Scars Murder leaves behind

            There are many deep wounds when it comes to murder, not only for me, the sister who lost the brother due to murder, but also for the extended family and much more. Inside the household of that person, who lost the loved one, there are so many ways it affects these people, homes, and life.

I was thirty nine when my brother was murdered, my daughter was nine, my son fifteen, and my husband was forty. I was thirty years older then my daughter and still couldn’t process the thought of another human being taking the life of another, much less someone who I loved deeply, and spent thirty one years watching this person grow from baby, to toddler, to young boy, to a handsome young man, who had his whole life ahead of him, my only baby brother.

You often watch the news or read the newspapers, and hear and read stories of loved ones being murdered, and you say to yourself, that poor family and you pray for them, but then you move on with your life, and you think to yourself that will never happen to our family, not a family like ours, we are good people, things like that don’t happen to good people like us.

Then one morning you receive the news, that it can, and does happen to good people like us, and it isn’t until then, you realize what other’s that have walked in these shoes, has been trying to scream out the whole time! The deep scars it leaves, scars so deep, you constantly feel the pain everyday, even when those deep scars have scabbed up, they no longer are painful on the outside, but the pain continues to be painful on the inside. As much as you want the pain to stop, it doesn’t, it can’t!

You go from an outgoing person, to a person who wants to shelter herself from the rest of the world, that loving person who now becomes bitter, angry, numb, and even at times jealous, that other’s still have their brother’s, all this and much more.

The household you once knew is different, it’s as if your body isn’t yours anymore, it’s been taken over by someone else or something else. You still look like you on the outside, but your soul is different on the inside. You’re walking around this world as if you seen this place before, but it’s different and you can’t quite figure out, how you got to this place that is so familiar, yet so very different from before. It’s as if you’re in some sort of video game or another dimension, and you asked yourself, how did I get here? Not wanting to be here, but can’t find your way back to where you were, as if you can never escape. It’s like living in one of those mirror funhouses, and as much as you try to find your way out, you keep running into the mirrors, not being able to escape, looking into those mirrors seeing yourself scream, but no one can hear you, and you just have to accept the fact that this is your life now, it won’t change.

Your ten year old daughter trying to find her way out of this video game, dimension, even the mirrored funhouse, and you having a hard time helping her escape, because you, yourself can’t escape. You can’t explain it to her because you don’t understand it yourself. All you can do is take her hand, and try and live in this mirror funhouse together, and not being able to explain to her why things happen the way they do. All I can do for her is to sit and listen to her, tell me her feelings and give her a shoulder, when she needs to cry.

Walking in the shoes of a person who’s life has been affected by murder is not easy, the shoes are so tight, and not only painful to your feet, but painful to your entire body and being!