To Grieve or not to Grieve that is the Question

13 years ago the most horrific tragedy gripped the lives of my family. My second oldest sister was horrifically and brutally murdered by the man she loved and trusted the most. Her husband of 12 years brutally murdered her. Why you ask. For money of course. He had taken out a $1,000,000.oo insurance policy on her life thinking he could get away with it and live the good life he felt he deserved. I remember like it was yesterday the call he made to my parents house right after he had brutally murdered their daughter. My mom picked up the phone with Shaun on the other end telling her that Trisha was missing. She had gone out in the middle of the night to go to Wal-Mart to get some Advil for her cramps. (something just didn't add up.) My mom said okay we will start praying. I was 21 at the time. I had a 18 month old daughter and we lived with my parents. I got on my phone (separate phone line) started calling everyone I could think of to pray that my sister would be found and that she would be okay. I was in the middle of praying with a woman named Pam when my mom got the call. I heard my mom scream in the other room. I said Pam you can stop praying I believe they found my sister and from the scream I don't think she is okay. I put the phone down and ran to my mom to find out what was wrong. My mom sat there sobbing holding the phone. My heart dropped. Noooooooooooo I yelled. Nooooooo. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said they found her body on the side of the road. I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Didn't God hear me. I was just praying for her safety. I felt like He had just let me down. I bent down and hugged my mom and we both cried as we held each other. I don't remember for some reason where my dad and Nadia were at that moment. Nadia was probably in her crib.
We got on a plane just hours later. I remember sitting next to my mom on the flight with my dad sitting next to her. Nadia was on my lap. My mom turned to me in the middle of the flight and said "Deb we don't know what happened or who did this but WE have to forgive whoever did this right now or we never will." I said "what?" I thought I know God talks about forgiveness but doesn't he know someone has just murdered my sister? I thought about her words and let them penetrate my soul for a moment. I decided what she said made sense. She was right. If I didn't forgive them now I never would. So I made a concious decision to forgive whoever murdered my sister. At the time we didn't actually know it was murder. We got off the plane greeted by some of Shauns family, his mother and one of his sisters. I don't remember which one of his sisters. Also Shane was there. Trisha's children at that time were Shane 11 and Lauren 3 days away from turning 6. We were bombarded by the misleading information they chose to feed us. I don't remember who said what. They said "the police found her body early this morning on the side of the road. Her tire was flat so it looked like she was walking to get help when someone ran her over." That did NOT make sense to me. That did NOT sound like something my sister would have ever done. They made a mockery of my sister on the news saying "If you get a flat in the middle of the night never get out of your car, just stay put." This was when cell phones were still fairly new. She did have one. I know she would have stayed put and called her husband. Something just didn't sound right. I knew they were wrong. We got back to Trisha's house. We walked in and Shaun ran to each of us hugging us and saying I can't believe she's dead (with no emotion might I add). I got the weirdest vibe from him. I didn't know how to take it. He's usually one who looks everyone in the eye but after he brutally murdered my sister eye contact became a thing of the past. He especially wouldn't look at me. I resemble my sister a lot. I don't know if I reminded him of what he had just done but he had a hard time looking at me at all. We waited for my other 2 sisters and their family's to arrive. When they finally got there everyone was crying except Lauren and Shaun. We were sitting around the kitchen table when Shaun came in and sat down next to me. He looks out the window and says. "I remember my Phych classes and learning the stages of grief, and I'm going through every single one of them right now." Then he got up and went into his bedroom where he spent what we thought most of his time. I found out he had a door from his bedroom to the outside so he was leaving a lot. His mother came over at that moment and walked over to the counter and did a very dramatic fall on the counter and said "Oh Trisha, Oh Trisha, I can't believe she's gone." I went over to her to pat her on the back and she grabbed me and began to sob on my shoulder. My shoulders were wet from letting everyone cry on them but no one let me cry on theirs. While we were there I slept in Shane's room with Nadia and my parents slept in Lauren's room. Shane had a picture window in his room with no curtain.(a window that goes from floor to ceiling.) I put Nadia to sleep and was getting ready for bed when I got an uneasy feeling that someone was watching me. It felt evil. I sensed so much evil in that house and I didn't know why at the time. I had been trying to go to sleep but couldn't because of the feeling that someone was watching me. I got up and looked out the window. I couldn't see anything it was too dark. So I got up and went into Laurens room. I said to my mom "I can't sleep will you stay up with me?" She got up and we went into the living room. We sat there and I told her what I was feeling. I told her I sensed a spiritual presence in the house. An evil presence. I went over to Shaun's room and gently knocked. I didn't get an answer so I opened it a crack. All I saw was Shane and Lauren asleep. Shaun was nowhere to be found. That made me really uneasy. I went back to my mom and told her he wasn't home. I said I couldn't go back to bed until he got home. So she and I stayed up and talked until he got home. He walked through the front door and said "what are you two still doing up?" My mom told him how I wouldn't go to bed till he got home. He shot me a glare. He said "I had to talk to a friend." We thought well he's grieving he can talk to whoever he wants. I finally went to bed but still felt very uneasy. I don't think I slept that night.
