In Remembrance
Fear, Satan’s most powerful tool, is the root of all evil. Fear itself is my greatest fear. It is. Fear, coupled with worry (a needless emotion,) robs us of time. It replaces joy with anxiety. As an “over-thinker,” it’s hard not to succumb to it this week. I will write this entry with a heavy heart and a head full of questions. On Saturday, October 25th, we lost Anne Pressly. I note “we” because this loss has been profound and vast while affecting many. I did not know Anne personally, nor was I familiar with her from afar. I was asleep in my bed during the time in which Anne was on the air, but I still find I am enraged.
I pray of solace for her family, friends and co-workers. I know they are left with grief I cannot imagine or pretend to understand. Though I realize it offers superficial comfort, knowing she is with the absence of fear, pain, worry, and sadness should offer a bit of peace. Justice will eventually offer more.
Until recently, I lived a handful of blocks away from where Anne was attacked. It was not an uncommon occurrence for me to fall asleep with my back bedroom door ajar. I rarely locked my doors at all because I was delusional in believing it could not happen to me. To quote another, “Our sense of safety is a mirage.” False security I assume Anne harbored as well. My doors are now closed and locked and my eyes wide open. My commonsense no longer in hiding.
My best friend, Wes, was an acquaintance of Anne’s. He works mere feet from where the nightmare occurred. Wes is unable to leave for lunch, so I frequently visit him during my lunch breaks. I visited him today like I’ve done hundreds of times before and felt a foreign feeling in a familiar place. I can’t describe with complete accuracy but I felt uneasy, nervous, heavy yet empty. Wes and I made efforts to discuss anything other than the tragedy that has lurked in all of our minds, but we found ourselves engaged despite our best efforts. Wes said, “We are not hateful people. Neither one of us is capable of really hating and yet, we both genuinely loathe the person(s) capable of such shameless evil.” Like a domino effect, the hate I feel makes me hate more.
I can’t wrap my mind around it. I would purposely wreck my car to avoid hitting a squirrel. The idea of purposely harming another living being is beyond my comprehension. Just as I cannot fully grasp the concept of infinity, I cannot get my arms around the capability of such hurt. Continually thinking about it creates insanity. I have to remind myself people are mostly good. The good guys outweigh the bad guys. I cannot borrow worry from tomorrow because tomorrow isn’t promised or guaranteed. I can only love as much as possible and live as best I can. Otherwise, my thinking becomes a hamster in a wheel running in exhausting circles.
I am hurriedly walking my dog, calling my neighbor to smoke outside with me once night falls, literally startled by my own shadow. I’ve discovered a new fear and suddenly all my other fears seem trivial. This too, inspires anger. Like hate, the anger makes me angrier. Talking with Wes aided in making some of the fear subside. Baby steps…
Saturday, the 18th, I spent the majority of the evening drinking wine and talking outside with my mom and stepdad. Ironically, we discussed the death of my grandmother (whom I lost 5+ years ago.) I miss her more as time passes. My mom asked if I eventually want children. I am still undecided, yet swayable either way. She elaborated: “If none of her grandkids have children, grandma’s memory dies. She becomes a picture in a photo album which eventually disappears. And if you don’t have children who have children and so on, your memory dies too.” How soon I learn this lacks truth. As mentioned, I didn’t have the fortune of knowing Anne, but she leaves a legacy. She will be remembered. Her light now burns elsewhere, but the memory of her light burns as a constant reminder. She will always be missed by those who knew her and by those who wish they had known her.
Comments
The whole Anne situation is very disturbing and it has made me way more cautious about locking my doors, ect...a friend of mine is even getting a gun permit because she is so scared and she lives a few streets away from where this happened. I hope they catch who did this and may Anne rest in peace.
