednesday I concluded the most horrible murder trial that I will ever prosecute. One four month old twin, murdered, her sister alive but suffered horrific abuse. the abuse lasted about over about half of their lifetimes. The suffering was chronicled by a series of photos that are seared into the minds of everyone who worked on this case. Over a period of sixteen months I listened to 300 hours of recorded phone calls that the murderer made from the jail. For those three hundred hours I was drawn into his world of violence, justification, self pity, and utter disregard for any human but himself.
I have been around abused kids all of my life but I have never encountered anything like this. I have never been involved in a case so horrible that there were parts of it that I could not even mention to my wife, not because of any rule of confidentiality, but because I could not bring my lips to recite such horror, even to the person closest to me in this world.
I grew to hate him. And I hated him for causing me to do so. It is not given to me to hate. But he taught me how to hate. He caused me to consider seeking the death penalty against him. While others are free to believe as they will, I find the death penalty to be profoundly immoral. My moral beliefs may differ from others, but I do not vary from them. I may do things that others think wrong, but I do not do things that I think immoral. He nearly caused me to do so.
The case is over. His sentence was sufficient to likely insure that he will never leave prison. Were he to stay there for a millennium it would not bring back his daughter.
I was not a victim in this case. The suffering was not mine, yet I was altered by it. It was obvious to me that I was not the person that I was before this case. Angry, irritable, exhausted, and physically sick for over a year. But on Thursday morning I woke up feeling peaceful in a way that I had forgotten possible. I still feel it today. Something very dark and evil has been lifted from me.
I expect that I will be able to make kids laugh like I used to. Might even be able to make them think that they can do impossible things simply because I said that they could. Even if I do not become the person that I used to be, I expect to become reacquainted with that person again.
But all of the last sixteen months has not been consumed with the murder. I did have another outlet. You can see pictures of them above. Everyone talks about how much our program does for the kids. Few recognize what it does for me.
And, through the efforts of energetic participants, our program is reaching its potential. My horses have jobs. They are helping kids and adults that need it. They are part of something very good and through them I am too.
That is necessary because the rest of my life makes me a part of something very bad.
1 comment:
Naw...it doesn't make you part of something bad..it just makes you part of something you struggle to fix..the human race does not want to be fixed, but, try we must..for to do less is an insult to what we are. Cervantes had it right...Some windmills need tilting at...and just think, the bad ones, the ones that make us all cringe, make the reward of improving one child's life...even a bit, all the sweeter. And taken in a certain light, improving that one child's life has the potential to be a force multiplier...I know that Rebecca has touched lives positively, so have the Marbles, and Amanda...Sarah Lin is a joy to be around...and so is Hailey..at least when she doesn't bite. All these who have drawn strength from this program amd these giant hearted mustangs will cause positive ripples through the fabric of humanity for generations...there will always be the bad ones...and there will always be those that fight against them...sheep..wolves, and sheepdogs. It certainly is worth it. Thanks for what you do, Steve.
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