When "There" Becomes "Here"

by Linda Sharp

Yesterday, pre-dawn, found me following my fairly typical early morning routine.

In the hour before having to get the kids up for school, I was already at the keyboard, clearing my inbox, mentally assessing the deadlines of the day, and checking in at CNN.com to, as I often joke to my family, "make sure the world is still out there."

The top headline at the time read, Suspect in Texas murder spree arrested in New York.

Hmmm. I live in Texas.  Hadn't heard about a "spree".  So I clicked on the headline.

I admit, I gave it a very cursory reading.  Six dead.  Austin area - that's interesting, I thought.  I live in the Austin area. House between Jonestown and Lago Vista.  Wow.  That's close.  I drive that stretch every time I go to visit Rudy at work.  Suspect fled to New York, caught there.  Whew.  Glad to know they caught him.  Victims.  A mom, some friends, a bartender, a 15 year old girl.  Man, that's sad.  My daughter is 15. 

And then I went on to the next story, and then about my day.

It would be many hours later that I would find out the truth, and in turn realize something about myself.

For all I preach about never thinking it can't happen to you, near you, to someone you know, in your town; and as much as I constantly beat the "no-place-is-completely-safe" drum to my daughters, it turns out I am just as guilty of thinking these things happen "there", not "here".

You see, yesterday, while in the carpool line, Rudy called.  Did you hear about the murders in Jonestown?

Yes, I read about them, but just briefly.

The girl went to high school with Culley.

My stomach knotted in a way I can't really describe.  It was like someone was doing emotional origami with my intestines.

Minutes later, Culley was in the car telling me about the announcement made in the school, and showing me the letter they had issued regarding the murder of Haylie Faulkner, the 15 year old who should have been a member of Culley's graduating class in 2010.

As I read the information about permission to attend the services when they are finally arranged, the condolences of the staff, the counseling available for the students, I could actually hear my blood flowing in my veins.

This kind of thing doesn't happen here.  Yet somehow, in the blast of a handgun, my town's named has been changed from Leander to Here, Texas.  And my daughter now attends a high school where one of her classmates was brutally murdered in a killing spree which included five other people in two states.

You know, in the great balance sheet of high school life, over the course of the four years, it is the rare school that does not lose a student.  Whether it's the law of averages catching up and killing a wreckless teenage driver, a student with cancer, or an athlete with a heart condition that was not caught until they passed out and died on the football field - these type of deaths, while absolutely tragic, are much more - I do not use this word to be callous - common.

That doesn't make the loss to family and friends any less acute, but somehow, attaching the word murder to a death, makes it that much more of an emotional violation to the psyche.

Murders take place in Iraq.  Murders are those scenes with all the cool moulage (wound make-up), and easily solved in an hour on CSI type dramas.  Murders involve rappers, heads of state, homeless people under bridges.

They don't involve a 15 year old girl in your child's class in high school.

Did Culley personally know Haylie yet?  No, she did not.  But in a school with 2,000+ students, and a plethora of class options and course levels, some paths might not cross until several years in, if at all.

But as Culley observed, I'm sure we shared a lunch period or hallway last year - most freshman do.

She will be attending Haylie's service.  Culley is going to talk to her friends today about going together.  Because as she said to me, Not knowing her doesn't make her less of a person.  And she was a member of MY class.  We need to go.

I will drive Culley and her friends. And I will stand beside them as they bid farewell to a classmate who they did not know, but who leaves their entire class with a heavy heart and the sober lesson that it can happen here.

Rest in peace, Haylie.  LHS will miss you.   

Comments

[Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi]

Thanks for sharing, Linda. You remind me of something that happened here about a year ago at Dawson College in Montreal. A lone gunman entered the college and started randomly shooting before turning the gun on himself. Amazingly, although he injured about 20 people, only one died, Anastasia Desousa (not counting the shooter who also died). She was just starting her first year of college and still had her whole life ahead of her. It hit pretty close to home for us because she had gone to the same grade school that my kids attend (her little brother was still in that school in 6th grade). On top of that, she was the daughter of a couple who went to high school with Rudy, my husband, and who attend the same Church as we do.

It is scary to see things like this happen, but somehow it is even scarier when it is close to home!

I will keep Haylie and her family and friends in my thoughts and prayers.

[Veronica]

I wish I could say the same, but living in the Phoenix metro area that stuff happens here quite often. I've known several people who have lost their lives before turning 20.

[Karrie McAllister]

I hear you, Linda. A few years ago, in our little town, someone abducted his neighbor at the county fair. Then he chopped her up and dumped her in a swamp-- a swamp area that I have visited with my children. THERE can be HERE, no matter WHERE you are. Thanks for the stark reminder.