It's hard to believe that only a few nights ago I was musing about murderers and the death penalty.
I know two people who have been murdered, both were domestic violence situations. The first while I was in college, and it happened to Eric Sparks, a popular guy from high school who I worked with on the yearbook staff. He went to his (female) youth minister's house to help her after receiving a call that her angry ex-boyfriend had shown up and she was afraid. The ex wounded her, killed Eric, then committed suicide.
The second case was last year, about my friend Mark Newton who was our nurse practitioner at Briarcliff. He and I were work buddies, the kind of person I didn't socialize with outside of work but whose company I always sought when I was there. He was separated from his wife, and had a girlfriend who was estranged from her abusive husband. His girlfriend's husband showed up at her apartment one day and killed both her and Mark. What really gets me about Mark is that I know how tormented he was by his own demons in the months prior to his death. The week before he died, we had another long conversation about his situation, how he wanted to make things right and heal his family, but he didn't know how to change things. The Christian marriage counselor he and his wife went to actually told them to just get a divorce. Unfortunately, Mark never got a chance to try again. I miss him so much, still. He pops into my thoughts at the strangest times, and it always takes my breath.
Today, I learned of yet ANOTHER situation, only this time the plot's a little different. Ben e-mailed me about a friend of ours from home, Megan, who shot her husband 15 times and now she's held under 2.5 million bond. Megan and I were both leaders in our youth group and were nearly inseparable at church until she moved to Ohio with her family. When she turned 18, she married this ugly goofy guy who was in his 40's. Apparently she had her family's blessing on this, which nobody could figure out. They had 2 kids and that's the last I heard of her until, according to the news, they were estranged, she'd been in domestic violence shelters, all sorts of bad stuff. Then she went to his house and emptied 2 guns into him.
I just don't get it. Her mom used to be my Sunday School teacher! Megan is beautiful and smart and apparently more unstable than either Ben or I realized, and we were both close to her. Who knows what has happened in the years since I've last seen her?
God, help me to understand!