The next couple of days were very hard. Only the family viewed the body if they wanted. I chose to only because when my grandma had passed away a little earlier it brought closure for me to see her look the way I remembered her. So I chose once again to view my sisters body. I thought I was going to have a nervous break down. She did not look like she had 6 months earlier. That was the last time I saw her. They told my sisters and myself not to touch her face because it would fall apart. They did a lot of reconstruction work to make her look as close to what she did. But she still did not look like her. Her face was swollen. We had no idea why until later. I started saying "that isn't her." My sisters were confused by what I was saying. They said "of course that isn't her, that's only her earthly body she is in heaven." I said "no that is not our sister. That is someone who may look similar to her but that is not her." They said "no honey that is her." I kept picturing her somewhere with amnesia wandering around not knowing who she was. I always expected that some day she would remember who she was and come back to my parents home. I held on to that for a while. After we viewed the body we closed the casket and the people from the ministry she worked for came to pay their respects. There were some who talked to me. They said I was very dear to her and she always prayed for me. They said she prayed for the safety of her children and mine. She prayed for her husbands salvation. She always told them about me they said. Then they got up and said "now we are going to go in there and raise her from the dead." I said "wait, (as they said this I started remembering a song from Carmen about a man who died and was in the Glory of the Lord when his family started praying and God said to him your family wants you back so I am sending you back. He said But if they only knew I am happy here. I don't want to go back. Please don't send me back.) I said "I miss her very much but I know her life here was hell and you can't just pull her from Glory to come back to us. She is finally happy. Please don't." They didn't listen to me as they walked down the hall to where she was. They tried with all their might to raise my sister from the dead to no avail. I don't doubt that she could have been raised from the dead. I don't think anything is impossible for God. I just think God knew how unfair it was for them to ask for that in her situation. He knew what happened. He was there. He held her and guarded her from everything she went through I later learned. When we went back to Trisha's house I still felt the spirit of death so heavy on her house. I started looking through her cupboards in the kitchen and found Tylenol PM and Advil. (Advil is what Shaun told us she went to get because of cramps.) He came in and said what are you looking for? Not knowing I had seen the Advil. I said well I can't sleep so I was looking for something to help me sleep. He said here take some Tylenol PM and I'll make you some vanilla milk. That was the only way I was able to sleep that night. The evil was so heavy.
The next day was the funeral. I have to say the people of Tulsa are so sweet. Trisha's neighbors brought us food at all hours and offered to babysit if we needed it. We did leave all the kids at home for the funeral. I had prepared a poem to read in honor of Trisha at her funeral. I have never seen so many people at a funeral. I just wish she knew all those people loved her. Susie Bates sang Friends like I had requested. I got up and read my poem. I remember looking down at Shaun and thought it was odd that he looked bored. After the funeral we had a reception where friends could give us their condolences. People she had gone to high school with kept coming up to me and said I freaked them out when I got up there. They thought I was Trisha standing up there. They hadn't seen me since I was in elementary school. They said they didn't realize how much I looked like Trisha until they saw me read my poem. I was honored they thought I looked like her. She was Gorgeous. She always was who I looked up to. It didn't seem real to me still. It all seemed too surreal. She was more than a sister to me. She was a mother, a best friend and a sister to me.
The next day was Sunday. I told everyone that everytime I visited Trisha I always went to Higher Dementions. I didn't care where anyone else was going but that was where I wanted to go. They all decided to come with me. We actually dragged Shaun with us. We were late but right on time and I'll explain why. Right when we walked through that door God started talking through Carlton Peirson directly to Shaun. He said "it doesn't matter what you have done, God still loves you. He looked right at Shaun and said even if you have murdered someone, God still loves you and will forgive you. Shaun looked at us and turned around and walked out the door. We all wondered what that was about.
