In Memory of Tyler
tyler is the 4th person i know of who killed himself following a murder - the other three are bereft brothers. tyler killed himself at the age of 12 after his biological father beat his mother to death, also killing tyler's unborn baby brother.

it's about 3:15 a.m. i drafted a query letter some time ago and emailed it to a couple of people for feedback. tonight i started out looking for it in my sent box [i'm on the 3rd computer since bekah's death]. next thing you know i'm reading these emails from the days just following bekah's death. all these emails. all these people and they are victims too, all this tragedy.

does anyone else ever feel like growing to the size of a mountain to exhort the world: "stop killing each other!" ? i do, sometimes. but i do have a blog.

there were other unexpected things in my sent box. incidences meant for the bekah church of wonder catalogue of unexplained phenomena and incredible small world stories that i had forgotten entirely. reminders of people, people i love, people who care.

in chat earlier my friend/benefactor and i were discussing love...she is a big believer in a god whereas i maintain that god was made up by people, but we agree that love is the only meaningful good. i said, if it wasn't for people being so great i wouldn't have any hope at all. then i said, because i remembered and couldn't forget, if it wasn't for people being such shits bekah would be alive.


bekah at the pinnacles

before a month had passed from her death i was visiting a close friend out in the CA desert. he took me to a place called the pinnacles. it was something like 108 degrees outside, the 10th or so of august, 2001...i felt bekah's presence out there. kept getting the chills, up and down my body. of course at the time i was still in shock and incapable, seriously, of thinking about anything but bekah. my friend took a picture of me and i remember praying to bekah as he did, please be in the picture bek, please be there, a white light next to me...

a couple of weeks later my friend sent me a few prints from that day. i was at 7/11 getting a dr. pepper when i opened the envelope, planning to go to work [i still thought i could maybe work then]. the picture of me was the first in the pile. sigh. just a fat sad woman in shorts standing on a pinnacle. the next prints were pictures i had taken with his camera. when i saw this one, i nearly shouted out loud in the store.

fuck work. i took off for bekah's best friend's job - had to show her bekah! she was out to lunch. crap...my son just happened to be driving by as he was working in the neighborhood [have i ever mentioned how the 10 or 20 million people in LA shrunk to something like 500 in the days after bekah's death?]. john, look, i got a picture of bekah!

my son is a skeptic. well until bekah's 23rd birthday this year. he may not be anymore, i'll have to find out for sure...at any rate in september, 2001, he just kinda patted me on the head and said, there, there, mom. sure it's bekah mom.

i went to the cemetery. talked to bekah. prayed to bekah, thanked bekah. finally rolled into work at about 3 pm or so, and immediately showed the pictures to L., the woman who runs my old office. when she saw this picture, she said, "That looks like an angel!"

finally validation. i broke into tears. bekah. amen
- posted by barbara @ 10/13/2003 03:47:00 AM