of killing and healing rain
Rain is a healing kind of weather. The very fact of rain makes the warm dry places much more dry and warm. Take my living room in the evening for example. The trees around the house are tossing and moving, the rain is coming down, and the streetlights reveal a shiny, sparkling, busy world. Rain at night is like – company, like a friend who is around, the kind of friend who needs nothing from you at this particular moment but you both just enjoy coexisting. I have decided that I would like to live in a rainy part of the world.
This week has been such an emotional, surreal kind of a week. I still have trouble closing my eyes without running through Facts. Evidence. Statements. Mistakes. Lies. Hurting. Motherless, Daughterless, Lifeless.
I didn’t let any of the trial get to me for six weeks. Six weeks of descriptions, pictures, investigations, taped telephone calls. What is science? I learned the theory behind fingerprint examination and DNA analysis, I learned how to load the magazine of a .38 caliber Bersa handgun. I learned the names of children and I heard peace ja love…a baptism, a new life…
I never let anything hit me anywhere deeper than the place where one stores and analyzes facts. But on Monday I had to start using those facts to come to a decision. Did he cause the death? Did he cause the death unlawfully? Did he have the state of mind required for murder? Was this murder planned and deliberate?
I don’t think words can really describe the way it feels to be required to answer those questions. You can come to your own conclusions but you don’t understand, trust me, you don’t understand.
I only know that at last – after hours of deliberation, after an unrestful night at the Ramada Inn, after realizing a decision had been made – when my name was called, when it was time for me to stand up and give my verdict, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my strength that kept my knees under me for the brief second it took to look towards the defendant and say guilty but I did it. And I didn’t cry, not until I was home, alone.
Life is a long time – it will be a long time for this man. It wasn’t a long time for one young woman. Twenty-three years is not long enough to be on earth – six years is not long enough to be a mother – half a day is not enough time to celebrate a new life.
She never got to live that new life. Don’t forget what you have.
this post is dedicated to N.G.
guilt in forgetting
I made it through another week. It’s Saturday night, I’m almost de-stressed from last week.
I have to confess, I didn’t observe a minute of silence this morning. I think I was being silent at 11am, but that’s only because I was writing thank you cards. I feel kind of ashamed, and yet I have to analyze my shame and wonder, why is this?
War today is so much different than the wars we remember most on November 11. Identity is so shattered – half of the people in the country might be generally in favour of the war or at least Canada’s peace-keeping mission, although not really crazy about it. Then there’s another almost half that’s vehemently opposed – and then there’s a small fragment of population who are actually supportive.
Last week my friend came up to me because she’d lost her poppy and thought I might have seen it. I said that no, I didn’t – I had an extra one though, which she adopted. The thing is, if you don’t have a poppy in November, you feel guilty. Why is that? I’m a Christian and I don’t have a fish on my car. I’m totally supportive of breast cancer research and yet I don’t have a pink ribbon anywhere. I don’t really care about either of those things at all. But even though I hardly know a single veteran and I am inclined to think that about 99% of the wars in this world are a senseless waste of human life, but I feel really guilty if I’m not wearing a poppy.
Is it all a big bunch of peer pressure, or one of the few icons of conscience left in this country?
Things I need.
What can I say, I’m a follower. Everyone else is Googling what they “need” – so I fall prey to peer pressure. At least it’s not pot. Hah, that rhymes.
Candice needs to start walking on her own 2 feet again and concentrate!
Yes! Starting tomorrow, no more crutches.
Candice needs help!!!
This is why I can’t walk on my own two feet, people. Sheesh.
Candice needs to pee
Another thing that makes walking awkward.
Candice needs to play better
I agree. I could use more being fun-ness and less being boring-ness.
Candice needs to learn to take off a pull-over shirt
I actually am not half-bad at taking off my shirt. Oh wait, that sounded bad. Darn, one thing I though I could innocently be proud of.
Candice needs to create a hello-world project in her own archive
If I knew what this meant, maybe it would help me. Hello World!
Candice needs no prompting
That’s right. Genius all the way. Also why I did the “-needs” thing without being tagged.