Later that day Shaun asked me to go to McDonalds with him. He said coke is always better from the fountain. He also said he wanted me to meet some girl. I later found out he was trying to introduce me to his mistress. So glad she wasn't working that day. He got us cokes then we headed back to the house.
When we got back my sisters wanted to go for a car ride to talk privately. We drove around and talked for a while. Wendy told Missy and I about how something similar had happened to Trisha a few months earlier. We said what do you mean. She said Trisha had called her and told her "Trisha was on her way to the store when her car broke down. She did get out to walk but never walked anywhere close to the road. She noticed a red truck following her so she hid. Next thing she knew Shaun got out of the red truck and started calling her name. She had never seen the red truck before. So he coaxed her down from her hiding spot and took her home." That was suppose to be the night he was going to murder her. I said don't tell the police that or they will think it was Shaun who murdered her. Little did I know he was.
We went back home to Denver. The guy I had broke up with at the same time Trisha was being murdered came over. He was nice enough but it was what he gave me that made me want to throw him over the fence. He handed me a book entitled God Meant It For Good. I took the book and said excuse me a minute and walked into the kitchen and threw it away. Who does that? Obviously him. I know people get all tongue tied and don't know what to say when you loose someone you love so much, but come on that was hurtful not helpful. I walked back to where he was and said "thank you for your book and your well wishes." I ushered him to the door. I guess at least he tried to be comforting. It's more than I can say for everyone else I knew. Everyone else I knew litterally turned their backs on me. When we got back it was very lonely. Other than the guy bringing the inapropriate book no one else came by. No one for me or for my parents. No one brought food. No one offered their support. Nothing we were left high and dry.
At that time I went to two different churches. One for Church the other for college age youth group. The next Sunday I went to my church. I went early as I always did to pray with some other women. They all knew what had happened. I was starting to cry and tell them about what happened when my Pastor comes over and says crying endures for a night but Joy comes in the morning. Get over it. Then he walked away. I was stunned. I wasn't suppose to cry? I wasn't suppose to grieve? I learned it made people very uncomfortable. Still does. No one cares if your in pain, you have to put on your happy face at all times or they will refuse to have anything to do with you. The very next Sunday another family had a death in the family. They knew their family member was dying and they were really old. The Pastor got up and said "we all need to be there for this family as they grieve." That was enough for me. I couldn't grieve but they could? I left that church. I was mortified. I got a call from my youth Pastor saying he wanted to meet with me to see how I was doing. I thought finally he cares. He never has before. We went to Quiznos inside the church. They let you refill your cup for a quarter. He had a huge cup of soda. He filled it up and sat down with me and started grilling me for answers to his curiosity. He downed his huge cup of pop in 5 minutes. He said excuse me I need to get a refill. He got his refill sat back down and began grilling me again. "So how did it happen? and why did it happen and who did it? and How exactly was she murdered?" The grilling went on for another 5 minutes until he finished that cup and ran to get another refill. This went on and on. 5 minutes of grilling and downing his pop then back to get another refill. He was even more calous than that last Pastor I told you about. I was devistated. I cried out to God. "What is wrong with your servants God?" Did they really hate me that much they had to kick me when I was down? I still don't know the answer to that. As a different Pastor told me recently "there's no mean like a Christian mean." That is sooo true. I went to the bible study assosiated with the youth group soon after that encounter. People were just as cold and coulous. I still don't get it. God gave me a prophetic word to speak to them that night. There were 5 visitors that night. They were the only ones who came up to me after God spoke through me. They were all crying and said "thank you, that word was for me." Then gave me a hug. I decided I didn't fit in at either church so I left both. No one noticed.
I always thought that Grief was something that you were suppose to go through after the loss of a loved one. I learned that people are very uncomfortable with someone elses pain and they will stop you if they can. I still feel I have never properly if at all ever grieved for my sister. I have had a lot of physical problems as a result of not grieving. I lost a lot of hair. The list is too numerous to recount every one of them.
The only upside to going it alone is that I had no one to turn to but God. If I didn't have God I can guarentee you I would not be here today. That was singlehandedly the hardest thing I have to this day ever gone through. I don't wish it on anyone. Not even my worst enemy. No one should ever go this road alone. This was one journey that I could have used a friend. Still could.