Posted by: angie![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/misadventures/nav-commenters.gif)
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October 28, 2008 10:56 AM
I didn't know Anne, but I did see her on TV nearly every morning. I cried when I watched the memorials to her. I spent an entire day seeing things on cable news that make me wonder what the hell has happened to the world. Anne Presley, Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and 7 year old nephew- all innocent people taken by such violence. I came home and cried in Mitch's arms because I was so depressed at what I see going on around me. I felt so damn helpless to change it. As a mother, to even begin to imagine the way her mother feels is inconceivable. All I can think of is the infinate RAGE I would feel, knowing what had happened to my beautiful child, and all that had been taken away. I pray her family can eventually find peace. I pray that the bastard who did that to her NEVER finds peace. And I pray that I will soon go back to believing that there are more good people than bad. It's hard to remember that some days.
Posted by: Kate | October 28, 2008 05:40 PM
That was a well written piece Lauren. I think Ms. Pressly's horrific murder has underscored the times we live in. The desperation and violence permeates the shadows and regard for our human brothers and sisters diminishes for what...a stolen handbag, another fix, a tank of gas. In the past 18 months, random violence (murder) has sprung up in my area of town, where a bank teller was shot in the back on Christmas Eve for what??? Unfortunately, I don't remember the young teller's name but I do remember the senselessness of his death. I still hold that in the long run, we will all be forgotten unless we have some other source of fame or a close family. I look at famly photos that my father and mother left, and if there isn't a name on the back of the photo, their names are forgotten, never to be uttered or applied again. It is both fortuante and unfortunate, that we will move on and with some time, way in the future, be forgotten. All of the minutia (sp?) becomes trite and inconsequential and all that we leave really are memories left for those who once cared for us and the contributions we make to one another. One thing is certain, we are all begotten from those before us since the beginning of time. I remember when I gave birth to you, I remember your father and I talking that you had been begotten from generations as far back as the beginning of time. With attributes and genetic qualities begotten, again, from hundreds of generations before us. We are all legacies. Our sympathies are with the Presslys and I do pray that our world finds a way to value all human life.
Posted by: mom-ster | October 29, 2008 08:19 AM
Hey, don't want to weird you out--this is the other momster, the one that isn't your mom. I just wanted to say that when something dreadful happens like this, I think it is just about impossible for us to make sense of it. The one thing I have noticed is that an incident such as this sometimes serves to shake people up, and wake people up for a while at least out of the insulated, self-absorbed survival mode we live in most of the time. Perhaps we reach out to others or to God for advice or comfort, or perhaps we get to be the one providing those things to a hurting person that could really use it. So many of us care about those around us, but are so busy, distracted, exhausted, selfish, lazy, whatever. that we don't bother to speak up about the little and big things that matter to others every day. Maybe instead of trying so hard to live in the "now" as today's culture tries to advise us, we should try to live in a more eternal way-past, where we do our best to remember and honor those who came before us; present-making connections with those who cross our paths each day; and future-the "legacy" you spoke of Ms. Pressley leaving. I don't think it really matters if our name is remembered, but that the effect we leave on the world is positive because we paid something forward/outward and didn't live solely for ourselves.
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October 29, 2008 05:14 PM
The sense we make of this is that this is not a new event. It just had not happened to this variety of public person here, yet. These are not unique times we live in, there are just flavored a little differently than they were when we were younger.
We convince ourselves that the world is becoming evil, this idea, too, is a mirage. There was more ill treatment of the poor and disenfranchised in the past than is now. The public screening of events like these help us to teach non-violent means to our children and those around us. At least one person, touched by the death of Anne, will lead a life less violent. But having fear in our minds about the world outside our body does not stop anything from happening; if anything, it creates within us the capacity to be suspect of those not guilty and leads us into a mindset capable the predecessor to violence - seeing "the other guy" as being less human than us.
Prayer, alone, will not vanquish what is in our hearts and minds. The active pursuit of teaching non-violence and educating the less fortunate, so that they may rise from a position enabling their criminal behaviors, is the only way to stop crime. A criminal makes a choice they think is the better choice that they CAN make, not because they decide it is the worst thing they could do.
Posted by: rich | October 30, 2008 04:07 PM