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This is rather confused, but that's because I'm thoroughly confused and trying to understand what's going on.
The first thread is innocent enough. A month or so ago my ex gave me a copy of Birth in Death, one of JD Robb's (Nora Roberts) excellent series of murder mysteries. I was hopelessly hooked and have gone through the almost 30 books in the last few weeks. The protagonist is Eve Dallas, a very compelling character. There is absolutely no TS content to the books, but I have come to think of Eve as the inverse of the stereotypical character found in crossdressing stories. She is a strong, competent woman who is completely at ease with her femininity, but simply doesn't get the whole fashion/makeup/girly business. This makes for some very funny situations along the way. These are very readable and compelling books.
I've read plenty of murder mysteries, and accept that the murder is usually a plot device with which to hang the rest of the story. Murder is serious and gives weight to the ensuing search for the criminal, but the murder victim is often almost irrelevant once the murder has started the story. Likewise, by the end of the book the criminal is caught and punished for his nefarious deeds. I never really thought much about this scenario until a friend was murdered last week.
I am a few weeks shy of 60 and have never been personally connected to a murder in any way before. Christine was not a close friend, but I have known her for 20 years. She was passionate, physically and spiritually beautiful, a gifted singer, a photographer and an environmental activist. She and her husband Tim were very much in love, their closeness and affection struck you as soon as you met them. When they sang together it was moving and beautiful. Yet it appears he strangled her and left her body by her beloved swampland.
Suddenly there is a real murder in my life that isn't simply a plot device. This murder victim was a real person and can never be replaced, never be relegated to a plot device. At the same time I can't simply hate the murderer. I don't know what really happened, I can't understand what could have driven him to kill. Instead of hate for a murderer I feel sorrow and compassion. When I cry, I cry for both of them. I can't tie this up neatly at the end of a book, it is an open wound in my life and in my community that can only heal slowly.
Comments
I...I...
I grieve for you... I don't know what I can say...
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Sadly, this is what happens in real life.
It's messy and disturbing and upsetting and lots of other negatives, and murder being so far removed from most of our normal lives is the same. Most are squalid and far from being the sort solved by modern day Sherlock Holmes, are very obvious - often done by a close friend or relative.
Statistically, men are more at risk than women, and young black ones most of all. Often these crimes are pointless stabbings or shootings by pathetic misfits or social inadequates.
I happened on the scene of a murder twenty odd years ago, the blood was still running down the gutter, so it hadn't happened more than a few hours before. It was a pointless stabbing of one young man by his paranoid, drunken neighbour - who thought the victim was laughing at him. Stuck a carving knife through him.
No matter how caring and sophisticated we become, we can all give vent to rage or other uncontrolled feelings and are thus all potential killers. It only takes a moment to kill someone - but a lifetime to regret it.
Angharad
Angharad
Two very different things
Howsoever death comes into our lives, it is shocking even when it is expected. For it to happen like this must be totally soul destroying. You have the sympathy of us all.
I understand why, at this time, you are trying to make sense of a senseless situation, and why your mind might dwell upon this apparent paradox. But I think it's wrong to confuse the fiction of a murder mystery with the horrible reality that life sometimes becomes.
A murder mystery has strict but unwritten rules. The reader cannot be allowed to become attached to the victim - indeed, the victim normally has to be more repugnant than the murderer. The murderer has to be one of a small number of possible suspects. It should always be possible for the reader to deduce the murderer, and the murderer must always be caught and justice is done, to the relief of everyone else.
Real life is simply not like that. There are no rules. Murder is a horrible crime. Often committed by someone who was unknown to the victim, often for petty theft or simply for the sake of aggression. Other times, it is as this appears, a domestic incident which turns into tragedy. The law may take its toll, but there is no satisfactory ending to this.
Our thoughts are with you and the family of the victim.
An open wound indeed.
I've been touched by murder twice in my life, both about twenty years ago.
The first was when I happened on an unfolding scene, having topped a hill in my car and started down the main drive in our small Texas town. A man had parked a motorcycle in the middle of the fourlane street, and appeared to be rushing back to it from an auto parts store. Another man followed him out of the store and shot him three times as he attempted to start his bike.
I saw the whole incident, but I was so shocked I just drove on, lest my girls in the back seat notice the unfolding horror. The image still disturbs me, though I didn't know either man. Interestingly I found out later that almost everyone in town, including the police were happy the man was murdered because he was a ntorious and brutal wife-beater. The murderer was the lady's brother and killed the man after he had entered his place of employment and threatened him. It seems I was the only witness, but I never told anyone, and the man was found innocent. Texas justice, I guess since the police found him with the gun in his hand still standing over the victim.
The one that changed my life however was later. A man walked into the Baptist church in town and starting shooting. My employer was killed, and the little 5-year old next door neighbor girl was killed too, hit in the back of the head with a high power rifle round. There were five or six funerals in that town that week, I've forgotten the exact count. In that week I lost my employer and friend, had to take on the task of helping his son learn to run the business while dealing with his grief, try to find something to say to my neighbors, and try to keep my girls from realizing the horror of what had come so close to them. I know it sounds terrible but I've always been grateful that they hardly knew the little girl. I was emotionally numb for several years following that trajedy.
You will recover given enough time, but I have no advice, and I will tell you that the scar will always be sensitive.
God bless you, this is a real hurt and my heart goes out to you in your grief.
Hugs
Carla Ann