How To Get Over The Loss Of A Friend

 

I came to the realization today that not everyone you love stays with you your whole life.  Some do.  Some don't.  Some only for a while, to wake you up then they leave before you can thank them.  There are lots of times when I've felt like nobody could really understand what this is like for me and all the others, like it was the same experience.  Although, I am sure that we are all different people, there is no doubt that if you ran into this particular group of criminals, the experience was bad.  Most likely hurtful.

I did my job.  I had to then create a safe space for me to live in because I saw what the other people were not doing.  They weren't missing me or my feelings.  They weren't missing out on our time, they were creating their own friendships and safety.  There really isn't any room in crime investigation for feelings or friendships.  They are strange bedfellows and aren't really compatible with the way that I am.  It's hard to think of myself as alone fighting against a monster any longer.  I live with lots of monsters and lots more that won't ever understand what they took from me.

I am not the same person any longer.

There is only one thing in the law, it is the law...nothing else.

I've got so many enemies now because of telling the truth that it quickly closes in on me.  I'm not really anyone that wanted this job in the first place.  I thought, wrongly, that it would save lives.  The only lives that this saved were the people that deserted me for a corrupt persuasion that kept the Arizona court from seeking justice for myself and two little boys, now men.  This kept the California court from prosecuting Jonathan Mendenhall for his past too.  It would seem that the only winners here were the people that made the mistakes or committed the crimes.  It's just like Palm Springs all over again.  If you can see what people think, you can derail justice and leave the victims in danger.

I've realized that my life has moved on.

Dr. Seuss said, "Sometimes you don't realize the value of a moment until it becomes a memory."  The law isn't that sentimental.  It's very clear about obstruction and witness tampering for a reason.  It is the cornerstone of the legal system.  A valuable piece of the mechanism that brings dangerous criminals to justice.  It is time sensitive and more important, it is life sensitive to the people that were brutalized.

I have two letters that show how friendships move on.  One is the death notice of someone that worked on this case that I knew for longer than anyone else in this story.  The other was a "kiss off" letter from someone I loved's family.  Neither was addressed nor was either a concern for the friend or their families.  It simply was a way to hurt me and it stood to this very day.  I wouldn't and couldn't do that to someone I truly cared about.  It's illegal yes, but more important, it was a devastating blow delivered at first by Lori LaFond, but more severe by the families that I told the truth to.  It isn't important to reinjure myself by reading them again.

Purely a selfish act of betrayal.

Finally, I would suggest that moving on past these relationships is necessary for the other victims.  The players made their choices despite the cost to me and to those boys.  A cost I've paid probably thousands of times in the past because of people like Bryan Anderson and Bessie Smith.  People that told my family that they were our friends but turned their backs on all of us when their secret became deadly.

I guess that the loss of a friend is best dealt with alone.  That's the easy one for me.  Alone was the intent, it was the goal.  It was the impression I was left with that was eating me alive, then I was dead.  I still am.  The thing that I really wanted to put down was that I can't appreciate anything that was once good, because the end result was bad, really bad.

I'll be better in the future without what and who hurt me in the past.  I pray for those two young men.  At least they have a prosecutor somewhere that is on their side.  It's the only time two victims of Lori have had this kind of power to control her.  I wish them the very best luck, they deserved a whole lot better from the people that I trusted.   I'll be there for them.

Don't swim the vast oceans for someone that wouldn't cross a puddle for you.  It's important to remember that.