While on the ten day trip, I posted just three blogs although I had great but unrealistic plans to keep to my schedule. My sincere apologies go out to those who expected more.
My "1,236 Days" blog has not yet created the response I expected. I imagined that placing the murder of Stacey Burns in concrete, time-related terms might make some people think about how long a sick, psychotic murderer has been walking around free and how long a caring, loving mother has been missing from her children. I still have hopes that the blog might accomplish this but I must admit that I'm worried that the rear view mirror syndrome is at work here.
Twenty years ago last May, we lost our son to a sudden, totally unexpected heart problem, just weeks after he had passed a pilot's physical. The relatively short book I wrote about that tragic event in our lives took over six years to write, simply because looking back was so painful. I have used the "rear view mirror" analogy often to describe the process of healing the grief associated with such a profound loss. Now, working on the Stacey Burns book, I believe I am seeing a similar pattern, a pattern that is repeated over and over again in the lives of human beings.
It is the nature of things that people want to move forward, to move beyond the hurdles, the obstacles that impede our progress. We would much prefer to see those obstacles receding in our personal rear view mirror than to have them always with us. The death of Stacey Burns presented challenges to many people, challenges that likely seemed insurmountable at the time. However, time and space thankfully place those challenges in the rear view mirror of life where they become easier to deal with each passing day. Three and a half years of life have passed by and like the eighteen wheeler we pass on the Interstate, the event takes up an ever smaller portion of the rear view mirror as we careen into the future.
Is that what we really want? Is it realistic to expect anything else as long as nothing is happening with the investigation?
duker
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Interesting observation, Duke. And I think true about how we look at things and deal with the past. You and I have put our losses in perspective over time (not that they still aren't painful). As for Stacey's family and friends, no resolution or closure. They are still in limbo.
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